Procure IQ

A recent blog post over on Procurement Excellence asked why aren’t reverse auctions used more by procurement people? According to the article, it’s usually because: procurement people sometimes lack the confidence to run them procurement people are often scared of running auctions because they might expose how badly they are currently buying Fair enough. They do require confidence and if you’re really doing poorly, they’ll expose that. But these aren’t the only reasons, and, I’d bet, not …

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Despite the disadvantages, which include limited ability to respond to demand changes, high logistics costs in boom economies, and the potential for large currency-exchange losses it looks like economics are going to push many multi-nationals back to China.Consider the following advantages that the global recession has created, as pointed out in a recent article on Sourcing Successfully in the New China by Accenture’s Jonathan Wright: Dips in the global economy have left China with lots of excess manufacturing capacity, which exceeds 50% in some industries. Dramatic overcapacity exists in ocean freight, with …

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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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Thoughts from the Frontline remains one of the best economics/investment blogs around. John Mauldin’s posts are insightful, detailed and well-researched. This week’s post on the velocity of money is the best explanation of the concept I’ve come across.

Now, lets introduce the concept of the velocity of money. Basically, this is the average frequency with which [...]

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The Economist eats crow over it’s claim that the Nigerian elections should be an example to all of fair elections. In festive spirit, they link to the original Foreign Policy article listing the other prognostications that fill out the 10 worst predictions  of 2008.
Among the other predictions on the list: “Bear Stearns is fine”; “Barack [...]

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Yet another indication that products no longer exist and that we’re all service providers now.
In an exhaustive study in 2004, Krueger and a Princeton colleague, Marie Connolly, noted that concert-ticket prices “exploded” between 1996 and 2003, increasing 82% on average at a time when consumer-price inflation was 17%. Ticket sales as a whole declined, but [...]

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