Qualitative Sourcing Assessments

(Part II: Organization Assessment)

© Frank Haluch 2011-2025

Knowing the Organization characteristics of the parties involved in a buy/sell relationship increases the opportunity for successful outcomes.

Characteristics of Organizations

• RIGID ORGANIZAIONS tend to behave as a closed systems i.e., they know everything about what they do and reject new or different concepts. 
• FLEXIBL ORGANIZATIONS tend to behave like an open system i.e., they know in order to succeed they need to interact with their environment.  This assessment always rewards more flexible behavior.  It has been proven that as flexibility increases productivity increases, TO A POINT.  After a certain point productivity decrease because the organization can’t process all the ideas. 
• BORDERLINE ORGANIZATIONS are difficult to work with because they may exhibit one type of behavior (rigid or flexible) and then with warning change for apparent reason.

The SourcingApps’s Organizational Assessment determines the characteristics of the target organization and classifies as:

• Rigid
• Borderline Rigid
• Borderline Flexible
• Flexible

If the parties wish to have a Cooperative Relationship (as desired in the Relationship Assessment) it is recommended that both parties assess each other.  In Adversarial/Antagonistic relationships the buyer would use the organizational assessment to be better prepared to conduct negotiations.  For example, Borderline Rigid and Borderline Flexible require more negotiation preparation because their behavior is less predictable.

The below Organization Assessment was calculated using SourcingApps.

Sourcing is for Convergent Thinkers!