A fixed-scope assessment for enterprise marketing, procurement, and operations teams. Tricycle maps the vendor ecosystem, evaluates available spend and performance evidence, identifies control gaps, and produces a prioritized improvement path.
Use it when the approved vendor list, contracts, project systems, invoices, and stakeholder knowledge do not add up to one reliable operating picture.
SEE THE SYSTEM BEHIND THE LIST
Contracts show who is approved. The assessment traces how work, spend, evidence, decisions, and accountability actually move across agencies, production partners, technology, and internal teams.
THE DECISION GAP
The assessment starts with the decisions your teams need to make, then determines which evidence exists, which knowledge is informal, and which gaps prevent a reliable answer.
HOW THE ASSESSMENT WORKS
Each phase turns available documentation and stakeholder knowledge into a more reliable operating picture. Scope is agreed before work begins and calibrated to the decision—not to an arbitrary data-volume target.
Build a current-state view of the agencies, production resources, technology, internal owners, and working relationships relevant to the scope.
Compare available project, spend, contract, workflow, and performance evidence with the decisions teams are expected to make.
Prioritize the changes that would improve visibility, accountability, decision quality, and operating control.
COMMON RISK PATTERNS
These are diagnostic lenses, not assumed findings. The assessment determines whether each condition exists, how material it is, and what evidence supports the conclusion.
A small number of vendors may carry a disproportionate share of critical work, creating capacity, continuity, or negotiating risk.
Delays, staffing changes, or specialist dependencies affect multiple campaigns or business units.
Freelancers, agency subcontractors, and one-off specialists may perform material work without appearing in the primary vendor inventory.
Project deliverables arriving with vendor names or credits that don't appear on any approved vendor list.
Repeated revision categories may reveal upstream problems in briefing, stakeholder alignment, review sequencing, or compliance preparation.
Same comment categories appearing repeatedly in project feedback across different vendors and campaign types.
Project, financial, contract, quality, and stakeholder evidence may live in separate systems with no shared decision view.
Different teams have different opinions about the same vendor with no shared data to resolve the disagreement.
Contracted rates, approved scope, purchase orders, and invoiced work may become difficult to compare as teams, deliverables, and exceptions change.
Agency invoices that reference rates or line items not in the original contract, processed without systematic review.
WHAT YOU RECEIVE
The agreed scope defines the vendor population, evidence, stakeholders, timing, deliverables, and fee before the assessment begins.
A documented current-state view of the agencies, production resources, technology, internal owners, and relationships included in scope.
A documented comparison of required decisions, available evidence, informal knowledge, and the gaps preventing consistent evaluation.
Sequenced process, governance, data, contract, operating-model, or technology actions with owners, dependencies, and decision conditions.
BEFORE YOU ENGAGE
The first conversation should clarify the blocked decision, vendor and evidence scope, stakeholders, and the level of analysis required.
Useful starting inputs include vendor and agency lists, contracts or scopes, spend and invoice extracts, project records, performance reports, workflow documentation, and stakeholder interviews. The exact request is set during scoping.
Yes. Missing or inconsistent records are themselves part of the current-state finding. The assessment distinguishes documented evidence from stakeholder knowledge and identifies the information needed for better ongoing decisions.
The working group commonly includes marketing operations, procurement, finance, agency-management, production, and technology stakeholders. The specific decision and available evidence determine who needs to be involved.
It can. When contracts, scopes, rate cards, purchase orders, or invoice records are relevant and available, they can be reviewed to identify comparison gaps, exceptions, and questions requiring deeper procurement or financial review.
No. The assessment may recommend process, governance, data, contract, operating-model, or technology changes. I/O Procurement Intelligence is considered only when its capabilities match the evidence and the client's priorities.
The final review aligns stakeholders on findings, assumptions, priorities, owners, and unresolved decisions. Your team can execute the roadmap independently or scope follow-on support where additional analysis or implementation is useful.
Before work begins, both teams agree to the business question, vendor and data scope, participants, required evidence, deliverables, timeline, and fee. A typical engagement is completed in three to five weeks, depending on access and complexity.
START WITH THE DECISION
Share the vendor decision, operating concern, or visibility gap holding your team back. We will determine whether a focused Marketing Supply Chain Assessment is the right next step.