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Clean out those back rooms and move your overstock items using a forward auction.

Friday, October 14th, 2011

Why is it that we never hear of retailers running forward auctions? There are dozens of sources waiting to buy your overstock which all retailers know will reduce shrink and improve bottom line profitability.

If you go to any internet search engine and type in the term overstock, the data returned is in the millions of pages. Many of these links are locations  for Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) companies that will gladly agree to participate in e-negotiation events in the form of a forward auction to purchase your overstock or liquidated products for resale through their on line offerings.

Online forward auctions are an ideal way to get the best price for capital equipment, materials, overstock and services you may want to sell, such as when you need to liquidate excess inventory.

There are two basic types of forward auctions. The first is a liquidation auction where sellers are reducing inventory from overstock or liquidation and buyers are seeking to obtain the lowest price for items they have an interest in for resale and other purposes. The second type is more of a marketing auction where sellers are trying to sell unique items and buyers wish to obtain unique items. This is typical of an eBay type of offering.
Much of retail shrink happens in the back room or receiving area of retail stores. It just so happens that this is also the location of much of the overstock in the retail community. Much of this product sits there month after month resulting in significant margin hits to quarterly and annual earnings and as such to a company’s stock price.

Ask your e-negotiation solution provider how they can help reduce your overstock and shrink with forward auction tools, and who they would invite as buyers. You company stakeholders will applaud your efforts.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.
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Posted in B2b Supply Chain, E-procurement Solutions, Sourcing Strategy, Strategic Sourcing

When using e-procurement tools to source complex services make sure you have a well defined change of control process.

Wednesday, September 28th, 2011

Change happens. It can result from poorly designed specifications, terms and conditions, quoting instructions and other data related to a bid. The normal process for managing these changes is a change of control process which governs how any changes to the services being provided as identified in the actual bid.

The change of control is normally managed as a request that communicates the requested changes to the services deliverables. Normally the change request will describe the following at a minimum.

1. The change
2. The reason for the change
3. The effect the change may have on the existing Statement of Work.
4. Impact on cost or savings

In most cases a project manager or the associate with responsibility for managing the program deliverables will be required to submit a written change request to the contracted or warded supplier.  The supplier will then develop and return the response to the contracting company. 
 
The contracted supplier and the contracting company will then review the proposed change request and either approve it, modify it or reject it. When approved the contracting company as well as the contracted supplier must sign the change request in order to authorize the work as well as the implementation of the work and its potential impact on the existing project plan or project time line.

If you don’t want erosion inn your savings, make sure you spend the time to cover this process in your bid parameters.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in Contract Management, E-procurement, E-procurement Solutions, E-procurement Tools

Buyers, do you know how a price index plays into e-procurement practices?

Tuesday, September 27th, 2011

From a simplistic perspective an index is a system used to make finding information easier. There are any numbers of indexes or indices available to help procurement knowledge workers insure they are sourcing products at the best possible pricing. The key word here is price as what we will be discussing are specifically price indices.

According to Wikipedia a price index (plural: “price indices” or “price indexes”) is a normalized average (typically a weighted average) of prices for a given class of goods or services in a given region, during a given interval of time. It is a statistic designed to help to compare how these prices, taken as a whole, differ between time periods or geographical locations.

Price indices have several potential uses. For particularly broad indices, the index can be said to measure the economy’s price level or a cost of living. More narrow price indices can help producers with business plans and pricing. Sometimes, they can be useful in helping to guide investment.

Normally an index reflects the current and historical price of a variety of commodities ranging from metals to grain. A common index used in sourcing petroleum products is OPIS or the Oil Price Information Service which you can learn more about by visiting www.opisnet.com.  However in order to drive the best possible fuel pricing there are other dependencies such as whether you are doing spot buys or bulk purchases and these strategies will determine what specific index you would want to review as well as it’s relation to other product information sources such as Platts or the Gulf Coast spot assessments.  This will put you in a better position to determine how to bid the product and also earn a discount relative to the lowest common denominator.

All other commodities have similar sourcing issues dependant on what the highest cost item is in their product makeup. An example here might be the cost of grain in the feeding of cattle or poultry.

Ask you solution provider to explain these tools to you and to recommend how you might use them toward the best outcome.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in E-procurement, E-procurement Solutions, E-procurement Tools

Category Discovery is a critical step in building your e-negotiation strategy?

