Procure IQ

Founded in 1999, Intesource is another player in the e-Sourcing / e-Negotiation space, but one with a bit of a twist. Whereas most SaaS providers are trying to sell you the all-powerful self-service fluffy magic box cloud solution, Intesource is still focussed on providing a full-service offering. Specifically, while you are given full access to the platform, their sourcing experts, who have conducted tens of thousands of events for hundreds of companies with a combined supply base that consists of over 10,000 companies, handle all of the event details for you which frees your organization to focus …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation

A recent article in Supply Chain Digest on Measuring Inventory Accuracy started off by nothing that the experts are saying that there’s no clear answer because there are so many ways to calculate inventory. WTF? Did I read that right?The article then went on to say that the editorial staff at Supply Chain Digest did some informal networking and found that the answers were all over the map. Really? Who did they ask? Cave Trolls? We’re not in the supply chain dark ages anymore or, at least, we shouldn’t be. So what did the …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation

According to a recent Kalypso white paper on Best Practices in Collaborative Innovation: How Manufacturers and Retailers Can Profit from Collaborative Innovation, there is an urgency for collaborative innovation as 95% of companies surveyed felt that collaborative innovation was very important to achieving their business objectives. One respondent even went so far as to say:If you’re not collaborating, you won’t be around in 20 years. You’ll be gone.With the global economic crisis driving a changing consumer focus on value, the need to streamline supply chains, and the need for consumer safety, companies are under increasing pressure to simultaneously deliver …

Read the rest » Sourcing Innovation

The next few weeks will be full of interpretation of holiday retail  numbers. Are they up, down or flat? How about online sales? And the big, BIG question … what do the numbers show us about the state of the economy, consumer confidence and the prospects for a 2010 recovery?

The early returns are positive (if only slightly by some surveys) for Black Friday. And online sales over the weekend were up, leading to hopes that Cyber Monday will provide another bump today. But with per person spending averaging down, consumers may be bargain hunting more than usual. Case in point are the Zhu Zhu Pets, this season’s must-have toy, that cost under $10 (just for the record, you could buy an actual hamster on Craigslist for $5).

Georgetown University Professor Prashant Malaviya warns that any uptick in consumers spending may actually be the result of “frugal fatigue”, meaning people are simply tired of cutting back and have been lured by out of their spending slumber by deals and clever marketing.

Obviously with the massive role that consumer spending plays in the economy, a rebound in their confidence is key to the economic recovery. However if the operative terms for the holiday season are “frugal fatigue” and bargain hunting, it’s another sign that consumer confidence and the economy are not out of the woods yet.

Justin Fogarty is Managing Editor of Supply Excellence. For any questions or feedback on the blog or its contributors, Justin can be reached at jfogarty[at]ariba.com.

=0)document.write(unescape(‘%3C’)+’\!-’+'-’)
//–>

Read the rest » Supply Excellence

One of the recurring themes of the New Normal is the increasing complexity of and reliance on extended supply chains with many participants beyond the Tier 1 supplier. Gibson Guitar was given a first-hand (and very unwelcome) lesson in this reality just yesterday when its manufacturing plant in Nashville was raided by the US Fish and Wildlife Service as part of an investigation into the transportation and use of endangered rainforest woods.

By all accounts, Gibson is an industry leader when it comes to establishing sustainable raw materials practices and expectations for its suppliers. Its CEO sits on the Rainforest Alliance and the company has won plaudits on its environmental practices from Greenpeace, not exactly a frequent cheerleader of Corporate America.

Since it’s safe to assume that Gibson’s sourcing practices and company ethics are rock solid, what could have happened? Without knowing the details of the case, it could be that Gibson set all the right expectations at the beginning when it put its Tier 1 supplier agreements in place but didn’t have sufficient visibility, resources or detection capabilities to see far enough up the value chain to where the real problems were.

We speak often about the 3-3-4 of Supply Risk (3 types of risk, 3-step process, and 4 component solution) and the middle “3″ is the one that matters here. Controlling supply chain risk is a three-step process (Find, Fix and Follow-through). Finding and fixing known risks (e.g. setting expectations with your supply base on acceptable material practices, not signing with uncertain vendors) can only take you so far. In order to make your risk management as sustainable as your materials policies, you need to have the right visibility, reach and alert systems in place to both be notified when something happens and streamline the process of regularly checking in on happenings up the value chain. Since this represents an immense of information on thousands of suppliers literally around the world, you MUST have sophisticated information systems in place to make it happen. Otherwise, you’d be swimming in “data” and have precious little “information” to show for it.

So, while US Chief Justice John Marshall may not have had the exact phrase “Suppliers may lie” in mind when establishing the legal doctrine of caveat emptor, that’s certainly what he was getting at in the Laidlaw vs. Organ decision back in 1817. And it is even more valid today. Unfortunately for Gibson, many consumers will likely not know about Gibson’s long commitment to sustainability and instead will only remember the headline “Gibson Guitar plant in Nashville raided by Feds”. The costs associated with lost sales, brand damage, etc are certainly more than those associated with any proactive alert system and process.

Kris Colby is a Director in Ariba’s Spend Management Services group. Kris specializes in strategic sourcing and risk reduction with retail and CPG companies.

=0)document.write(unescape(‘%3C’)+’\!-’+'-’)
//–>

Read the rest » Supply Excellence

With all the news about product recalls – from peanuts to lead tainted toys – and economic uncertainty, there’s been substantial conversation over the last year-plus about the importance of implementing a robust and comprehensive Supplier Performance Management (SPM) system. While this has been on company’s “wish lists” for some time, the confluence of [...]

Read the rest » Supply Excellence

In our modern era, where political decisions often resemble bumper sticker marketing slogans rather than sensible nuanced policy, simplistic over-reaction is always a danger. A perfect example…the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), which President Bush signed last August after lead was found in many childrens’ toys. The law requires every material in products [...]

Read the rest » Supply Excellence

A confluence of weather, inelastic demand and the credit crunch may finally hit us all where it truly hurts…our morning coffee. Coffee, that magical drink many of us cannot imagine living without, is expected to rise in price from $1.1475/lb to $1.25-35 in coming months due to a weak crop in Brazil, the #1 producer [...]

Read the rest » Supply Excellence

Dismal holiday sales numbers have economist, consumers and execs bracing for a weak 2009 with more businesses closing up shop. Expectations are that this year will see prices dropping as fewer competitors fight for scarce customers’ business. While most of the data and headlines is on the consumer/retail side, the same price erosion is likely [...]

Read the rest » Supply Excellence

Cost savings may be job number one today. But the current economic crisis portends an equally disturbing storm brewing on the horizon: heightened supply risk.
Earlier this week, SpendMatters Jason Busch sounded the alarms, noting that the number of outright supplier restructurings (Chapter 11s) and shutdowns (Chapter 7s) are both up considerably. “We’re going to see [...]

Read the rest » Supply Excellence