The 2013 planning season is here.

July 12th, 2012

If you don’t believe me, ask your CEO or CFO.

Sourcing strategic plans sometimes have way too many guidelines that to often result in little to no specific actions. Without actions, plans are really nothing more than dreams.

Strategic sourcing in the retail vertical continues to be way behind the rest of industry. It’s time that strategic sourcing plans result in specific short term tactics that can drive immediate and measureable results. Do you have the tools in place to help you carry out these tactics?

A strategy is simply a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. In the case of strategic sourcing, the simple goal might be to buy the best product (quality) at the best price and labor optimization (total cost) from the best suppliers (standards).

In today’s world way too many manual processes remain in place in the retail vertical relative to the RFX or other procurement areas such as POM or CLM. There are too many pieces and parts on too many desk drawers or on to many non accessible desk tops. This does not mean that retail organizations do not have a sourcing strategy. For example, the goal of a company may be to improve net profits: the strategy chosen might simply be to reduce costs of goods and services. But the real issue is the The question HOW and with WHAT?

Most retail companies do not have tools in place that allow for the  automation of the RFX, Contract Management, Purchase Order Management or other procurement processes that drive best in class results from a strategic sourcing plan. So will this plan be successful. Probably not! In fact, more times than not companies will continue with or revert to using their time honored processes and negotiation techniques. These results in the potential loss of any savings you were able to indentify though leakage that is invisible.

Enter the specific tactic. Maybe rather than developing tactics for a plan that is destined to fail, you should call a Strategic Sourcing solutions provider that can provide you with the tools that support your strategy and can be implemented quickly in order to keep you in front of that other company on the opposite side of the street.

The planning starts today, so why not reach out to a SafeSourcing customer services representative to find out how easy we can make achieving your strategic goals. 2013 is just around the corner.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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