How Facebook and Twitter Are Ruining Society
Copyright Geek and Poke …
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Supply Chain Problems? Look North for a Solution!
I was thrilled with the results of the recent IACCM worldwide study that found Canada is ‘Top Dog’ when it comes to World Trade. It just confirms what I’ve known all along … there’s no one easier to work with than us canucks and no one more eager to help you solve your supply chain problems. Furthermore, as Tim Cummins notes, with companies and public sector agencies worldwide increasingly concerned about reputation risk, it’s ethics, fairness, integrity that really matter. If there’s one thing us Canadians tend to have in spades …
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A Hitchhiker’s Guide to e-Procurement: Procurement Models
Mostly Harmless, Part XXII Previous Post There are three major procurement models. While they all require the same basic e-Procurement functionality, each model dictates its own e-Procurement requirements and emphasizes certain features and functions above others. This post will address the different models and which features and functions are emphasized by the models. The first major model is the classic model of decentralized procurement where each business, functional, or geographic unit is responsible for its own purchases. Individual business units are empowered with autonomy and control over their process and design decisions. It allows for …
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Private Equity ready for the Commerce Cloud?
The glory days of the Private Equity (PE) world are certainly not over but they are changing. Firms today are struggling to attract new investments and to manage the portfolio companies they own.
The days of the quick buy and sell are long gone. The PE firms today are faced with attempting to figure out how [...]
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ROI, ROIC, ROCE, and … ROSMA?
The key to a rising CPO’s success is the often the ability to talk shop with the CFO and explain the advantages of supply chain management in terms that the CFO can understand. It’s often the quickest way to a seat at the boardroom table. Traditionally, this has come down to the ability to provide the CFO with the ROI (Return on Investment), the ROIC (Return on Invested Capital), and the ROE (Return on Equity) of every investment. This is because ROI measures the efficiency of investment, the ROIC measures the company’s efficiency at allocating the capital …
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Procurement Has a Long Way To Go if Being a Doorstop is a Measure of Success
A few months ago, the CPO Agenda published the transcript for its roundtable in London in May 2010 on budgeting for a wider influence. While this post is not going to summarize the transcript as it really doesn’t say anything that this blog hasn’t been telling you for years, buried within the transcript is a very interesting quote by David Noble, the Chief Executive of CIPS. If we do not have the ability to get in there and hold the door, we will lose it and be back to where we were 10 years ago. In other …
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Why ERP Is Not Enough for Project Based Manufacturing
A recent article over on Industry Week on 5 Critical Issues for ERP in Project-based Manufacturing outlined why ERP systems alone are not enough for project based manufacturing (and manufacturing in general). The issues outlined in the article were: Bidding and Quoting Project Visibility Managing Change Financial Performance Tracking Rapid Time to Value A carefully evaluation of many of …
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A Hitchhiker’s Guide to e-Procurement: Costing a Solution
Mostly Harmless, Part XXI Previous Post Every solution costs more than the sticker price. But how much more? In this post, we’ll outline how to cost the various solutions as well as a methodology for calculating the expected value. First of all there’s the cost of the license, which can be significant. If the system is enterprise, and especially if it’s an installed solution, this can be a very significant up-front cost in the six figure range. Then there’s the maintenance, which is required for support and mandatory for some solutions, and built into …
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The Board Room CPO
In addition to offering insights into planning horizons, supply chain strategy drivers, and keys to supply chain success, the recent report on Supply Chain Strategy in the Board Room by the Cranfield School of Management and Solving Efeso also discussed what it all meant for supply chain leaders of tomorrow. It’s conclusion was that the CPO of tomorrow needs to fit the following profile: Strong Communicator: gravitas within Leadership team in many companies, the sourcing / procurement / supply chain leader still doesn’t have …
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The Sourcing Emperor Has No Clothes!
Today’s guest post is from Dalip Raheja, President and CEO of The Mpower Group (TMG) and a contributor to the News U Can Use TMG blog. As we pointed out in our last post (where we killed off the old sourcing process), Strategic Sourcing has always been fundamentally flawed. It clearly did not deliver the promised results years ago and it isn’t delivering the right results today. Furthermore, I would argue that the results that Strategic Sourcing is delivering may not be totally accurate because the unintended consequences that the function creates (more on this later) may actually destroy …
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