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Archive for the ‘E-supply Chain’ Category

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Purchasers Plan to Continue Using Recession Tactics

Thursday, March 1st, 2012

Ryan asks; why do procurement professionals turn to SafeSourcing?

The recession has not ended, and it is clear that purchasers must continue using recession tactics, saving money every way that they can.  Mid-sized companies, business owners and others have discovered that they don’t all have to sacrifice quality to gain products for a reasonable, recession-proof price.

With our Reverse Auction and additional eProcurement technology, SafeSourcing is harnessing the power of eProcurement by providing a one-stop shop for competitive bids from over 380,000 suppliers.  By combining their buying power, companies can leverage a lower price while locking in higher quality items.

Who are the suppliers?  SafeSourcing has amassed its unique database by certifying companies based on their safety and environmental support programs.  Companies must be highly rated to earn a place in the database.  Criteria include eco-friendly and food safety systems such as ISO 22000, ECO-LOGO, SQF and GFSI.  These certifications naturally ensure a higher quality of goods and materials.  Their growers, producers or manufacturers automatically set a higher standard for themselves because they are socially responsible businesses.

How does organized eProcurement, such as SafeSourcing process help businesses?  Companies are quickly learning that if they want to prosper, they must be able to guarantee the health and safety of the products they sell to their consumers.  The task of purchasing goods from the worldwide supply chain is a daunting prospect unless a business uses a supplier database like the one offered by SafeSourcing.

Procurement professionals appreciate the SafeSourceIt™ database and the quick response time they receive when looking for new sources of supply.  Owners and other stakeholders will appreciate the benefits of group buying power.  Our customers are continually surprised as they see the quality of products and merchandise from suppliers they were not aware of.  They will respond very favorably to new suppliers that provide them with high quality, green focused products and services at the best price.

For more information on this topic, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative. 

We look forward to your comments.

Posted in B2b Supply Chain, E-supply Chain, Supply Chain Procurement

All the policies in the world don’t necessarily make us safer.

Friday, January 27th, 2012

I read two articles today. Most people would not connect them. I do. The first was on the front page of USA TODAY titled Scientists engineer bioterror fears by David Vergano. The subtitle was New mad-made bird flu strain raises prospect of deadly pandemic. The second article was in the business section of THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC and titled Obama plan would protect goods headed to the U.S by John Heilprin.

I’m not sure I need to tell you how these articles are tied together, but an army is only as good as its supply chain and a population is pretty much the same from a product availability and safety persepctive. If you’d like proof, Think North Korea vs. the U.S.So where does the work need to be done. 

This picture is just product safety oriented without adding in any of the other concerns realted to the articles

Big job. Lots to be done

We look forward to and appreciate your comments

Posted in B2b Supply Chain, E-supply Chain, Supply Chain Procurement

Going Postal!

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

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

Back in December, the U.S. Postal Service announced that it wanted to cut $3 billion in costs in 2012 so that they could avoid bankruptcy.  Delays in mail, eliminating Next day mail, eliminating Saturday delivery are all things that were under consideration for upcoming changes.  As the organization struggles to maintain operations in the wake of an electronic world that has eliminated the need for so much mail, the question for businesses becomes how are they going to begin migrating as well to avoid the rising postage costs?

Today we will be looking at a few ways companies are already doing this, in some cases saving as much as $250 to $500k a year in postage costs.

Customer statements  – Customer statements can encompass many things, be it invoices, monthly statements, performance reports, etc. but in the end what it really means is that there is at least one piece of paper that is getting inserted into an envelope and being mailed to an address or P.O. box.  In just this one activity there is the cost of printing and paper, the envelope, the postage, the processing time (whether machine or human), the delay of having that item be received and on top of all of that there is the element of an imperfect world where, due to address changes, handling mistakes or customer error, the item may never make into the hands of who it was intended to at all.  With all these things in mind, and because of the savings for handling this electronically it is easy to see why it is a big focus many businesses are starting to have.

Catalogs – There will be an element of customers that for a while will always want paper catalogs, however with the cost of generating those catalogs going up and the generations of people that will continue to demand them decreasing, the need to continue producing paper catalogs will be one that many companies closely examine in the next 5-10 years.  Add to all of that the fact that updating on online catalog can take mere seconds and updating a printed catalog is impossible after it is printed and the need to assess the ROI on continuing to print large catalogs.  In fact it’s been almost 20 years since one of the most famous catalogs (Sears RoebucK in 1993) stopped printing due to rising costs.

Employee communications – Newsletters, paystubs, tax forms, medical forms, human resource packages are all examples of traditional items that companies spend millions of dollars on every year to send their employees.  With the advent of company HR portals that now allow an employee to login through the internet and access all of these items with very low cost to the company it is a third area where companies are placing their focus in reducing printing, processing and especially postage costs..

