Spend analysis was the topic du juor at the Ariba Spend Management Day in Atlanta earlier this month. Faced with a sagging economy and highly volatile supply markets, presenters at the event pointed to improved visibility into spending as key to a number of strategies — from queuing up new sourcing opportunities to enforcing contract […]
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Even in a very dour employment market, there are always bright spots. As the saying goes…fortunes are made during recessions. So, tremendous volatility in commodity prices and a recession provide a HUGE opportunity for direct materials procurement professionals to make their career “fortunes”. The buyer’s market conditions provide obvious strategic and savings opportunities for procurement […]
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I must admit, the post by my comrade-in-arms Ed Bockman last week made me downright angry. Ed reports that the rising energy costs, inflation, and tightening supply markets of 2008 have made many spend management groups gun shy about strategic sourcing.
Buyers “simply don’t want to buy into the hype of pressure to “act now before […]
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One last topic from Spend Management Day in Seattle has been in my queue for a while, and that’s the common theme from several presenters towards processes that empower their employees to work on exceptions to the rule rather than repetitive tasks.
A great example is Expedia, whose contracts department handles a staggering 45,000 active contracts […]
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Ryan Walicki of National City Bank leads a procurement team with some very aggressive savings goals. With their focus on indirect spend (a bank, after all, can’t print money), they’re tasked with a 500% ROI on their efforts this year and a whopping 700% next year!
Despite those massive goals, procurement has actually taken a lead […]
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Another enlightening presenter at last week’s Spend Management Day in Seattle - which by the way was at the Edgewater Hotel of Beatles fame and Led Zeppelin infamy - was Erik Rupinski from MeadWestvaco’s Supply Chain Solutions group.
Like many companies, MeadWestvaco (MWV) is global in terms of their supply chain, acquisition strategy and sales. Some […]
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The electronic world can only get so far on automation, as I was reminded yesterday at the Seattle Spend Management Day. Brian Jones, Purchasing Operations guru at Nestle, discussed the opportunities, process and results from their efforts to categorize spend in order to identify low hanging procurement fruit and drive ongoing spend management initiatives across […]
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