For the last few months as the future of the US auto industry has been debated, the idea that Detroit would be in fine shape had they simply been producing greener cars seems to be taken by most of the media as gospel truth. But with US and foreign automakers’ sales lagging far behind ‘07 […]
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Last month, I attended the Silicon Valley ISM meeting where Economic Club of San Francisco President Ingo Bischoff made a spirited case for the US to return to the gold standard. At it’s core, I understood Ingo’s argument - a mix of history, politics, economics and philosophy - to be a matter of trust. With […]
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Last week, the NYTimes reported on the growing trend of companies trimming labor expenses - in the form of salaries, benefits, forced furloughs, 4 day work weeks, etc - rather than slashing headcount.
“Companies taking nips and tucks to their work force say this economy plunged so quickly in October that they do not want to […]
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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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Last week, Mike Petro outlined the opportunities presented by direct materials. On a similar note today, regular Supply Excellence contributor Rachel Rutkoski explains buyer’s market conditions for indirect spend and identifies several hot categories, including:
Labor - Rising unemployment means “buyers should evaluate any category where labor is a main cost component.” There is a glut […]
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Metals Category Manager Mike Petro makes the case for why “right now is the time to source direct materials”…
If you’d like a closer look at the facts and figures Mike cited - as well as information on other categories that provide immediate strategic opportunities - you can find them in the mid-quarter SupplyWatch update here. […]
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Earlier today, Chrysler and Ford both announced they’ll be temporarily shutting down some production facilities. Chrysler is idling all 30 of their plants for at least one month, while Ford is extending their usual holiday shutdown for an extra week.
As Congress debates how best - or if - to address the plea of the automakers […]
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In speaking regularly with companies interested in improving their spend and supplier visibility, it is not surprising that there has been a marked up tick recently, given the ever-deteriorating economy, in the interest in supplier credit rating information. While credit ratings are useful providing meaningful directional information about which suppliers may be susceptible to […]
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With oil bouncing around at under $45 per barrel, downstream commodity plastics have dropped precipitously. The chart below maps out the prices for HDPE, PS & PP (high-density polyethylene, polystyrene & polypropylene respectively) since January 2007. They’ve fallen off of a very steep cliff…
HDPE and PP are down more than 60% since their peak prices […]
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My post earlier this week questioning why more businesses are not capitalizing on today’s highly favorable sourcing markets generated some interesting comments. One supply chain exec suggests that many companies are like “deer in the headlights,” literally frozen by fear. He suggests getting unstuck will require spend management professionals to engage in more tactical strikes […]
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