Archive for September, 2008

Cut Travel Costs by 75% (and other Tales from the Road)

My own travels last week offer validation from the trenches that Amex’s predictions for travel curbs will come to fruition. Travel restrictions were a hot topic at the Sourcing Interests Group (SIG) Conference last week. No less than five procurement execs said their companies had implement restrictions for all but sales related travel. (Only two [...]

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Simplifying B2B for Suppliers Enables Buyers

As an enterprise software user, you’re tired of hearing about “Web 2.0″ because, despite all of the buzz it has generated for the last few years, and all of the “value” it has delivered to consumers through Amazon, Google Apps, and Facebook, it hasn’t done a single thing for you. And it’s good that [...]

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Bailout: Reverse Auctions & True Market Price (aka Strategic Sourcing to the Rescue)

Should the government bailout the financial institutions or should they let them fail? While this issue is debated, those with a strong strategic sourcing background may see a significant opportunity.
While there is risk with the Government taking over these assets, this risk is minimized if they are purchased at the current true market [...]

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Bringing Up the Rear: Mark Usher, Jason Busch, and Doug Hudgeon

The Seven Grand Challenges for Supply and Spend Management cross-blog series has come to an end. We had some great posts, including those from front-runners Bob Ferrari of Supply Chain Matters and the Strategic Sourceror of The Strategic Sourceror, but participation was low this time around, compared to back in January when I [...]

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A Sense of Urgency is a Good Thing

Strategy + Business recently published an article that transcribed part of an interview with John Kotter of the Harvard Business School on why urgency in the face of change matters. Since most executives would agree that change is no longer a luxury, but rather a necessity, leaders need to help their companies cope with the [...]

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Seven Deadly Challenges

The prolific Doctor has started another cross-blog series titled the Seven Grand Challenges for Supply and Spend Management. I’ve enjoyed the posts so far – in particular Justin Fogarty’s piece on Spend Management 3.0 (despite my misgivings that we have started a spend management version-war where everyone with a new idea can up-the-version at their [...]

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Influencing Value Movement Through the Supply Chain

Industry Week recently ran an interesting article by Daniel Flint, Professor of Marketing at The University of Tennessee about moving value through the supply chain. The article, which starts off by noting that it’s not just value that moves through the supply chain, but perception of value, notes that you have to deal with both [...]

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Travel Spend Tightens Further in ‘09

Purchasing.com reported this week that American Express expects businesses to cut travel & entertainment (T&E) expenses in an attempt to contain costs in 2009. With the current state of affairs in the economy, it’s no shock to see companies looking for ways to cut back. And with significant spending on the T&E category, it’s certainly [...]

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Empirical Proof That Saving Is Easy

Earlier this month, Supply Management . com ran a story on how a 21-year old student saved Dow Corning 370,000. Gareth Davies, who is currently studying purchasing and supply chain management at the University of Glamorgan, spent a year at Dow Corning in Barry, Wales as part of his training where he renegotiated a [...]

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Risky Business in India?

In case you missed the story (and that’s a forgivable offense since you’re likely watching the response of your supply chain, company and 401k to the financial situation this week), sixty-three formers employees of an Indian auto-parts manufacturer are under arrest for murder after beating their former CEO to death Tuesday. The workers were set [...]

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