A storm doesn’t always arrive with wind and rain. Sometimes it’s a leadership change, a cyber incident, the loss of a key employee, or the realization that critical knowledge lives with just one person. The strongest organizations don’t wait for disruption to discover where they’re vulnerable. They build resilience long before the storm arrives.

Managing supplier information in a spreadsheet may seem practical at first—it's familiar, inexpensive, and easy to customize. But as your organization grows, so do the documents, stakeholders, compliance requirements, and opportunities for outdated information. Fragmented files, manual errors, missed deadlines, and time-consuming reporting quickly add up.

Modern supplier management software, including AI-powered platforms like Nectar iQ, provides a more scalable way to centralize supplier data, automate vendor compliance, streamline onboarding, and support better procurement decisions. In this post, we compare the two approaches and help you decide when your team is ready to trade the spreadsheet for a purpose-built platform.

As building diverse workforces and diverse workplaces becomes more important, I want to profile business leaders who have been thoughtful and intentional in creating workplaces that embrace different people, needs, and skill sets.

This interview features Tracey Grace, the president and CEO of IBEX, a company focused on providing IT business expertise. As a tech entrepreneur and speaker, Grace has seen a wide range of situations demanding high-quality tech solutions. Focused on providing process improvement consulting, as well as education, IBEX offers solutions to everyone from enterprise corporations to government entities.

Tracey Grace / IBEX IT Business Experts

President & CEO

Tracey Grace is President and CEO of IBEX IT Business Experts, a National IT Best Practice, Recruiting and Training Firm. Tracey founded IBEX after seizing the opportunity to work on an Electronic Healthcare Record integration project.

After earning her Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics & Spanish at the University of Pittsburgh, Tracey was awarded a Graduate Fellowship to attend the Katz Graduate School of Business where she earned her MBA in less than a year. Tracey went on to hold various management and executive positions at companies such as the FedEx Corporation, Learning Tree International and Quint Wellington Redwood, a Dutch IT Consulting firm where she received numerous awards.

Tracey and IBEX IT Business Experts are the recipients of 2015 On the Rise Government Contractor of the Year award from American Express OPEN.

According to the 2016 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report, commissioned by American Express OPEN, women are starting an average of 1,072 new businesses each day and since the recession, the number of women-owned firms has grown at a rate five times the national average (up 45%, vs. a 9% increase among all businesses).