A cross-function Team is the involvement of all departments that are in an organization to contribute knowledge, skills and innovation towards adding value to achieving the organization's strategic goal. Example, procurement, maintenance, marketing, finance, human resources working together in procurement activity to come up with the best strategy or selecting the supplier that best suit the organization.
When working in a cross-functional team, members of the organization give support by believing in the end goal, assist during difficult time, help troubleshoot any issue, providing the required resources and sharing information

When a contract has been awarded, either is to meet tangible needs or intangible needs, contractors or suppliers should be managed to ensure that they are meeting up with fulfilling their contractual agreement. To establish this, there are methods of managing contracts and suppliers.
Service level agreement (SLA) clauses: is placed in contract to ensures that supplier meets the expected and agreed level of service Key performance indicator (KPI): are used to manage contracts that fulfill tangible needs, the KPIs are set performance thresholds that are used to monitor supplier's performance.
Management by objectives (MBO): is the process of defining objective that are strategic to the organization relating them to the vision and mission and communicating them to the supplier through the contract and ensuring that this objective is met during contract performance.
Reviews: Regular supplier reviews are good practices, for it gives the buyer opportunity to give feedback on performance.
Continuous Improvement: Contracts and suppliers can be monitored through how they are chang-ing for better incrementally as they are fulfilling the schedule. There must be a set down system to timely improve on the process, people and continuously reduce waste.
Training: It is essential that training, are provided to come up on areas supplier is lacking.

Continuous improvement relates to removing waste from the supply chain and improving processes to increase efficiency within whole life asset management in a full power project (a flour producing firm) can benefit from continuous improvement in the following ways;
1) Reduce cost of spears by recondition parts, instead of disposing them out rightly.
2) Can reduce down time by conducting routine maintenance after hours.
3) Can reducing accident by up skilling operators on safety
4) Can reduce waste oil by following owner's manual instead of relying on experience.
5) Create efficiencies by operating a 24/7 shift pattern.

The reputation of all the organizations within a supply chain is linked. A Company's reputation is an intangible asset that can contribute to the failure of an organization if damaged. Factors that could damage organizational reputation within the supply chain are;
1. Quality: if the product or service quality is poor the organization may not satisfy it customers and this can lead to a loss of reputation in the market. For example, a residential building construction company contracting a supplier that would do a bad job which in three months may require home owners to reinstall new doors.
2. Sustainability: if the organization is not replenishing that which it is extracting, it will some day run out of business or probably loss loyal customers. For example a drilling company that spills hydrocarbon as it drills.
3. Fit for purpose: if an organization produce a product or carry out services that are not fit for purpose, it may run at loss for there will be so much rejection and rework. This can lead to customers switching to another organization which product or services are fit for their purpose.
4. Contract management: an organization will have to manage its suppliers and the contracts to ensure they are delivering what they were contracted to do. A poor contract management is a waste in the process of delivery that can lead to reputational loss.

Trade war is an economic conflict where countries make it difficult for global trading to happen. Trade wars can make importing products to a country very expensive. A recent example is the US-China trade war; prices were raised on us-built vehicles exported to China. This affected consumer the most as there was an upshot of price.