Congratulations. And thank you for responding to my request to share your favorite approaches for driving supply and contract management improvements.

Supply Excellence reader input — coupled with personal meetings with supply management teams around the globe — serve as the foundation of a new electronic book:

The 100 Greatest Supply Management Tips of All Time!
Practical Approaches for Supply and Contract Management Success.

Although the title may be a bit sensational, the tips inside won’t disappoint. Gathered from real-world approaches used by supply management professionals like you, the book is part of an ongoing project to foster the exchange of best practices and to elevate the supply management discipline.

The tips found in this book are not complex. They don’t require a huge budget, top executive support, or years to deploy. Instead, they are practical, easy-to-understand approaches — most of which you can implement today. Here are just a few samples:

• Tip #13 Become multi-lingual: Gain support and respect from other groups by translating the benefits of your supply management initiative into their language. Example: When sourcing advertising, don’t highlight cost savings. Instead, tell marketing managers how you’ll help ensure brand integrity, speed turnaround times, and stretch their budget dollars.
• Tip #27 Ensure currency: Have suppliers bid in your currency to reduce exposure to currency fluctuations. Or share currency risk with suppliers by negotiating tiered pricing in the seller’s currency based on a mean price set at an agreed exchange rate. Make adjustments to agreed price as currency rates fluctuate.
• Tip #38 Use your own paper: Use (and reuse) your own standard form contracts whenever possible. This maintains consistency, reduces risks, and improves negotiation leverage with suppleirs. It also streamlines contracting cycles.
• Tip #48 Make every day Secretary’s Day: Woo executive assistants and administrators. They often select vendors, issue requisitions, and make purchase decisions on behalf of business executives. Getting them on board early drives complaince. Admins also offer a wealth of insight on buying preferences and vendor and system performance.

You can download the complete book for free here.

If you use a tip, let other know how well it worked by sharing your experience on the web site that goes with this book: www.TopSupplyTips.com. If you like the book, forward it along to your team. And, if one of your favorite tips is missing, share that too! In fact, the reader that provides the best new tip for improving supply management performance will win a free pass and lodging to Aberdeen Group’s CPO’s Summit conference in Boston this November. (Visit the ebook site for more details.)

Supply management transformation can be challenging. Taking the first step doesn’t have to be. Put some of these tips to use (and begin seeing results) today!

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