Suppliers

Working with suppliers.

Orchords is a small, independent, remote-first company. We work with a small number of trusted suppliers across hosting, design, software, and operational services. We do not run open public bids. If you would like to be considered, the fastest way in is a clear, short note about what you do and why it would be a good fit. This page is for the suppliers who still want to write to us anyway.

What we offer suppliers

Clear scope of work before any commitment, with a single owner on our side.
Fair, benchmarked payment. Net-30 by default, faster for repeat work and small invoices.
Repeat business. We prefer to grow the relationship with people we already trust.
Transparent feedback. We tell you why we picked, and why we did not, in plain English.
A small team, a clear roadmap, and a product people will use.

Minimum requirements — for every supplier

We hold every supplier — hosting, software, design, professional services — to the same baseline. It keeps procurement fair and our supply chain honest about the kind of partners we want on it.

A. Foundational baseline:

✓Registered business. A real legal entity, with a registered name, tax ID, and an address we can verify.
✓Appropriate insurance. Professional indemnity and general liability at minimum; cyber liability for any work that touches our systems or our users.
✓Reference customers. Two or three customers we can talk to, with permission to contact them. We prefer references over a portfolio.
✓Public or shareable pricing. Indicative pricing on a website, or pricing you will share without a non-disclosure agreement just to hear the number.
✓Business-day response. Acknowledgement within one business day, substantive reply within three. We measure, and we reciprocate.

B. Working understanding of relevant ISO and reporting standards:

You do not need to be a lead auditor. You need to be able to read the standard, apply its terminology, and use it as the vocabulary for the work you deliver.

For every supplier

ISO 9001 — quality management. The vocabulary for any process or service work.
ISO/IEC 27001 — information security. The baseline for handling any of our data, our users, or our systems.
ISO 14001 — environmental management, so sustainability claims are defensible.

Technical and SaaS suppliers

SOC 2 Type II — the assurance framework we ask every tech supplier to maintain.
ISO/IEC 27017 — security controls for cloud services.
ISO/IEC 27018 — PII protection in public clouds.
ISO/IEC 25010 — the eight software product quality characteristics (functional suitability, performance, security, maintainability, …).
ISO/IEC 20000-1 — IT service management, the ITIL cousin.

Service and operational suppliers

ISO 31000 — risk management. How we think about anything that could go wrong in the supply chain.
ISO 22301 — business continuity. The plan for what happens when you are unavailable.
ISO 45001 — occupational health and safety for any on-site work.
ISO 9001 — quality as a managed, measured service.

Design and creative suppliers

ISO 9241 — ergonomics of human-system interaction. The full part-210 set covers human-centred design.
ISO 14915 — ergonomics for multimedia user interfaces.
ISO/IEC 25010 — usability as a first-class software quality attribute.
ISO 9001 — design as a controlled, versioned process.

C. Procurement literacy:

Every supplier touches procurement documentation. The minimum is to be able to do all three of these without supervision.

→Read a scope of work. Understand deliverables, acceptance criteria, dependencies, assumptions, and the change-control process before signing. Reference the right ISO 9001 §8.4 clause for controlled external provision.
→Write a quote. Produce a quote with line items, unit price, total, validity, payment terms, delivery date, and an exclusions list. Version it. Date it. Sign it.
→Edit a quote. Apply change control: re-version, log the change, re-send with the diff visible. Reference the new revision in any dependent contract or statement of work.

Free public templates and references: ISO 9001 documented information guide, ISO quality-management templates, ISO/IEC 27002 control catalogue, and the open ISO 9001 online browsing platform.

How we onboard

Every supplier starts with a live introduction call. The session includes short checks on the foundational baseline, the standards above, and a small procurement exercise (read a scope, draft a quote, edit a quote). We share the rubric beforehand, and the first call usually fits in 45–60 minutes. The first engagement is a small, scoped pilot. We sign an NDA only when there is a real reason — never as a precondition to a quote.

Open conversations

We respond to supplier enquiries in the order we receive them, after our customer and team obligations. Use the Suppliers & vendors chat category. Include a one-paragraph introduction, what you do, the relevant standards you work against, and two or three reference customers we can talk to. We read everything.