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Buying a critical input from one supplier is chosen for price, quality, or simplicity, and it is usually right on all three. What makes it a decision later is the day the first source stops: a fire, a flood, an insolvency, an allocation, a refusal to sell. The line runs on stock for some days and then goes dark until a replacement is qualified from a standing start. By the time a second source reaches an agenda, the meeting is arguing about the discount it would forfeit and the surcharge it would pay, which is the known half of the decision and the smaller half. A second source is insurance, and insurance is priced against what it insures against. This pack turns that into a subtraction and one division. What a second source costs a year is the forfeited discount, the surcharge, the running cost of keeping two sources, and the qualification spread across the years. What a day without the input costs is the margin on what cannot ship, the idle line, the expediting, and the customers who would not wait, and in most companies it has never been priced because the margin sits in an account by product rather than by input. The first divided by the second is the break-even outage, how many days a year the first source can stop before the second one pays for itself, and read against the supplier's own log rather than its reputation it becomes a number of years between stoppages that a buyer can check in an afternoon. The model sweeps how likely the first source is to stop, from never to one year in two, because it is the one figure no meeting will settle. It stops on six conditions: no spend on the input, no price for a day without it, no count of how long a replacement takes, no length for a stoppage, no ramp for a second source, and no figure for how often the first source stops.
What is the Single Source Strategy Pack
The Single Source Strategy Pack is a complete decision-support kit for one question: one supplier, or two, and what does the second one cost against the day the first one stops? It is built around one organizing claim: a second source is insurance, and it is priced against the discount it forfeits when it should be priced against what a day without the input costs, and how many of those days there will be. Sixteen files carry it: the foundations, a concept deck, a scored decision wizard, a second-source model blank and worked, the moves at each position, nine sourced sourcing decisions, a fit worksheet, a roadmap template, a practitioner manual, a field checklist, and an orientation page.
The test that runs through every file
whether the second source has been priced against what a day without the input costs and how many of those days there will be, rather than against the discount it forfeits. It is the argument in the deck, it becomes the wizard’s axes, it drives the model’s inputs, and it reappears as lines on the checklist. That is what makes 16 files a product rather than 16 documents.
The model resolves to one number you can negotiate with: The break-even outage — how many days a year the first source can stop before the second pays. It ships blank and worked, and every input is a named cell rather than a figure buried inside a formula, so the number arrives with its assumptions attached rather than on its own authority.
Why single source supplier risk is priced against the wrong number
Not because anyone is careless. Because the two figures the decision needs live where no one looks. What a day without the input costs is the margin on what could not ship, and it sits in a profit and loss account by product rather than by input, so the plant's figure for a stoppage is the idle line, which is the small half.
How long a replacement takes from a standing start is a count of days no one has made, because no one has had to qualify another supplier. The meeting says a month, and a month is a word standing where a count should be. So the meeting compares a known cost, the discount and the surcharge, to a number it does not have, and the known cost wins.
This pack turns that into arithmetic. What a second source costs a year, divided by what a day without the input costs, is the break-even outage: how many days a year the first source can stop before the second one pays for itself. The days a second source saves in one stoppage, over that figure, is how often the first source has to stop, and the supplier's own log says whether it does.
What is in the Single Source Strategy Pack
- Foundations. The framework: why a second source is priced against the wrong thing, the arithmetic, the four instruments of which only one is a second source, and the six halts.
- Concept deck. Twenty-two slides for a board or a sourcing review, with nine sourced sourcing decisions and what each does not establish.
- Decision wizard. Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions.
- Second-source model. Eleven candidate likelihoods that the first source stops across the columns, from never to one year in two, and the break-even outage that decides it.
- Strategies and tactics. The moves at each of the four positions, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next single source cheaper to judge.
- Case studies. Nine sourced sourcing decisions: two reversed, six held, one funded the only source rather than a second, and one had no second source to buy.
- Fit worksheet. The single page of record: the spend, the split, the dark day, the days of stock, the qualification time, the ramp, and the log.
- Roadmap template. Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a reporting change and a periodic review line.
- Practitioner manual. The spend and the sources, the split in writing, pricing the dark day, counting the qualification time, the log, the board paper, six failure modes.
- Field checklist. The one-pager that survives outside the binder.
- About the package. What each file does and the order in which to run them.
Who the Single Source Strategy Pack is for
A chief executive with a critical input bought from one supplier for a decade and a second source proposed against a discount; a chief financial officer being asked to approve a qualification budget against a day no one has priced; a chief procurement officer who knows the supplier's reputation and has never opened its log; a head of operations carrying days of stock at a figure from the system; an engineering director who has never been asked to count the qualification time; a board member reading a discount with no day beside it; and the adviser who would otherwise start from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
An honest note on fit
This is a kit for running a decision, not a research report and not a forecast. Worked examples use an explicitly fictional company with numbers tuned to teach rather than to flatter. In the worked case a control board bought from one supplier at $38m a year would cost $3.16m a year to second-source, of which the discount and the surcharge everyone argued about are $1.82m. A day without the board costs $620,000 once the margin on what could not ship is counted rather than the plant's $140,000, so the first source only has to stop for 5.1 days a year, one stoppage every 14.7 years, for the second source to pay. It has stopped once in eleven. That is the finding, and it rests on the two numbers no one had.
