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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🎄
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.
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..
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…
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.
Five cold rings……on the phone after Burt Pollock went rogue and negated last month’s savings.
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.
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.
Eight ways of typing…a formula into a spreadsheet that make it say ‘error.’
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.
Ten-lords a-leaping…angrily when I told them that we didn’t have the data to find the savings they’re demanding.
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.
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.
