Welcome to Keelvar's play on the well known song for this festive time of year (12 Days of Christmas), Twelve Days of Sourcemas: A Diary of a Stressed Sourcing Manager🎄
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An Ink Cartridge and a TV… receipt that they had confiscated from yet another sales director who hadn’t followed our buying process for Christmas prizes.
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Two Turtle Doves…that were a gift from a farmer who won funding for a dove sanctuary in last year’s festively-timed reverse auction. No idea what she expects me to do with them..
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Three French Hens…brought back on a commercial flight after our latest cargo of fowl got stuck in Calais. I already had a hard time explaining the doves…
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Four Calling Burts…Burt Weissmann, Burt Savage, Ro(bert)o Mangiolli, and Burt Pollock, to be exact. Each with an urgent shipping request. Looks like I won’t be driving home for Christmas.
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Five cold rings……on the phone after Burt Pollock went rogue and negated last month’s savings.
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Six geese-a-laying…from that same farmer who gave us the pooping Doves. There’s now more avian life in our house than there was on Noah’s Ark. Or that ship stuck in France.
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Sevens Swans-a-Swimming?! I still haven’t sourced a tub since we started refurbing the bathroom over a year ago. I’ve no time for a pond.
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Eight ways of typing…a formula into a spreadsheet that make it say ‘error.’
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Nine ‘maybe, Martin’s…when I said that all I want for Christmas is a better way of managing spot buys. One more ‘maybe’ than last year.
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Ten-lords a-leaping…angrily when I told them that we didn’t have the data to find the savings they’re demanding.
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Eleven piper’s piping…hot steam from my ears when the boss told me our workload was increasing again next year, but yet again our headcount wasn’t.
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Twelve drummers drumming…on empty shipping containers in China that I could have got more cheaply if I hadn’t already grossly overpaid and committed to a two year deal elsewhere.
For happy, less stressed sourcing managers next Sourcemas: give them Keelvar. Not only will you bring more spend under management and reduce burnout, you’ll also drive the very best sourcing outcomes, too.