Outsourcing
If you paid $300 million to a company run by a 22 year old CEO and his certified massage therapist VP, would you double check to make sure you got what you paid for? Heck if I ordered a pizza from a couple of characters like that I would look inside the box before ever [...]
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This morning, I’d like to welcome back a regular guest columnist to Spend Matters, who is sharing part two of a two-part piece. Brian Sommer is author of the blog Services Safari.
Newsweek’s piece “Bottom of the Barrel” is tough to read and disqui…
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In late January, I posited that the US was beginning to look like it was becoming a low-cost exporter of choice. Of course the only thing we have to thank for this situation is a weak dollar which is otherwise wrecking havoc with the savings models t…
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With the outcome of what some are calling “the most important U.S. Presidential race ever” still uncertain, many business executives are fretting over the economic, tax, and trade policies of the eventual President No. 44.
Yet, savvy procurement and supply management professionals aren’t waiting for the election outcome. They know that, regardless of who wins the [...]
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SourcingMag.com recently printed an article from Alsbridge on Designing Your Organization for BPO and Shared Services. With one exception, it was quite good.According to Alsbridge, there are three main components to the shared services model: the service management organization, or BPO, which performs the shared [...]
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Just weeks after the Big Three shocked the industry by announcing plans to move some assembly back inhouse, a labor strike at a major auto supplier is making the automakers appear clairvoyant. Adding to pricing pressures, volume cuts, and rising material costs, the United Autoworkers (UAW) strike at American Axle is shuttering production across the [...]
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The love affair between LCCS (Low-Cost-Country-Sourcing) and China has taken a few hits in recent years: bad press on humanitarian issues, unfavorable VAT rebate reductions, a weakened US$, and increasing government interference. It’s made more than one company turn a speculative eye towards central and eastern Europe (CEE).
And why not? There are a number of [...]
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Mehdi Hassan, blogging for South Asia Biz, recently highlighted a Forrester report on the growing dissatisfaction with IT outsourcing in India. As Hassan points out, firms are struggling with the falling dollar, unrealistic expectations, scalability, possible tax code changes and believe it or not, scarcity of top IT talent.
I couldn’t agree more with the assertion [...]
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A recent article in World Trade Magazine, an Executive Overview on Near-Sourcing, has the doctor wondering if this is finally the year where people realize that going crazy on low-cost country sourcing is not always the smart way to go.If the low-cost country is half-way around the world, as opposed to just a country or [...]
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What Will 2008 Bring in the Metals Markets?
Earlier today, Lisa Reisman and Stuart Burns penned a thoughtful and lengthy post over on Metal Miner offering up their predictions for the metals markets in 2008. Among the metals categories they take the…
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