A typical spend reduction initiative starts by convincing your C-Level executives to mandate the consolidation of spend throughout your company. Through such consolidation, you ensure your suppliers can reduce their margins yet still make enough to service the payments on their salespeople’s Beemers.
If you cannot consolidate your spend, you must find other ways to convince […]
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I’ve been given the all-clear at work and I’m back on the air!
I’m really loving the new role. It’s the first time I’ve been officially inside an organisation rather than advising from the outside. My major concern with taking the role was that I wouldn’t be able to adjust to the sustained focus on one […]
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Thanks to everyone who’s been asking where the h**l I’ve been. Matthew’s latest post titled “The day the blog died” has finally spurred me into action.
I’ve taken a new job as the head of procurement for an investment bank and I’m currently working my way through the approvals process for corporate communications. Understandably, disclosure risks […]
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Debbie Wilson, author of Cool Tools for Purchasing, declares 2006 to be the "Year of the Blog". For those of you not familiar with her site, Debbie, amongst other things, publishes periodic commentary on procurement issues. Her opinions are poignant and I read her stuff as soon as it hits my in-box. Jason Busch calls […]
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Today, I’d like to welcome a guest blogger to Supply Excellence. Doug Smock is the co-author of the top-selling supply management book, Straight to the Bottom Line, and heads up his own online community for sharing supply strategy, GlobalCPO.com. I encourage you to sign up for Doug’s free newsletter, How Smart People Buy.
A lot of […]
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Here's a little ditty from the e-INSIDER newsletter that brought a wry smile to my face.
BLM—Buzzword Lifecycle Management
The information technology (IT) industry is alive with buzzwords (BW). The management of BW represents a significant area for improvement for both the BW users (BU) (for example, vendors, analysts, and consultants), BW consumers (BC) (mostly end-users), and […]
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When reading this New York Times article, I chuckled thinking about all of European red-tape and infighting at Airbus that led to the “technical and management problems” which have delayed the A380 launch, causing the company’s stock to plunge in recent weeks. In contrast, Boeing is flying high, owing in large part to its state […]
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Might Kathy-Lee-Gifford have a new promotional concept to get behind? It certainly looks that way. According to various news reports — including this one out of Forbes — it looks as if Apple’s famous iPod is being manufactured by a supplier, Forxconn Electronics, whose employees would need to work at least a few months to […]
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In a recent blog entry, I argued that future Spend Management solutions would have the potential to transform internal service delivery models themselves. In this world, companies could use platforms to “enable the creation of virtual shared services teams between organizations based on processes, skills and availability. A castings category manager from a non-competitive automotive […]
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It’s often challenging to find engineers and technical gurus that can write readable, enjoyable prose that clearly articulates the business value of technology. After all, that’s what keeps us marketing folks in business — at least in part. But I think that things might be changing. Michael Lamoureux, an optimization and Spend Management technology guru […]
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