Four limits are stated on the page rather than worked around. The model does not forecast how often the first source stops; that figure is your own judgment, and the Model tab sweeps it precisely because no one can settle it in advance. It prices one input and one stoppage at a time. It treats a stoppage as lasting a stated number of days and a second source as ramping in a stated number of days, both of which are your figures. And it says nothing about the three instruments that are not a second source: stock, a faster ramp, and a design that more than one fab can make. Case evidence is drawn from company reporting, regulatory filings, and contemporaneous reporting with per-claim citations; the framework content is the larger share, and each page marks which is which.
Questions about the Single Source Strategy Pack
- What numbers does the model produce?
- Two headlines and eleven supporting rows. What a second source costs a year, and the break-even outage: how many days a year the first source can stop before the second one pays. Around them: the price of splitting the volume, the second source as a share of the spend, the days one stoppage leaves the line dark with one source and with two, the days a second source saves, what one stoppage would cost and in years of profit, how often the first source has to stop for the second to pay, what the second source saves a year at your figure, the difference, and a Yes or No. The Model tab sweeps how likely the first source is to stop, from never to one year in two, and one row turns from No to Yes where the insurance starts to pay.
- We buy a critical part from one supplier. Is that a mistake?
- Not on that fact alone, and that is the whole point of the pack. A single source chosen for price and quality is not wrong because it could stop. In the worked case the second source costs $3.16m a year and pays by $1.03m at the supplier's own log, one stoppage in eleven years; at the reputation the meeting started from, once in fifty, it does not pay, and at half the dark-day figure it does not pay either. The answer rests on two numbers no one had, and the page says so.
- We don't know what a day without the input costs.
- Most companies do not, because the margin on what could not ship sits in an account by product and the plant's figure is the idle line. It is a week with sales and the plant in the same meeting, and the manual sets out the five places it hides. Until it exists the second source is compared to nothing.
- Does this only apply to electronics and semiconductors?
- No. It applies wherever one supplier makes an input a line cannot run without and a replacement takes longer than stock lasts: castings, specialty chemicals, packaging, software components, contract manufacturing, and a fuselage. Two of the nine cases are aircraft structures and battery cells rather than chips, and one is a customer that could not switch its supplier of lithography machines.
- Are the case studies real companies?
- Yes. Nine sourced sourcing decisions: Ericsson, Nokia, Apple and Intel's modem unit, Nvidia, Tesla and Panasonic, Boeing and Spirit, Dialog Semiconductor, ASML with Cymer and Zeiss, and ASML's customers. Each is dated, read through what was decided and what stopped or could have, and each states what its evidence does not establish. ASML's customers hold the other end: three of the largest buyers on earth funded the only source rather than a second, and a decade later there is still only one. The worked model, wizard, and worksheet use an explicitly fictional company, labeled as such on every file.
- Is this a subscription?
- No. One payment, one download, sixteen files, yours to keep and to use inside your organization under the license included in the pack.
- What is the Single Source Strategy Pack?
- The Single Source Strategy Pack is a decision-support kit for one question: Whether to keep one supplier, and what a second source costs against the day it stops? It contains 16 files — foundations, concept deck, decision wizard, second-source model, strategies and tactics, case studies, fit worksheet, roadmap template, practitioner manual, field checklist, about the package — built around a single organizing test: whether the second source has been priced against what a day without the input costs and how many of those days there will be, rather than against the discount it forfeits. It is what a leadership team uses to run the decision and leave a record of what they assumed, rather than a report about the topic.
- Who is the Single Source Strategy Pack for?
- Anyone who has to make this call and answer for it: an operator or owner facing the decision, the executive team running it, the board or investor testing the reasoning, or an adviser who would otherwise build the framework from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
- What is in the Single Source Strategy Pack?
- 16 files in Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel: Foundations (Word + PDF) — The framework: why a second source is priced against the wrong thing, the arithmetic, the four instruments of which only one is a second source, and the six halts. Concept deck (PowerPoint + PDF) — Twenty-two slides for a board or a sourcing review, with nine sourced sourcing decisions and what each does not establish. Decision wizard (Excel) — Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions. Second-source model (Excel, blank and worked) — Eleven candidate likelihoods that the first source stops across the columns, from never to one year in two, and the break-even outage that decides it. Strategies and tactics (Word) — The moves at each of the four positions, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next single source cheaper to judge. Case studies (Word) — Nine sourced sourcing decisions: two reversed, six held, one funded the only source rather than a second, and one had no second source to buy. Fit worksheet (Word, blank and worked) — The single page of record: the spend, the split, the dark day, the days of stock, the qualification time, the ramp, and the log. Roadmap template (Word) — Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a reporting change and a periodic review line. Practitioner manual (Word + PDF) — The spend and the sources, the split in writing, pricing the dark day, counting the qualification time, the log, the board paper, six failure modes. Field checklist (PDF) — The one-pager that survives outside the binder. About the package (PDF) — What each file does and the order in which to run them.
- How is the Single Source Strategy Pack delivered?
- As a single download of all 16 files, immediately after payment, with the same link sent by email. It can be downloaded 3 times and the link is valid for 30 days. There is nothing to install and no account to keep.