Procure IQ

Have you ever been in a meeting with an internal stakeholder who doesn’t want any help on their category because it’s too complex, or is the creative service that can’t be effectively sourced or managed by anybody but the supplier and that stakeholder himself? Then this story is for you…
In the Business Week article “The [...]

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In a special section of the Wall Street Journal (registration required) earlier this week, a duo of supply chain management professors warned that changing global market dynamics require new supply management skills and approaches that most companies lack.
Such findings are not news to the Supply Excellence audience. (Indeed, most of you are feeling the pinch [...]

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As companies put the final touches on their FY08 budgets, it appears that procurement professionals have some good news. According to the CPO Summit audience, their company’s procurement department headcount in the next 12 months will:
increase 37%
decrease 22%
stay the same 42%
The average U.S. voluntary turnover rate is 23.4% annually (according [...]

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Recent personal experiences prompted me to revisit a Supply Excellence discussion with the CPO of Numico, one of the world’s fastest-growing food companies, on the role of procurement within a merger and acquisition (M&A) environment.
CPO Luc Volatier estimated that 40% of the hard-dollar impact of any merger or acquisition comes from supply management improvements. He [...]

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What keeps CPOs up at night? Some of you might guess supply risks or rising commodities costs. But you’d be wrong. According to Chief Procurement Officers at Procuri Empower 2007, their chief concern is attracting and retaining top talent.
“The biggest challenge to any procurement organization is hiring and keeping the right talent.” National City Corporation [...]

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I am happy to report that, what began as a goal to write a helpful compendium of practical tips for driving incremental and immediate improvements in supply and contract management operations, has turned into a living exchange of ideas among supply and contract management professionals.
Since “publishing” the original e-book in March, The 100 Greatest Supply [...]

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One of the things you missed here at Procuri Empower 2007 was the release of a new study from Supply and Demand Chain Executive magazine into globalization and its impact on supply and contract management strategies and performance. Based on a survey of over 120 purchasing, supply chain, and business professionals, the study – Global [...]

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As proof that you can’t believe everything you read, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that overall employment for purchasing and supply managers is expected to “grow slower than the average for all occupations through the year 2014.”
What?
Don’t tell that to the VP of Procurement and Operations at a Massachusetts-based manufacturing company I met [...]

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As you head out to the beach this Independence Day, be sure to pack these supply management page-turners:
On-Demand Supply Management: World Class Strategies, Practices, and Technology by Doug Smock, Bob Rudzki, and Stephen Rogers: The sequel to the best-selling Straight to the Bottomline, this tome examines the increasingly important role technology is playing in accelerating supply management transformation. Their [...]

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Risk management was the topic du jour at AMR Research’s Supply Chain Executive Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. earlier this month. Keynoter Colin Powell set the tone by bluntly stating that, when it comes to risk, we are our own worst enemy.
The retired General and Former Secretary of State told a rapt audience of 800 supply [...]

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