Archive for the 'Costing' Category

RFPs for Magicians and Exploding Pirate Ships?

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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Gates Proposes Serious Spend Management for Defense

As Tim Minahan pointed out last week, the history of US government procurement is riddled with biting rhetoric about cutting “fraud and waste” from government purchasing. But as we’ve seen time and again, one politician’s glaring example of “pork” is another elected official bringing home the bacon (and helping their chances at re-election). So valiant [...]

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Marine One Choppers: Goal Should Be Results, Not Specs

President Obama earned some political points recently when he identified the “procurement process gone amok” behind the Marine One helicopter project, whose projected costs have risen from $6.1 billion to $13 billion. Although the new fleet – scheduled for delivery in 2012 and 2019 – has major safety and communication upgrades, the President feels the [...]

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Small Businesses: Credit crunch leading to layoffs

Last Friday, the Huffington Post published the results of their small business survey and the news was grim. With around 600 responses, crunching the numbers revealed:
“Just about a third of the businesses that responded have had layoffs already, and almost half have reduced hours. Overall, they say layoffs are about equal to 15% of the [...]

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Total-Cost of Travel: WiFi at 30,000 Feet

I had the good fortune to attend the YouTube LIVE events over the weekend. This vaudville-esque circus featured talent ranging from the well known MC Hammer, Mythbusters and members of the 30 Rock cast to more organic superstars like Tay Zonday, Beardyman (a human-beat-box) and the marketing genius who created Will-It-Blend.
As part of the festivities, [...]

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FOX’s Category Manager: Horton Hears a Profit

Have you ever been in a meeting with an internal stakeholder who doesn’t want any help on their category because it’s too complex, or is the creative service that can’t be effectively sourced or managed by anybody but the supplier and that stakeholder himself? Then this story is for you…
In the Business Week article “The [...]

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Forget the Oil Crunch. Biofuels Feed Global Inflation Fears.

Oil may have crested at the $100 per barrel mark recently (and is still holding high on production constraints), but buyers should keep a close eye on the rising cost of alternative fuels.
Global markets quaked last week as soybeans sprouted to near-record prices of $11.50 per bushel, the cost of corn reached an 11-year high, [...]

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Supply Management: Engine for the New World Car

With Tata Motors unveiling of its much-anticipated one-lakh (about 100,000 rupees or $2,500 U.S.) Nano car last week, the race to deliver the most affordable car officially kicked into high gear. Analysts revved up positive predictions for the future of the auto industry as automakers around the world scrambled to revive efforts to deliver small, [...]

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Supply Excellence: Best Contributions of 2007

Over on SpendMatters, Jason Busch is doing a Casey Kasem-like countdown of his favorite posts of the year. (That is, if Mr. Kasem wrote and recorded his own songs.) The multi-part series is a not so subtle reminder of the great service Jason is doing for the supply management sector.
In the spirit of plagiarism being [...]

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Top Supply Tips: You’re Still Writing the Book

Earlier this year I released a compilation of The 100 Greatest Supply Management Tips of All Time! The recommendations in the e-book were pulled from real-world approaches used by supply management professionals. In fact, several of the tips came directly from Supply Excellence readers and posts.
I intentionally included tips that were not complex and that did [...]

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