In last Friday’s first rant, I shared some thoughts and anecdotes about the role contracting can play in helping companies more quickly realize identified savings. In this rant, I?ll focus on some of the roles contracting can play in identifying addi…
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March 5th, 2010 | Posted in Contract Management, Friday Rant, Jason Busch
Today I’m going to briefly introduce you to yet another e-Sourcing company that you just might want to consider if you’re a mid-market company who has yet to adopt a sourcing solution and wants to get started with something that’s easy to use, easier to manage, and easier still on the budget. With pricing starting around 3K a month (depending on the size of your company and the number of licenses you need), you can get full access to a basic e-Negotiation suite with RFX, Auctions, Project Management, a Contract Repository, and Corrective Action Reporting with the EC Sourcing …
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March 4th, 2010 | Posted in Auctions, Contract Management, RFX
Editor’s Note: Today’s post is from Dick Locke, Sourcing Innovation’s resident expert on International Sourcing and Procurement. (His previous guest posts are still archived.) Back in August I posted a blog suggesting that contract language should be tested for readability. I pointed out that it’s especially important for international contracts, because the chances for confusion are higher than when both parties are in the same country. (The original post Blogging on International Contracting, is in the archives). I suggested using your word processor’s grammar checker with “show readability statistics” turned on. The Microsoft Word grammar checker gives two figures: …
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March 1st, 2010 | Posted in Contract Management, Dick Locke
When I say “casino”, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?
Probably for most of you, it’s money. Actually more like MONEY. Money being spent, won and lost at breakneck speed. And although you’ve possibly had trips to Vegas where you were up against The House (and ask a gambler, and they’ll always tell you [...]
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February 26th, 2010 | Posted in Best Practices, Contract Management, Costing, Sourcing, Spend Analysis, Supplier Management, Supply Management, recession, supply market dynamics, supply risk
Earlier in the week, I dodged snowstorms and headed to Philadelphia to meet with ICG Commerce. My visit included a two-hour tour of the facilities, and I also spoke with a number of specialists from sourcing, contracting, supplier management, data ac…
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February 26th, 2010 | Posted in Contract Management, Friday Rant, Jason Busch
Friday’s group discussion on Vested Outsourcing led by University of Tennessee faculty member Kate Vitasek went very well. For anyone unfamiliar with her work, Kate literally wrote the book on Vested Outsourcing, a model that utilizes incentives to create more strategic relationships between buying organizations and their outsourcing vendors. So when she stepped up and [...]
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February 22nd, 2010 | Posted in Best Practices, Contract Management, LinkedIn, Outsourcing, Services Procurement, Sourcing, Supply Management
Last month, I told you how BravoSolution Collaboratively Optimized Its Way onto the doctor’s Short List. Today, I’m going to discuss their (Spend) Analysis, Supplier Performance Management, and Contract Compliance Solutions to give you a broader view of their solution suite.To get straight to the point, their spend analysis (console) solution, which takes a standard reporting-based approach, and which includes over 60 standard report templates, is nothing special, but their analysis administration tool, the Transformation Designer, is one of the most powerful administration interfaces I’ve seen in a web-based analysis solution. Most providers tout their “leading auto-cleansing, auto-classification, …
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February 16th, 2010 | Posted in Contract Management, Spend Analysis, Supplier Management
‘Tis the season of the holiday spirit -? and vendor-ranking comparisons —
in the Spend Management world. As many readers know, I’ve been around
this space far too long not to put coal in analysts’
stockings when they deserve it. And most an…
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December 3rd, 2009 | Posted in Contract Management, Jason Busch
Earlier this fall, I had the chance to get a regular business and solutions update from Zycus. Then, a few weeks later, I caught up with the Zycus team along with one of their customers in Chicago. Zycus’ reference customer, from a well-known medica…
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November 24th, 2009 | Posted in Analytics, BPO, Category Management, Contract Management, Innovation, Jason Busch, Outsourcing, Sourcing, Spend Management, Visibility
A recent article in Integrated Solutions noted that the time has come to apply reduce, reuse, and recycle thinking to electronic business information because embracing a more strategic, “green” approach to information management will deliver a number of benefits, not the least of which is a dramatic reduction in the cost of storage. These days, there are a number of technology offerings that can reduce storage demands and improve real-time access to business-critical information. For example, on-demand conversion of print-stream to PDF eliminates the unnecessary storage of large-format documents and lessens internal network congestion during the …
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November 22nd, 2009 | Posted in Contract Management, Technology