PHILOSOPHY
Back to Basics
Mind Up believes that long-lasting business benefits come from combining practical purchasing with cooperation and engagement, both in the field and in the minds of all teams involved.
Short-term subcontracting works for a brief period of time. Still, a vendor and its products go hand in hand: the quality of one directly reflects the quality of the other.
More and more businesses are waking up to this idea and realise the need to readdress the quality and productivity costs that are generated by over-sized or under-managed vendor bases which also threaten the reputation of the business.
Working on a vendor base to mitigate the risks is crucial but there is more...
Challenging our purchasing routines, improving vendor relationships by ensuring transparent communication and nurturing long-term partnerships will not only significantly reduce the risk of over-spending and over-allocation of resources.
It will also create value by improving company best purchasing practices and the positive impact the business has on vendors, communities and consumers.
Sustainability can seem abstract, especially when put in the context of business targets and ambitious savings.
Yet, it doesn’t involve changing the whole structure of the supply chain.
At Mind Up, we know how to create sustainable business practices, in a way that is pragmatic and tangible, and positively impacts your value chain.
Are you ready to make a difference?
MISSIONS
Restore purchasing and manufacturing as being purposeful & people-oriented roles within the business
MANAGE &
MITIGATE RISKS
UNDERSTAND & ASSESS YOUR VENDORS RISKS TO DESIGN BESPOKE BUSINESS & SOCIAL STRATEGIES.
ADD VALUE TO
YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN
SUPPORT YOUR STRATEGIC VENDORS ON-FIELD IN THEIR SOCIAL & ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGES.
FOSTER LONG-TERM PARTNERSHIPS
GATHER PURCHASING TEAMS & VENDORS AROUND COMMON TARGETS & VALUES FOR LONG-TERM IMPACT.
SERVICES
Risk management, Business & Social strategy (Due Diligence)
Your vendors and partners activities directly impact your company's efficiency & reputation.
We offer solutions to redefine your vendors stakes and strategic partners, map out their related risks and build up a customised and adding-value risk management strategy, including social due diligence solutions. During the process, we engage your purchasing team so that they own the designed solutions and tools and ultimately apply it at the sourcing phase/ new vendor selection.
Vendors & Partners management
From global sourcing to consolidation, a qualitative vendor base positively impacts your performance on the long term.
We offer solutions to help you define realistic performance indicators for your vendors and simple and pragmatic assessment methods. More importantly we help improve the communication, collaboration and transparency between your vendors and your purchasing teams in order to reach common targets.
Social diagnostics & Strategic guidance
All your vendors may not have reached the same level of understanding and integration of social fundamentals.
We offer solutions to operationally deploy your social strategy in a meaningful way: while keeping the reality of the field and cultural challenges at heart, we work closely with your vendors to guide them and ensure that they meet the minimum social and environmental requirements of your business and/or international standards (i.e SA8000). We make realistic and bespoke recommendations by promoting an improvement-oriented mindset. We can also build upon your business's internal code of conducts to empower your employees to continue to independently form solid vendor relationships.
Traceability projects
Better knowing your entire value chain is essential to secure your supplies in accordance with your values.
We offer solutions to go up your supply-chain from the factory to the farm and identify the key business, social & environmental practices of the various actors. It helps you to better manage your risk but also identify promising partners. With pragmatism and care, we collaborate closely with your purchasing teams and first rank suppliers to define common objectives, so that they gradually open the doors of their lower tier partners with full transparency. We can then accompany each actor to set up better practices in terms of sustainable agriculture, animal welfare, environmental protection and human rights; While developing each actor accountability towards the rest of the chain.
Processes & Organisation optimisation
Purchasing is all about team work!
Vendor cooperation and a strong purchasing base (including process and people capabilities) will greatly improve efficiency, and the motivation of your employees and vendors.
We offer solutions to challenge and optimise your purchasing processes, practices and people capabilities to improve the overall performance.
approach
Our approach is bespoke, result-oriented, practical and mindful of local customs and cultural values.
After understanding the challenges, we promote a step-by-step and prioritised approach that leads to practical solutions.
We know that small changes can have a big impact and so this is where we start.
Although challenges throughout different industries can be similar, each solution is unique.
It needs to be adapted to your company vision, size, maturity, values, culture and most importantly your people.
Our experience in Asia shows us that this culturally rich and complex continent requires businesses to think outside the box; we are mindful of cultural values when engaging and empowering your people and your vendors to own the challenges at hand and find pragmatic solutions to create long-term impact.
We work in China, India, South-East Asia, but also France, Maghreb and Eastern Europe.
business cases
Due diligence - Risk assessment and management
Location: France
Industry: Retail
Target
Key success factors
Outcomes
Social audits & Vendors Strategic Guidance
Location: China - India - Morocco
Industry: Apparel Manufacturing & Retail
Target:
Key success factors:
Outcomes:
Vendor performance assessment
Location: Hong Kong
Industry: Retail & Manufacturing
Target
Key success factors
Outcomes
Traceability projects
Location: China
Industry: Textile
Target:
Key success factors:
Outcomes:
BIO
Marjorie Hobin
Founder
Her passion for China and Asia dates back to 20 years ago, when she embarked upon her journey of studying Mandarin. After graduating in 2006 from EM Lyon in France and the Sun Yat Sen University in Taiwan, she moved to Shanghai.
Whilst working with the Saint-Gobain Asia Sourcing Office for almost 8 years, Marjorie developed an in-depth and extensive knowledge of both operational sourcing and strategic purchasing, managed global purchasing and sourcing projects and oversaw the B2B marketing and operational functions of the business.
In 2013, turning a long-life dream of exploration and writing into reality, she travelled the world for a year.
Returning to China in September of 2014, Marjorie founded Mind Up Consulting and became a SA8000-certified social auditor. Since then, combining her expertise in procurement, sustainability and manufacturing with a deep passion for people and cultures, she devotes herself in developing more resilient, transparent and fairer supply chains.
Contact
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© 2016