Sourcing analytics: A playbook for global supplier exploration and selection

This paper provides a playbook for sourcing analytics, that is, exploring and selecting suppliers globally for critical components using analytics and publicly available data. The practitioners’ playbook presents a step-by-step procedure, from defining supplier selection criteria that match the company’s strategic goal, to supplier intelligence for identifying potential suppliers globally, bargaining power analysis for measuring leverage and supplier benchmarking for comparing and selecting the suppliers that best meet the criteria. We showcase the application of this playbook through the example of central processing unit (CPU) sourcing for Apple’s iPhone.