Friday, September 23rd, 2011

Category discovery is the basis of any quality implementation of an e-negotiation strategy. It is essential that this process be supported by the company’s executive management because they hold the key to unlocking access to data sources across the enterprise. This process will include working with all category managers, buyers, other procurement knowledge workers and anyone that participates in sourcing to uncover what you don’t know in support of your Requests for Information (RFI), Proposals (RFP) and Quotations (RFQ).

The first step in this process is the understanding of where the data is hiding and in most companies large and small it is. Here’s a list to get you started. Data discovery generally comes from two sources; Internal and external.

Examples of Internal and External Data Sources

  1. SLRP
  2. Budgets
  3. General Ledger
  4. Detailed P&L
  5. Purchase Orders
  6. Contracts
  7. Detailed Vendor Listing
  8. Product List by Vendor
  9. Invoices
10. Product cut sheets
11. Copies of orders
12. Brochures
13. Supplier Websites
14. Annual Reports

As always we look forward to and appreciate your comments

Posted in E-procurement, E-procurement Solutions, E-procurement Tools, Eprocurement Auction

Very complex e-negotiation events are not difficult to host.

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

 

So how does one define a complex e-negotiation event? On the surface it may be an event with a large number of line items within a particular product set such as MRO or Fleet Maintenance in the distribution space or raw materials used to manufacture components that require special handling, shipping and standards adherence. The amounts of the total spend for an event really has nothing to do with the complexity of the event. The complexity is determined by the data points requiring management in order to drive the best possible value to the buyer and the supplier.

This author would suggest that any event including multiple market baskets, thousands  of  SKU’s all with different specifications, order quantities, delivery locations, multiple suppliers not bidding on each line item, a split award of business and the size of the spend qualifies as a complex event. Adding to the complexity may be the overall strategy required when sourcing the right mix of suppliers to compress pricing properly and drive early and consistent bid activity. This can be further complicated by trying to determine the correct decile based sourcing strategies for the event and including product affinities where they make sense.

The above example would qualify as organized complexity where there is a non-random, or correlated, interaction between most of the parts. In order to support  complex events, your e-procurement provider needs to have an understanding of the specific market place and practices and processes in place that allow them to drive these activities and bring complex events to market  in the shortest period of time. Generally this should occur within less than two or three weeks from event notification to event completion.

Last year, this author tried to define the relative complexity of the retail environment and its potential impact on the use of e-procurement tools. Specifically we identified the following areas of interlocking complexity.

1. Supply Chain complexity.
2. Rate of change in the global supply chain.
3. Long term inherited supplier relationships.
4. Lack of retail procurement staff.
5. Lack of time.
6. Multiple sources of supply.
7. Limited view of new sources of supply.
8. Confusion as to who’s the customer and who’s the supplier
9. Sales People
10. Third Party Providers
11. Collaboration complexity.

Being comfortable that your solution provider understands your market place and has a well defined process for hosting Complex e-negotiation events insures that they are not difficult to host.

We appreciate and look forward to your comments.

Posted in E-procurement, E-procurement Solutions, E-procurement Tools

Sourcing Options for Large Variety Categories

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

Today’s post is by Mark Davis; Vice President of Operations and CTO at SafeSourcing.

There are thousands of categories that businesses purchase every year that are “complicated” to say the least.  Categories like office supplies, for instance, involve thousands of individual items that a company must purchase in order to do business, but that can be very difficult to source in a manner that provides the best benefit to the company.

Let’s take a look at the process of sourcing these types of categories from one extreme of the complexity spectrum to the other with a couple of options that meet towards the middle.

Sourcing the market basket – The first end of the spectrum is to take the entire collection of all items in the category and source them as one large market basket that will be represented by a discount off of the vendor’s list pricing.  One obvious pro of this approach is that it is easier to collect and manage an overall discount from a supplier than anything else and is one reason why procurement departments sometimes take this approach.  On the downside this approach does not allow you to focus on items that have higher spends and because each vendor will have different beginning list prices, an overall discount can sometimes be misleading when comparing vendors side by side.

