- I like the idea of rotating points of contact for vendors – this way we get a fresh perspective and keep vendors engaged
- We should continuously vet vendors. That way we know the landscape. We can maintain a list of approved vendors per category – this can create a lot of flexibility
- Scaling demands structure – we need to have a set of products that we can maintain at scale
- But a certain degree of flexibility is needed – a granular structure at the product building blocks level can help us control quality and create flexibility at the custom product level
- Maintaining quality, being flexible, and cutting cost at the same time is hard but not impossible:
- If our product building blocks, their inner workings, and training process are world-class – and their cost is established, we can:
- Create flexibility by easily building custom products with them
- Automate and delegate a larger portion of them to cut cost while we act in a way like “final assembly”
- Lastly, quality has to be part of product and process design
- If our product building blocks, their inner workings, and training process are world-class – and their cost is established, we can:
Milen Vasilev
I build operating models: the unglamorous machinery that makes ambitious things actually ship. Fifteen years across media, search, and content strategy, mostly spent turning messy organizations into legible ones. I think in systems, read theoretical physics recreationally, and believe most outcomes are predictable with the right inputs. Irritatingly, I'm usually right.