Archive for the 'LinkedIn' Category

Open Discussion this Friday on Indirect Spend

When I asked the Strategic Sourcing & Procurement LinkedIn group members to suggest topics for upcoming calls, there were a lot of requests pertaining to indirect spend. So, this Friday, the group’s July member conference call will be an open discussion on indirect categories (marketing and consulting will definitely be covered – if you have [...]

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Collaborative Question: “Should You Share Your Selection Criteria & Weightings With Suppliers?”

Charles Dominick, of Next Level Purchasing, recently posted a question to the Strategic Sourcing & Procurement Group on LinkedIn that has been getting a LOT of attention:
“Should you share your selection criteria and weightings with suppliers?”
Needless to say, there are some very strong opinions for and against sharing this information. A few of the best answers [...]

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Open Discussion with Murillo Xavier (author of ‘Suppliers are from Mars, Customers are from Venus’)

Following hot on heels of a great April group member call on Commodities (replay available here), our Strategic Sourcing & Procurement discussion this month will be led by Murillo Xavier. Murillo is a Supply Chain Project Manager at Nestle Waters North America as well as the author of ‘Strategic Sourcing – Suppliers Are From Mars, [...]

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Buyer’s or Supplier’s Market? Non-price factors as indicators

Lead Category Manager Mike Petro explains how non-price factors indicate a shift from buyer’s to seller’s market conditions.

This segment is a clip from the LinkedIn Strategic Sourcing & Procurement group member conference call on commodities. You can stream the full replay here (embedded player top center). Request to join the group here.
Justin Fogarty is Managing [...]

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Supplier Risk: Shift from financial to operational

Category Manager Bob Zieger discusses the shift in supplier risk focus away from financial and towards operational.

This segment is a clip from the LinkedIn Strategic Sourcing & Procurement group member conference call on commodities. You can stream the full replay here (embedded player top center). Request to join the group here.
Justin Fogarty is Managing Editor [...]

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Details for Friday’s Commodities Discussion

I recently posted about the Strategic Sourcing & Procurement LinkedIn group member call on commodities that’ll be conducted this Friday, but wanted to provide a couple updates for those who’d like to listen or participate. Below are the details, format and experts we have lined up.
First, the 1-hour call is this Friday, April 30th at [...]

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Commodity Prices: Open discussion with your peers & experts

Spring has sprung. The markets, manufacturing and perhaps even … employment may be emerging from hibernation. And while we’re all happy to see the economy awakening from a brutal recession (please don’t hit the snooze button), it will mean some changes as we shift from buyer’s market conditions. Indeed, we’re already seeing commodity prices rising, [...]

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Spend Management Jobs: Connecting talent seekers with the talented

On a recent call to discuss top trends in 2010, Chris Sawchuk of the Hackett Group said that procurement departments in many companies are looking to beef up their talent this year. It seems that the value of strategic-minded, savvy procurement pros became more clear during this brutal recession, where extracting value for every penny [...]

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Vested Outsourcing: Incentivize results, not tasks

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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Details for Outsourcing Discussion Tomorrow (via phone)

Last month, the Strategic Sourcing & Procurement Group on LinkedIn hosted our 1st Group conference call. Things got off to a great start with Chris Sawchuk leading a discussion on “key issues” in 2010.
Now, for our February call…
Kate Vitasek, who literally wrote the book on “Vested Outsourcing”, will be leading the discussion. So, come armed [...]

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