If the economy doesn’t get better soon, this may just be the doctor’s next job . After all, we already have pirates on Lake Erie. The Last Nova Scotian Pirate I used to be a farmer, and I made a living fine I had a little stretch of land along the county line But times were hard and though I tried, the money wasn’t there And the bankers came and took my land and told me “fair is fair” …
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Earlier in the week, BravoSolution and Sciquest announced a partnership to pursue the healthcare Spend Management market, offering an integrated sourcing and procurement offering aimed at providers. The solution clearly appears tailored to healthcare…
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Reading this recent article in The Raw Story on how the United Nations Conference Is Calling For A New Global Currency got me thinking if the current state of the US Economy, which hasn’t seen it’s current level of debt in almost 65 years, will finally see the introduction of the amero. The fact of the matter is that it might be just what the US needs to maintain its status as the global defacto currency standard. Consider the recent posterity potential index that measures the likelihood of economic transparency in the year 2020 for 30 developed countries which …
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It’s been a crazy week. Let me rephrase that — it’s been a crazy fall and an even crazier year. From attempting to crank up the volume on Spend Matters to the proverbial “11″ to diving into other interesting opportunities left and right with other m…
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I thought we might try something different this Friday and if it works perhaps turn it into a regular feature here. The news often tells the story of spend management efforts gone awry … or worse yet … a total lack of spend management! Thus is the case with the Air Force’s attempt to award a bid for new aerial refueling tankers.
The facts:
I have little doubt that all of you reading this would go about this process differently. And although Capital Hill politics play heavily into the debate, let’s pretend for a minute that we don’t have to worry about key players bringing home the bacon.
So, you have a complex project with two main competitors trying to earn the business. What do you think the Air Force did wrong? And what would you do differently?
Justin Fogarty is Managing Editor of Supply Excellence. For any questions or feedback on the blog or its contributors, Justin can be reached at jfogarty[at]ariba.com.
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One of the invited presentations at the MPower-hosted BPX exchange last week was Dr. Lloyd Rinehart’s talk on “Relationship Management Systems for Internal Procurement Strategies”. In his talk, which was very good, Lloyd noted that there are multiple dimensions of corporate relationships today and that each relationship can be classified into one of seven different categories based on the amount of trust, interaction frequency, and commitment in the relationship. The seven relationship categories that Dr. Rinehart has identified in his research are the following: Relationship Type Trust …
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I was recently pulling together some updated traffic stats that I plan to share on Spend Matters next week. The news is all good and will certainly raise some eye brows, but it also got me thinking — does traffic even matter when it comes to influen…
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Over on Spend Matters affiliate site MetalMiner, there’s a fascinating but little published story that my better half is covering that could very well be one of the jucier direct materials supply risk scandals of the year. The short of it is that it …
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This morning, I’d like to welcome Rob Patton, Sourcing Associate at
Paladin Associates,Inc. Rob brings more than 33 years of purchasing experience with Procter & Gamble’s global purchasing organization. His many assignments spanned P&G’s diverse pro…
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Monday the New York Times ran an article on the “new state of normal” in terms of corporate travel. Many companies have tightened their controls over travel spend during the recession and are unlikely to loosen the reigns in the recovery. And according Directravel’s Vince Vitti, who is quoted throughout the article, companies should accomplish their belt tightening goals by cracking down on misuse, abuse and padding of travel expenses by employees.
Among other suggestions, Vitti recommends companies put the hammer down on lunches that don’t involve clients, car rentals when public transport would suffice, and even frequent flier miles that the company could claim they have truly earned since they foot the bill. As for how to achieve compliance:
“All the C.F.O. has to do is hang one or two people” for expense account padding, he said. “Then everybody will straighten out, at least for a couple of years.”
No doubt companies must do what they can to drive compliance, although the case can certainly be made for focusing on the front end (approval flows, travel tools w/ built in logic, etc.) rather than with a fine tooth comb and some very public hangings.
At the end of the day, it’s up to a company to decide how to balance their travel policies so that employees are productive, yet cost effective. Anyone who’s ever been on a college road trip or backpacked across Europe knows that travel can be done on the cheap. But as you crammed into your public bus or youth hostel bunk, could you have finalized preparation on a big presentation that you needed to give in 6 short, jet-lagged “sleep” filled hours? And are there better ways to control travel spend?
In an interview with ExpenseMatters earlier this week, my colleague Dan Ashton, recommended companies treat T&E as part of their larger pool of indirect spend. Dan says integrating it into the same spend management processes and technology as other indirect spend categories provides improvements in spend visibility, user adoption (due to use of one toolset rather than multiple systems) and compliance. If the result of this approach is costs savings and happy, productive business travelers, I would say that that beats nickel & diming employees over taxi fares.
Justin Fogarty is Managing Editor of Supply Excellence. For any questions or feedback on the blog or its contributors, Justin can be reached at jfogarty[at]ariba.com.
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