The warehousing contract had been rolled. The 3PL held the volume extract, the location files and the only usable view of peak. Exit looked expensive because the company could not describe its own work without asking the supplier. That is a lock-in with polite monthly meetings.
The difficulty
KPIs existed as posters. They could not be measured from a file the importer held. Peak was priced as a surprise every year. Systems access was promised and delayed. When procurement asked for a contest, nobody could write a demand pack that a second operator could price honestly. The incumbent looked inevitable. Inevitability is not a scorecard.
What we changed
We rebuilt the work description from receipts, SKU profiles and the exception log, not from the 3PL's QBR. The demand pack included data rights and transition. The scorecard weighted cost, geography, systems and exit. The incumbent was invited. Two others priced. The client signed the winner. We took no fee from any of them.
Difficulty
Supplier held the data. Unmeasurable KPIs. A roll, not a contest.
Measure
Demand pack from the importer's files. Scorecard with exit rights.
Result
A contest the market could price. A contract the client could audit.
The result
Whether the incumbent won is not the published point. The point is that the importer could now describe the work, measure the SLA, and leave if they had to. A 3PL that cannot live with that should not hold the stock.
How the lock-in had been built
The contract had been rolled because rolling was easier than describing the work. Peak was a conversation every spring. KPIs were occupancy and a service adjective. Location files lived in the 3PL system. When procurement asked for a contest, the first draft of the demand pack was a polite request for a rate. A second operator cannot price a polite request. They can price receipts, SKU profiles, inbound profile, peak weeks, returns, systems and the exception log. Those had to be rebuilt from the importer's own files, not from the QBR.
The scorecard was written before invitations. Cost, geography, systems, implementation risk and exit rights sat on one card. Data rights were not a nice-to-have. They were a scored line. Questions from bidders came through one channel. The incumbent was invited and was not given a private briefing. Site knowledge they had earned was an advantage. Withholding a usable extract would have been a scorecard event.
What the importer held at the end
A description of their own work. An SLA that could be measured from a file they held. A transition list that made exit possible even if they stayed. The client signed the winner. We took no fee from any bidder. The next roll, if it happens, will be a choice rather than a lock-in with monthly meetings.