This is the first in a series of posts discussing the history of, business case for and strategy behind supplier performance management.
Before we can get to the end goal of creating an SPM strategy, we must understand the factors in our supply chains …
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July 20th, 2010 | Posted in Functionality, General, Supplier Performance, Suppliers, Supply Management Best Practices
Many companies negotiate small package programs to cover the documents in small packages, but how much consideration is given to those shipments with weights between 200 and 300 pounds.
Normally a shipper will tender those shipments directly to an LTL carrier along with other shipments. These shipments are known as minimums in the LTL industry and [...]
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April 6th, 2010 | Posted in Functionality, General, LTL, Outsourcing, Supplier Performance, Suppliers, Supply Management Best Practices, Transportation, e-RFx, packaging, pallets
Contract Document Control
In contract development, the party that controls the physical production of the contract document and the wording changes during negotiations generally has a distinct advantage. This is particularly true in long or complex c…
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October 20th, 2009 | Posted in Suppliers, Supply Management Best Practices, conditions, negotiation, terms
In the last post, I described how price adjustment clauses are commonly misunderstood and end up causing pricing problems between buyers and suppliers.
So, what can you do to ensure that price adjustment provisions are adhered to when math isn’t ever…
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October 12th, 2009 | Posted in General, Supplier Performance, Suppliers, Supply Management Best Practices, pricing, supplier
When a buyer is in a position to apply some leverage in negotiations with software vendors, there are three critical provisions that can be used, but may require a significant push:
Maintenance fees as a percentage of the discounted license fee, not t…
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October 9th, 2009 | Posted in General, Supplier Performance, Suppliers, Supply Management Best Practices, negotiation, software licensing
In this penultimate post of this eight-part series, I’m going to help you understand the subtleties of using escalation clauses.
Wait. There’s a problem already.
Do you know what it is?
Well, think about the term “escalation clause.” What d…
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September 28th, 2009 | Posted in General, Supplier Performance, Suppliers, Supply Management Best Practices, escalation clause
Aberdeen recently released an informative research brief entitled The Supplier Enablement Challenge that pointed out the importance of supplier enablement. They found that Best-In-Class companies that had achieved decent supplier enablement had 15% more spend under management (78% to 63%), requisition-to-order costs that were 30% less ($22 vs $32), requisition-to-order cycles that were [...]
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January 17th, 2008 | Posted in General, Suppliers, Supply Management Best Practices, Technology
I ran across an interesting article, which continued my recent trend of running into a great deal of new content about reverse auctions. Sort of a strange phenomenon, but true. This one was discovered on CFO Magazine and tells the story about research being done to create software which attempts to infer the [...]
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December 13th, 2007 | Posted in Analysts/Research, Reverse Auctions, Suppliers, Technology
A recent article in ecommercetimes points to information from Booz Allen Hamilton on carbon footprint in food processing. Their basic definition is good for understanding the reasons for designing better ways to increase energy efficiency.
“The four primary factors driving businesses’ interest in the energy-efficient supply chains are cost savings, productivity gains, regulation [...]
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December 10th, 2007 | Posted in General, Global Supply Issues/Risk, Suppliers
e-Procurement is the counterpart to e-Sourcing, starting where e-Sourcing ends and ending where e-Sourcing begins. It is the “e” implementation of the procurement cycle which is concerned with the requisitioning, receiving, and reconciliation of the received goods as opposed to the analysis, auction, and award that takes place in the sourcing cycle. It [...]
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November 15th, 2007 | Posted in General, Suppliers, Technology, e-Sourcing Marketplace