While at ProcureCon Europe earlier this month, I had the opportunity to lead a track (or in their parlance a “stream”) focused on Organizational Structure and Processes for Effective Procurement. Presenters on this stream included senior supply management executives from Nokia, HH Print, American Express and Navteq. Today, I will share insights into Nokia’s six-year journey to […]
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Okay, so it’s not Rocky versus Drago. (Or even Britney versus K-Fed.) But Spend Matters blogmaster Jason Busch and I are teaming up and squaring off to highlight and debate spend and supply management strategies on an iPod (or Zune) near you.
SupplyNow, a new montly podcast series from Spend Matters and Supply Excellence, tackles today’s […]
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Yesterday we examined the strategies Coors Brewing Company is using to drive continuous improvements in direct materials performance and begin to capitalize on the huge opportunity of indirect supply management.
As a reminder, this interview came compliments of eyeforprocurement, the procurement events company, which is hosting the Supplier Management Forum in Miami April 17 - 18, 2007. Check […]
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eyeforprocurement, the procurement events company, contacted me earlier this week to discuss a barter: I could share interviews with three supply management executives in exchange for promoting the organization’s upcoming Supplier Management Forum, which will be held in Miami April 17 - 18, 2007.
A seemingly fair trade in my opinion. Check out the full […]
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A recent Business Week cover story touted the comeback of the leverage buyout firms, suggesting that another era of merger and acquisitions (M&A) and industry rollups and quick turn buyouts are in store. Media reports tend to focus on the accretive benefits of proposed mergers (e.g., bigger, better, market expansion, cross-selling opportunities). However, in his […]
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The top story in Europe last week (besides whether football players and coaches are too disrespectful to referees) was Airbus’ announcement that it would axe more than 80% of its supply base. The beleaguered aerospace manufacturer has been on a downward spiral due to cost overruns and a two-year delay in its flagship A380 super-jumbo […]
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Over the past few weeks I have been investigating the Top 5 Supply Strategies identified by the nearly 300 supply management and business executives attending Procuri Empower 2006. The conference survey also revealed that supply managent executives prefer to adopt sourcing, contract, and supplier management solutions in an On Demand or Software as a Service (SaaS) mode, […]
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A recent Fortune Magazine cover story revealed an all-company e-mail from Ford Motor Company President Bill Ford saying, “The business model that sustained us for decades is no longer sufficient to sustain profitability.”
The article went on to list off other top execs from a number of leading companies that have recently made similar assessments of their […]
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The first phase of supply management improvements focused on developing new processes and deploying Web-based tools to automate existing processes and to identify cost savings. The next phase of supply management – in which we currently live – is all about compliance.
That’s why imposing policy, process, and system changes to ensure compliance is the second […]
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It’s good to see Verticalnet enhancing its spend visibility capabilities. I especially like their positioning around using the solution to identify M&A synergies. Historically, Verticalnet has taken a largely services-driven approach to visibility while also offering supporting software. This model came out of Verticalnet’s acquisition of Tigris, a consultancy with a large spend visibility […]
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