supply market dynamics
In the analyst industry, we used have a saying that “when the mainstream press catches on to a trend, it is certainly almost over.” I’d like to think that is the case with the automotive supply chain dilemma, but I’m afraid I would be wrong.
While Supply Excellence has been tracking the ongoing instability and decline [...]
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With the outcome of what some are calling “the most important U.S. Presidential race ever” still uncertain, many business executives are fretting over the economic, tax, and trade policies of the eventual President No. 44.
Yet, savvy procurement and supply management professionals aren’t waiting for the election outcome. They know that, regardless of who wins the [...]
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Southwest Airlines has the reputation of being lean and mean, the mother of the point-to-point low cost business model that decimated legacy carriers (leaving those of us in Pittsburgh with a very large and expensive puddle jumper palace). Their clairvoyance in hedging the price of jet fuel has helped keep costs low and fuel their [...]
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Just weeks after the Big Three shocked the industry by announcing plans to move some assembly back inhouse, a labor strike at a major auto supplier is making the automakers appear clairvoyant. Adding to pricing pressures, volume cuts, and rising material costs, the United Autoworkers (UAW) strike at American Axle is shuttering production across the [...]
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The dip in soybean production caused by farmers gravitating to ethanol production got you down? Well, the 2/25 issue of Business Week (sorry it’s print only, but a PDF version of the article is here) highlights another potential shortage you might see in 2008: Television ad time.
The shortage is caused by the need for [...]
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Over the past year, Supply Excellence has been tracking a growing trend for companies to rethink their sourcing strategies. For example, General Motors has made re-sourcing a cornerstone of its (ongoing) turnaround plan. And just last week a major food and beverage company told me it was rethinking supply lines for core ingredients.
Mattel’s Chairman and [...]
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I was fortunate enough to spend last week crisscrossing Europe, meeting with procurement executives about their supply management challenges and initiatives for the coming year. It quickly became clear from my discussions that, while Supply Excellence has focused (possibly myopically) on the impact of the declining U.S. dollar and economy have had on American companies, [...]
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With the run up in product recalls and food concerns last year, product quality and supply risk management have captured the attention of the C-suite and the general public. Supply managers have an opportunity to leverage this crisis to boost their brand in the organization and help their companies turn the strategic balancing of cost, [...]
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In an interview with European Leaders in Procurement, Richard Nixon of KPMG (no relation to the former U.S. President) states that companies will “increasingly look to procurement to stave off the effects of recent volatility on stock exchanges throughout the world.”
In his ELP interview (registration required), Nixon said companies will adopt a more cautious approach [...]
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Reverse auctions gained popularity during the halcyon buyer’s market days of the late 1990s. Today, e-sourcing is standard operating procedure for nearly all large companies, as well as many mid-size firms. And reverse auctions are becoming as common as Abercrombie and Fitch T-shirts in your local high school.
Yet, despite their growing, reverse auction technologies [...]
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