Nico Orduz shows why strategic sourcing is not just “get it cheaper.” It is getting involved early, protecting the business, and making trade offs you can stand behind before the design locks you into the wrong costs and the wrong suppliers.
Nico is the Global Director of Strategic Sourcing at Time Manufacturing. He built the function from scratch, grew a full team, and learned that the job is as much about people as it is about pricing, you have to sell the value internally, not just negotiate externally.
In this episode, Nico breaks down how procurement should partner with engineering from day zero, how to balance price with quality and risk in safety critical products, and how to avoid vendor lock-in by protecting IP and being clear about who owns the drawings. They also talk about supplier led value engineering, should cost modeling, and what tariffs look like once they stop being noise and start showing up on invoices.
Key Topics:
-Why procurement should be in new product development from day zero, or costs get locked in before anyone notices
-How to make price vs performance trade offs, start with what the business truly cares about, not a spreadsheet fight
-Why “cheapest” fails in safety critical products, quality and risk control come first
-Why vendor lock in quietly destroys leverage, protect IP and be clear who owns the drawings
-Why great sourcing is part selling, you negotiate the deal, then you sell the value internally
Timestamps:
01:53 Nico’s path into strategic sourcing started by accident, then turned into building a function from scratch
03:03 MBA lesson, go broad on learning, even if you stay deep in the same career lane
06:35 Marketing thinking shows up in procurement as stakeholder influence, not just numbers on a slide
07:40 The “untaught skill” inside big companies, sales is everywhere, even in procurement roles
09:53 The flip moment in sourcing, after the deal is picked, you become the supplier’s best friend and sell it internally
11:44 Conflict rarely ends with math, it ends with a clear value prop people can feel and accept
13:35 The hidden trade off, saving small dollars can waste big company time, so frame value beyond price
15:12 Price vs non price is not a formula, it starts with what the business truly cares about
16:04 In safety critical products, “cheapest possible” is not a strategy, quality and risk control come first
18:01 The sourcing advantage, stay close to engineering, because design choices create cost and supply risk
19:44 New product development gets faster when procurement guides early, before engineering releases drawings
21:36 Stage gate is a triage system, cut bad projects early, avoid sunk cost momentum
23:37 Supplier led value engineering, use suppliers as subject matter experts to surface better ideas
25:22 Vendor lock in is real, protect IP, define drawing ownership early, or you lose leverage later
27:14 When you cannot share drawings, share requirements, and let capability become the filter
30:09 In a duopoly, leverage gets thin, and insourcing becomes the hard but real alternative
31:11 Should cost modeling matters, it helps you ask better questions and build price logic into contracts
33:29 The clean line, strategic sourcing should not be writing purchase orders, that is operational procurement
35:01 Value is not only “hard savings,” cost avoidance is real impact even if it does not show in the P&L
36:06 Tariffs pain was the noise, now the real hit is showing up in invoices and margins
38:22 The smart move, keep modeling where tariffs hit the bill of materials, just not at daily panic speed
39:24 What keeps a procurement leader up, when capital equipment demand actually inflects, and whether the market pops or stays slow
41:03 Macro pressure point, lower interest rates can unlock investment, but timing is still the unknown
Connect with - Nico Orduz:
LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/nicorduz
Connect to Lightsource.ai:
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/lightsource-ai
Website: https://lightsource.ai/
