Archive for September, 2008

Procurement — Commodity Risk Management Matters as Much as Sourcing

Purchasing recently ran a useful little number outlining the key points from a presentation that Deloitte Economist John Schimelpfenig made at a chemical’s industry event. Even if you’re not in the same industry, the points are telling. The article s…

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How Can CPOs Best Weather the Down Economy?

The title of this post is the focus of a panel discussion that I’m facilitating this week at Emptoris Empower. While I look forward to hearing what the panelists have to say about the topic, I’m already forming a few opinions of my own as to what lea…

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IACCM Dispatch — Why We Fail to Effectively Manage Supply Risk

In contrast to the many other procurement and supply chain organizations and conferences that I’ve been a part of, IACCM takes a rather philosophical approach to unearthing the underlying reasons for why specific contracting strategies come up short …

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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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Sam Kinney (FreeMarkets co-founder) Joins the Blogosphere

Over the weekend, I got an email that brought a smile to my face. My old friend and sourcing/auction theory mentor, Sam Kinney, dropped me a line. Many of you probably don?t know Sam. But you should. Sam was a co-founder of FreeMarkets and the real i…

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Treasury’s $700 Billion Sourcing Challenge — Is it Reverse Auction Time?

Quick, what’s the best potential marketing plug for reverse auctions and related strategic sourcing approaches in the relatively young history of the strategic sourcing process? If you guessed the government’s bailout of the failing mortgage and bank…

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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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