In the recent webinar, Correcting Your Spend Vision with Visibility, Mickey North Rizza, research director with AMR Research, discussed implementing spend visibility tools to bring more spend under management, gaining competitive advantage through analytics.
During the webinar, we received three really great questions from our audience, and wanted to share Mickey’s responses covering maverick spend, data [...]
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March 9th, 2010 | Posted in Best Practices, Spend Analysis, Supplier Management, Supply Management, spend visibility, webinar
On a recent call to discuss top trends in 2010, Chris Sawchuk of the Hackett Group said that procurement departments in many companies are looking to beef up their talent this year. It seems that the value of strategic-minded, savvy procurement pros became more clear during this brutal recession, where extracting value for every penny [...]
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March 1st, 2010 | Posted in Events, LinkedIn, Procurement, Sourcing, Supply Management
When I say “casino”, what’s the first thing that comes to mind?
Probably for most of you, it’s money. Actually more like MONEY. Money being spent, won and lost at breakneck speed. And although you’ve possibly had trips to Vegas where you were up against The House (and ask a gambler, and they’ll always tell you [...]
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February 26th, 2010 | Posted in Best Practices, Contract Management, Costing, Sourcing, Spend Analysis, Supplier Management, Supply Management, recession, supply market dynamics, supply risk
In recent years Low Cost Country Sourcing (LCCS) has been a huge initiative in many sourcing organizations resulting in relationships with suppliers in regions like China. Riding on this wave is the call for companies to have a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to the consumers who purchase their products. This is not just [...]
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February 24th, 2010 | Posted in CSR, Enviro/Social Sustainability, LCCS and trade, Supply Management, supply risk
Friday’s group discussion on Vested Outsourcing led by University of Tennessee faculty member Kate Vitasek went very well. For anyone unfamiliar with her work, Kate literally wrote the book on Vested Outsourcing, a model that utilizes incentives to create more strategic relationships between buying organizations and their outsourcing vendors. So when she stepped up and [...]
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February 22nd, 2010 | Posted in Best Practices, Contract Management, LinkedIn, Outsourcing, Services Procurement, Sourcing, Supply Management
Last month, the Strategic Sourcing & Procurement Group on LinkedIn hosted our 1st Group conference call. Things got off to a great start with Chris Sawchuk leading a discussion on “key issues” in 2010.
Now, for our February call…
Kate Vitasek, who literally wrote the book on “Vested Outsourcing”, will be leading the discussion. So, come armed [...]
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February 18th, 2010 | Posted in Best Practices, LCCS and trade, LinkedIn, Outsourcing, Supply Management
We’re facing a dangerous supply shortage across the globe. What’s running low, you ask? Two things; mustaches and charitable donations.
Ok, so maybe mustaches are an arguable “commodity” that many would like to see disappear completely. But few would dispute that charitable donations, particularly to specific school projects through DonorsChoose.org, are always too scarce.
Luckily a few [...]
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February 17th, 2010 | Posted in DonorsChoose, Supply Management, commodities
As the transportation industry braces its self for the start of a new year, the railroad industry seems to be in an excellent position to thrive quickly. Even though The Association of American Railroads stated that mid-December intermodal traffic continues to be down year-over-year, volumes seems to be stabilizing and even seeing a few increases. [...]
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February 12th, 2010 | Posted in Supply Management, SupplyWatch, indirect spend, supply market dynamics, transport
Editor’s note: We are pleased to welcome T&E strategic sourcing guru Scott Gillespie, author of the Gillespie’s Guide to Travel Procurement blog, for some guest posts this week.
Two observations really drove this point home for me last week. The first came from Marc Hochman, a partner at A.T. Kearney with deep expertise in the procurement [...]
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February 11th, 2010 | Posted in Best Practices, Innovation, Supply Management, guest blogger, indirect spend, travel
Office equipment is expected to remain a buyer’s market for the next few quarters as a result of macroeconomic conditions, which are reducing the demand for devices such as printers, copiers, fax machines, and multi-functional devices (MFDs). These conditions have caused office equipment sales to deteriorate throughout 2008 and 2009, with no upturn anticipated [...]
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February 10th, 2010 | Posted in Sourcing, Supply Management, SupplyWatch, indirect spend, supply market dynamics
