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
