Procure IQ

Well, it sure didn’t take CNN long to get the 2010 Fear Mongering Bandwagon rolling. Check out The Buzz from January 2 on what could go wrong in 2010. (That’s right, Saturday January 2nd. They couldn’t even wait two days for the first work week to start!)According to the article, we’re in for part two of the double-dip recession, the US currency is likely to be debased, the housing market could still hit bottom, the market is in for a lacklustre year, and the …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation

An article this summer in Canadian Business by Jeff Sanford on the Burden of Truth referenced Bob Farell’s top ten market rules which have a a lot of bearing on supply management. Bob Farrell was the Chief Stock Market Analyst at Merrill Lynch for 25 years and knows a thing or two about the market. Markets tend to return to the mean over time. So if you beat up your supplier when times are tough for them, don’t be surprised if they do the same when times get tough for you, which …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation

From the Fail Blog: …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation

Check out this great experiment chronicled on Boris Dinkevich’s blog on technology and what’s wrong with it. According to Boris, A friend used the Twitter APIs to create an account that automatically scanned twitter users and find users who were “most likely” to read his twits. The first pass returned a: 50+ Twit Count (user active) 100 Following Count (might read twits) 50 Follower Count (typical statistic for real users) Everyday it would delete accounts added the previous day that didn’t …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation

Back in October 2009, I wrote a Spend Matters post about bringing off-shored call center and transactional jobs back to the U.S. (“OURSHORE”). Having held various supply chain management roles for over 30 years, I understand the importance and compe…

Read the rest » SpendMatters

Check out this Shipment Travel History from FedEx (posted by an anonymous shipper). Apparently, to get a package from Ontario, Canada to Antilles, Netherlands you ship it to Indianapolis, Indiana, USA then to Paris, France, then to Memphis, Tennessee, USA then back to Paris, France, then to Newark, New Jersey, USA, then back to Memphis, Tennessee, USA … It looks FedEx needs a new routing algorithm. I’d certainly be happy to help … …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation

The President made health-care reform (now known as “health-insurance reform”) one of the signature items of his agenda. And in spite of what seemed like a resounding rejection of his health-care approach by the voters of Massachusetts in electing Re…

Read the rest » SpendMatters

I’m often asked my opinion on events and conferences. While I’ve
tackled this subject on Spend Matters a number of times, it
seems that I?m getting more and more questions lately from providers
about what events they should sponsor this year…

Read the rest » SpendMatters

Today’s post is from Eric Strovink of BIQ.A “measure” is a quantity that’s computed for you in an analysis dataset — for example, spend, count of transactions, and so on. There could be many measures in a dataset, such as multiple currencies, or entirely different quantities such as number of units.Measures are derived from the data supplied, and rolled up (typically summed) to hierarchical totals. Sometimes, however, you want and need control over how (and when) the measure is calculated. Such measures are termed “user-defined” measures.Let’s first dispense with the usual definition of user-defined measures — …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation

Toyota consistently ranks among the most respected global corporations and is well-known for their manufacturing prowess and strong supplier ties. That’s exactly why this week’s news about the accelerator problems for 4 million vehicles came as a shock to so many of us. The impact of this episode will be long-term, far-reaching, [...]

Read the rest » Supply Excellence