building robust supply chains through sustainable purchasing
building robust supply chains through sustainable purchasing
Practical solutions combining field experience, people-centered approaches and business insight to strenghten supplier relationships and purchasing practices.
Responsible Purchasing | Supplier Relationships | Human Rights | Traceability | Strategic Sourcing Intelligence
Practical solutions combining field experience, people-centered approaches and business insight to strenghten supplier relationships and purchasing practices.
Responsible Purchasing | Supplier Relationships | Human Rights | Traceability | Strategic Sourcing Intelligence
SERVICES
Responsible purchasing transformation
Responsible purchasing isn't a constraint, it's a compass.
We help you design meaningful performance frameworks and support in building the kind of vendor relationships where challenges are shared, solutions are co-created, and progress is real.
Supplier relationships, performance & governance
Stronger supplier relationships are built on collaboration, not only transactions.
We help you build purchasing strategies that are both robust and values-driven, grounded in the realities of your supply chain — not just compliant on paper.
Human rights in practice
Meaningful change starts with people, not checklists.
We help companies turn human rights expectations into practical action through field-based assessments, meaningful worker engagement and supplier capacity building. By listening first and working alongside suppliers, we help create practical improvements that benefit both people and business.
Strategic sourcing Intelligence
Empowering your teams with knowledge from the field
We help you anticipate geopolitical, economic and supply chain developments accross Asia, translating complex realties into practical business intelligence that supports purchasing strategies and informed decision-making.
Traceability & raw materials
Visibility creates better decisions.
We help you improve supply chain visibility by mapping suppliers, understanding raw material origins and identifying risks before they become business issues. Greater transparency supports stronger purchasing decisions, meaningful due diligence and long-term supply chain performance.
business cases
Business & ESG strategy set up
Location: Hong Kong
Industry: Industry/retail
The challenge: For many SMEs, integrating sustainability into purchasing feels like a leap into the unknown. The challenge was to turn ambition into practical initiatives that could create tangible value for internal teams, suppliers and customers.
Our approach: We worked alongside leadership teams to define a vision, engage key stakeholders and build a roadmap aligned with the company's culture, business priorities and supplier maturity.
Outcomes
- Materiality assessment involving key internal & external stakeholders.
- 5-year implementation roadmap.
- Stronger internal ownership and gradual integration of sustainability into purchasing and supplier management practices
Why it matters: Building sustainable business practices requires more than ambitious commitments. It requires a shared vision, practical ownership and solutions aligned with the realities of the business.
Strategic sourcing intelligence & geopolitical monitoring
Location: China, India, South-East Asia
Industry: all
The challenge: Purchasing teams have access to global news, but often lack visibility into the local developments, business environment and societal changes that may infuence their understanding of their key sourcing countries.
Our approach: We quarterly monitor local business, regulatory, economic and societal developments across sourcing countries, combining field experience and local knowledge to identify the signals that matter for purchasing teams
Outcomes:
- Regular news briefings
- Practical business insights from sourcing countries.
- Increased awareness of emerging local developments.
- Better understanding of sourcing environments across Asia
Why it matters: Good sourcing decisions rely not only on global news, but also on understanding local realities.
Human rights assessment & capacity building
Location: Asia, Europe
Industry: All industries
The challenge: Companies are expected to strengthen human rights practices across their supply chains. Yet lasting improvements cannot be achieved through audits alone. They require dialogue, practical engagement and continuous improvement.
Our approach: We combine field-based assessments, supplier dialogue and capacity building to identify practical improvement opportunities. Our approach focuses on strengthening working conditions, respecting workers' dignity and helping suppliers progressively embed better management practices, while giving purchasing teams a deeper understanding of the strengths, challenges and maturity of their strategic suppliers.
Outcomes:
- Better understanding of working conditions and human rights risks.
- Practical & realistic supplier improvement co-built roadmap.
- Better understanding of strategic suppliers to support more informed purchasing decisions
- Reduced operational and reputational risks.
