Cost Analysis
In university, I wrote a paper on the role of attractiveness in selecting one’s spouse. I was interested in this issue because, whilst the evidence strongly supported the proposition that spouses tended to be similarly attractive, the prevailing causal theory didn’t sit well with me. The prevailing theory explained the evidence as follows:
everyone tries [...]
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… I’d set up my own Group Purchasing Organisation using my own customer base as the Group - Perhaps I’d call it a Lone Purchasing Organisation.
Given the resource constraints of many buyers and the requirement to show that they are purchasing wisely, if I were an indirect supplier, I’d do whatever I could to ensure [...]
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Last week, Michael Lamoureux asked Dave Stephens, Dave Bush, Jason Busch, Tim Minahan and I to post on the future of sourcing. I’ve found their responses fascinating and informative. I’m regularly astonished at the insights I get from this group of guys (Why no girls?). I’m going to focus on the future of sourcing as [...]
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I had a discussion last week with another sourcing specialist about whether it was better to reduce tender submissions to a weighted result out of 10 or to a dollar figure. My preference is to work with my clients to assign a dollar figure to intangibles such as risk of moving from the incumbent to [...]
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A typical spend reduction initiative starts by convincing your C-Level executives to mandate the consolidation of spend throughout your company. Through such consolidation, you ensure your suppliers can reduce their margins yet still make enough to service the payments on their salespeople’s Beemers.
If you cannot consolidate your spend, you must find other ways to convince [...]
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I’ve been given the all-clear at work and I’m back on the air!
I’m really loving the new role. It’s the first time I’ve been officially inside an organisation rather than advising from the outside. My major concern with taking the role was that I wouldn’t be able to adjust to the sustained focus on one [...]
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Your procurement department’s most valuable asset is not its people, technology or processes, but its credibility. You can increase resourcing, upgrade technology and implement new processes by throwing money at the problems, but regaining your lost credibility is far more difficult and potentially far more costly.
Imagine you run a small procurement department managing $200 million [...]
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I’m at home this morning looking after my 2 year old daughter who’s too ill to go to child care. My wife will be spelling me off this afternoon whilst I go see a client.
Inspired by Justin Sullivan’s article on benchmarking diapers (Thanks for pointer, Jason), I’ve decided to share the Blue Ocean Strategy [...]
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