Sourcing every item – At the other end of the spectrum is the approach of gathering pricing and proposals on every item in the category.  The advantages to this approach is that it allows you to show where your purchases are heavier for the vendors and it gives you absolute pricing and comparison of the group across all proposals from the vendor community.  The trouble with this approach is that when you are looking at 4,000 items this can be a time-consuming task for the vendors to complete and for your team to evaluate at the end, and in some cases vendors do not have the capability to provide unique price sheet pricing on a customer by customer basis.

Group Discount Sourcing – In the group discount approach you collect discount pricing off of list on a product group by product group basis which allows you to split your spend into smaller areas for the vendors to focus on providing more competitive quotes in the areas you need them most.  Also, many vendors support this approach in their internal systems much easier.  The downside in this approach is like the first approach where the list prices of the vendors can vary a great deal making a straight discount to discount comparison more difficult to evaluate. 

Hybrid Sourcing – The final approach is one that takes the positive elements of all three and blends them together.  This approach leverages the individual focus pricing on items making up the majority of your spend.  From there, the majority of what is left is split into product groups market baskets, with a final market basket of products gathering a discount off of list representing no more than 10% of the spend.  The advantage for your company is that you have the focus in all the areas you need and discounts on areas that aren’t as large.  The downside is that many vendors are not generally equipped to handle this approach on an account by account basis so it may require more effort on their part in order to support you and the hybrid pricing model. 

Regardless of how you choose to source these types of categories there is a model that fits for you and your business.  For assistance in sourcing these categories for your business, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative. 

We look forward to your comments.

Posted in Business Sourcing, E-procurement Solutions, Procurement Solutions

Here are twenty-one reasons why all retailers should use E-Procurement tools.

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

Since this is not Late Night with David Letterman, our list is not ranked in order of importance although many might argue that not much is more important than improved earnings.

1. Guaranteed to improve net earnings
2. Guaranteed to improve safety
3. Guaranteed to improve Corporate Social Responsibility.
4. Guaranteed new sources of supply
5. Retail has less spend assigned than any other industry
6. Streamlines the  procurement process
7. Holds suppliers accountable to your standards.
8. Improves quality
9. Cost avoidance in a volatile market
10. Creates a competitive environment
11. Drives reliable market pricing
12. Maintains a reliable history for future comparison
13. Educates suppliers as to how retailers wish to procure products
14. Supplier training eliminates questions
15. Improved and consistent product specifications
16. Improved negotiation.
17. Improve carbon footprint
18. Simple award of business process
19. Frees up time for other tasks
20. Works for procurement of all product categories
21. Provides a detailed audit trail.

This author is not sure why a derivative of this list could not become the mission statement for any procurement department.

We appreciate and look for ward to your comments.

Posted in E-procurement Solutions, E-procurement Tools, E-supply Chain

“What types of companies find procurement services beneficial?”

Monday, August 29th, 2011

If you’re a business owner, large or small, CEO, CFO, or President of a company you should be asking yourself if your company can benefit from procurement services.  Depending on the size of the organization you may or may not be familiar with all the goods and services that your company is purchasing.  This is where procurement services can come into play! 

According to Wikipedia procurement is “the acquisition of good and/or services.  It is favorable that the goods/services are appropriate and that they are procured at the best possible cost to meet the needs of the purchases in terms of quality and quantity, time and location.”

This sourcing professional believes that if a company were to review at least 10% of their annual spend, they would find many opportunities to improve the bottom line.  Below you will see a few of the times that would be most beneficial to take advantage of procurement services.

  1. 1.Reviewing/Resigning a current contract with an incumbent supplier.  –   If you’ve been with the same supplier for the length of multiple   contracts, it’s time to re-evaluate.  You may not be interested in switching vendors, but by taking advantage of procurement tools you will be able to negotiate a better rate for the goods and services that you’re purchasing.
  2. When you start a new task/department within your business. – Every time your business grows or expands is an opportunity to take advantage of procurement tools.  Even if the goods and services that you’ll need to operate this new department are things you’re currently using, the quantity of these items would be a great opportunity to evaluate how much you’re spending to have the goods and services you’re using on a regular basis.
  3. When you are analyzing you upcoming budget – Each year when your company monitors your profit margin and areas within your budget that cause you concern is a great time to evaluate what procurement services would be beneficial for you.  For example, you may find areas of your business that are critical for your end product or service, but you feel that you are spending too large of a percent of your budget to produce such results. 

