796: How Should Procurement Respond to Tariffs? W/ Richeek Maitra

“You’re not going to be able to completely eliminate your tariff exposure. There are three frames under which to think about tariffs: How will you mitigate in the short term? How will you think about it in the medium term from your customer's perspective and pricing? And how will you think about a long-term realignment of supply chains?” - Richeek Maitra, Director, AlixPartners

With tariffs dominating the news cycle and sending global markets on a wild ride, procurement is scrambling to figure out the practical implications of tariffs on global supply chains and their own organization’s procurement strategy. 

In this timely Art of Procurement podcast episode, host Philip Ideson welcomes Richeek Maitra, a Director at AlixPartners and an expert on tariffs and their effects on the global supply chain and procurement operations. As Richeek advises, procurement shouldn’t (over) react to every single news story about tariffs, but everyone should be planning both short- and long-term strategies to safeguard their organizations from negative tariff-related fallout while still maintaining a competitive advantage. 

In short, procurement shouldn’t act as if the sky is falling, but they shouldn’t stick their heads in the sand and pretend it’s just business as usual either.

In this episode, Richeek explains:

• How procurement should interpret new tariff announcements and estimate potential impacts on specific spend categories and supplier relationships
• A practical response framework to tariffs that includes immediate tactical moves (like duty engineering) to long-term supply chain restructuring
• How to adopt a rational approach to China sourcing decisions that balances global trends with company-specific circumstances

Links:

• Richeek Maitra on LinkedIn
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement
• Subscribe to Art of Procurement on YouTube