Why it matters: Respecting workers' dignity and improving working conditions contribute to stronger suppliers, lower risks and more sustainable business performance
Strategic supplier performance & governance
Location: Hong Kong
Industry: Retail & Manufacturing
The challenge: Building meaningful supplier performance frameworks requires more than operational KPIs. The challenge was to combine quantitative indicators with qualitative supplier evaluation to support governance, continuous improvement and strategic sourcing across a portfolio of more than 400 suppliers.
Our approach: We designed a supplier performance framework combining operational KPIs, sustainability criteria and qualitative assessments. Working closely with purchasing and quality teams, we developed practical governance tools to segment suppliers, prioritise improvement efforts and support more informed sourcing decisions.
Outcomes
- Performance framework covering 440 suppliers.
- Balanced evaluation combining quantitative and qualitative indicators.
- Practical supplier segmentation to support sourcing priorities
- Governance framework for continuous supplier performance reviews
Why it matters: The most valuable supplier performance frameworks do more than measure performance: they help companies make better sourcing decisions and build stronger supplier relationships.
Traceability/ raw materials projects
Location: China
Industry: Textile
The challenge: Tracing cashmere back to its origin goes far beyond identifying a spinner or a trader. The supply chain involves multiple intermediaries, farms, processors and exporters, making it difficult to understand where fibres come from and assess social, environmental and animal welfare practices.
Our approach: We combined field investigations, supplier engagement and value chain mapping to understand the cashmere supply chain beyond documentation. By visiting goat farms, engaging directly with herders and tracing raw materials through the different stages of production, we gained first-hand insight into production practices, animal welfare, environmental challenges and the realities faced by the communities behind the fibre.
Outcomes:
- Improved understanding of the cashmere value chain in China.
- Creation of a bespoke charter and framework covering identified key stakeholders.
- Strenghtened partnerships with rank 1 supplier to improve upstream traceability and engagement
Awareness training on health, safety & human rights in supply chains
Location: on-site or online. China, India, South-East Asia, Europe
Industry: all
The challenge: Purchasing decisions have a direct impact on working conditions throughout the supply chain, yet buyers are rarely trained to recognise health, safety and human rights risks beyond compliance requirements. The challenge was to strengthen awareness while developing practical observation skills that could be applied during supplier interactions and factory visits.
Our approach: We designed a blended learning programme combining online awareness sessions with field-based training. Using real factory situations and practical case studies, we helped purchasing teams better understand how purchasing practices influence working conditions, while strengthening their observation skills and ability to engage constructively with suppliers.
Outcomes:
- Awareness programme delivered to purchasing teams
- Online and field-based training sessions
- More accute observation skills for buyers when visiting their suppliers – health, safety and workforce topics
Partners
Thank you for trusting Mind Up
BIO - marjorie hobin
For more than twenty years, I have been exploring the intersection of purchasing, people and cultures across Asia. I believe robust supply chains are built when business performance, people and field realities come together.
Marjorie Hobin
Purchasing - Sustainability - Asia
My journey started with a passion for China and Mandarin, leading me to study and live in Shanghai, where I spent eighteen years working alongside suppliers, factories and purchasing teams across Asia.
During eight years at Saint-Gobain Asia Sourcing Office, I led international sourcing and procurement projects while developing expertise in strategic purchasing, supplier governance and manufacturing.
In 2013, I took a year to travel around the world. Beyond discovering new countries, it reinforced my conviction that understanding people, cultures and local realities is essential to building meaningful business relationships.
Returning to Shanghai, I founded Mind Up Consulting in 2015.
Over the years, countless conversations with suppliers, factory visits and time spent on production floors changed the way I see procurement.
This conviction naturally led me to also specialise in human rights assessments, not as a compliance exercise, but as a business approach to better understand suppliers & workers realities while giving them a voice, strengthen partnerships, reduce risks and build more robust supply chains.
Since 2015, I have been helping organisations build more robust supply chains through responsible purchasing, supplier engagement and practical, field-based solutions.
Today, based in Thailand, I continue to support organisations across Asia and Europe with the same curiosity, pragmatism and passion for the field that first brought me to this region more than twenty years ago.