Just think of all the different areas you bottom line is affected by.  Each of these is an area for potential savings thru the use of procurement tools.  By partnering with a procurement professional, you’ll be able to evaluate more than a few areas of your business where you can start saving for your next purchase or contract for your goods and services.

For more information on SafeSourcing and how we can help you evaluate your savings opportunities, please contact a Customer Service representative.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in E-procurement, E-procurement Solutions, E-procurement Tools

So you think you can do it yourself and do it better than an e-procurement service provider?

Wednesday, August 17th, 2011

That is if you want to drive the greatest possible savings across the broadest range of categories in the shortest amount of time; and have a sustainable process moving forward.

The question one needs to ask is; what type of event services does my e-procurement provider offer? If your company is deciding to try self service, which is to be 100% self-sufficient, you need to know if your provider offers readily available classroom education that can be conducted on-site in order to train your team in all the nuances of event creation and support. These skills are the foundation that allows e-procurement providers to support large volumes of events in a full service mode, which drive greater savings over the long term. Knowledge transfer in this area is one thing; the passion, skill and headcount to carry out these practices on a day by day basis are what drive results.

Typically event services falls into two broad categories:

1. Event management
2. Event monitoring and support.

Event management provides end to end e-sourcing support that begins with a companies overall strategy and ends with the actual execution of the e-procurement event. This is a true cross category effort that includes a rather lengthy list of services that may include buyer training, supplier selection, category discovery, supplier communication, data analysis and the overall strategy for taking a specific category to market including timing, training and overall supplier expectation management.

Event monitoring and support is actually the tactical implementation of the over all e-procurement event management process. This may include all communications with suppliers on the day of an event including making sure they have access to the system, get logged in properly, don’t have problems placing quotes, monitoring supplier and buyer system communications techniques during an event such as notes and texting and being available post event for questions as needed.

These services are normally provided by people behind the scenes with a very specific skill set. If you plan to do self service it would be very wise to make sure you have them covered at the same quality level.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in E-procurement, E-procurement Solutions, Sourcing Strategy

Enterprise Software RFPs

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

A few weeks ago we talked about the differences between the RFPs, RFIs, RFQs, and Surveys and touched on how they were different as well as when you would use one.  What we said then was that you typically want to run one of these events when you have an idea about the basic functionality of a product you need but are not sure who can provide it and what else it is they can bring that you didn’t think of. 

In many cases, the road to procuring enterprise software will require one of these tools due, in part, to the fact that software can change so quickly, but also because typical decision factors like price play a much smaller role to the features and functionality of the software.

In preparing to make a major software purchase a Request for Information or Proposal can be a great first step.  Here are some things to keep in mind about the solution and the company when preparing for one.

Flexibility – One of the keys in the process of evaluating software solutions and the companies that create them is to gather information about the flexibility of the product.  A focus on how configurable the system is and how well a solution can be fitted with your company’s needs and appearance is an important part to building a good software RFP/RFI.

Reputation – A company’s reputation for delivery used to go a long way in the business world but in the wake of a tougher economy price has begun to gain ground.  In the arena of software, it is still one of the most important factors to evaluate when selecting a software partner.  Building a relationship with companies known for under promising and over delivering on a consistent and referenceable level can be a huge factor in protecting a million dollar investment.

Pricing model – The key here is not in the actual price but how the company prices that is important.  Your company’s needs will dictate the pricing model that benefits your company whether for the enterprise; per seat or per user.  How a software provider prices and what they charge you for are HUGE factors in determining if they are suited for you and your company. The more information you can gather at the RFP/RFI stage as possible is very important.

Support – There is no more important product to verify good support on than software.  As upgrades occur, employees get promoted or leave the company, new employees need training, or issues arise, the level of support a company will commit to is critical to the confidence you can place in them.  On top of this, the more mission critical the functionality the software is to support is for your company, the more important the level of support becomes.  Any software RFP/RFI you create should have a detailed section to determine what level of support you can expect from each vendor.

For more information on SafeSourcing and how we can provide RFIs/RFPs that help you focus on these important factors, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.

We look forward to your comments.

Posted in E-procurement Solutions, E-procurement Tools, Global E-procurement

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