Watching the timeline of events for the USPS since declaring itself debt-free in 2005 has been a hard and painful thing to watch.  As costs have increased and usage decreased it is a critical time for businesses to evaluate the items that are being produced and mailed and whether taking those items into the digital age is the right move from an operations and costs standpoint.

For more information on finding suppliers and products to help you make this move, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.  

We look forward to your comments.

Posted in B2b Supply Chain, E-procurement, E-supply Chain

The Value of Data

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

Today’s post is by David Wenig; Manager – Customer Services at SafeSourcing.

Data has a way of sneaking into every aspect of our life. In an article in the Wall Street Journal from 1/14/2012 titled “How Google & Co. Will Rule Your Rep” by Holly Finn, the uses of personal data as it relates to one’s reputation are described. Soon, it seems, data will be carefully analyzed at even the most personal or intangible aspects of life. 

With that in mind, it is my belief that as you approach your procurement process, this rings true as ever. Too often in procurement, a purchase decision must be made when there is either no historical data to support the decision or the historical data available is insubstantial.

In these cases, it may seem as though there are no valid options that would help make a purchase decision beyond the data at hand.

In most cases, however, there are more options available. In an example where you do not have adequate historical data to make a sound purchasing decision based on pricing, you may find that it is possible to move forward in your decision with the confidence that you have received the best pricing possible. Ask your strategic sourcing partner to work with you to review your project. In most cases, an RFP can be created and managed in such a way that will provide you with the data that you might not have otherwise. Once completed, a live RFQ can be managed as needed to provide the compressed prices that you seek.

With your new data in hand, you can make your decision with confidence and with the metrics to back it up.

Just think, it used to be enough to want to share an opinion. But now, as I write this, I am hoping that it will be worthy of online comment and reaction so to boost my (quantifiable) reputation.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in Business Sourcing, E-supply Chain, Procurement Purchasing, Product Procurement

We plan to launch a procurement department. Now What?

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

The following twenty bullet points are certainly not a complete list, but are areas that should be considered for any supply chain re-structuring including what is needed to drive success. These points should help frame your thought process and get you headed in the right direction.

1. Request CEO and CFO support.
2. Empower the Department.
3. Structure and staff the department for success. Not just one person.
4. Plan a detailed review of all contracts.
5. Plan a detailed review of all suppliers. 
6. Improve the performance of all suppliers or replace them.
7. Find a way to gain access to additional sources of supply.
8. Improve your view of all spend categories. Technology, Technology,  Technology.
9. Review any off shore and near shore sourcing.
10. Meet with all departments that controlled historical spend.
11. Review all sourcing methods being used by others today.
12. Review all Environmental strategies
13. Review all Product Safety strategies
14. Collect or create a product specification library
15. Conduct detailed category discovery session
16. Review lower cost SaaS oriented solutions that can ramp up quickly.
17. Develop and education plan.
18. Outline a plan of where you will be in 90 days, Six months and a Year.
19. Develop short and long terms goals that support your plan.
20. Build a department that delivers zero incremental cost to the organization.

As you use the above list and grow it, it is important to remember that the job of a procurement management leader is to think outside of the box and educate while looking for innovative ways to do things better, faster and at a lower cost. And to hopefully create an environment that will inspire co-workers while doing that.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in E-procurement, E-supply Chain, Sourcing Strategy, Strategic Sourcing

Is the inclusion of freight in an e- bid or reverse auction equal to the net landed cost?

Friday, October 7th, 2011

Sourcing freight lanes or shipping lanes is a project all its own. A shipping lane simply put is the general movement of products between two areas. The first is the departure area and the other is the arrival area. This gets more complicated when we start to discuss full loads versus less than full loads and haul back opportunities that accomplish the optimum in a transportation cost model.
 
When you structure your e-bid simply asking for a net landed cost or assuming that means free freight or free freight within a certain radius of the origination point,  is just not that easily accomplished.

If you really want to understand your net landed cost, then you should have line items in your event that are specific, measureable and bid on separately. When a company says they want a net landed cost what they are referring to is the cost of a product or products plus all of the relevant logistics costs, such as transportation, warehousing, handling etc. In other words, what’s my cost when it gets here or where we want it?

If you want to drive the best pricing and service possible you need to understand what you are asking for and make sure it is clear in your specifications and terms and conditions.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in E-supply Chain, Sourcing Strategy, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain Procurement

How do your buyers and category managers keep up with all of the product and safety recalls?

Friday, September 16th, 2011

The amount of information we are all required to be aware of today is simply mind boggling. As such a simple and effective tool that looks at the many sites providing this information and consolidating it in one location is your best bet to event try and stays aware of this information.

Most organizations like the USDA, FDA, EcoLogo, Kosher Council and the Consumer Product Safety Commission all offer RSS feeds of their most recent recalls and alerts. At SafeSourcing we consolidate over 50 of those companies so that you don’t have to. When you reach our site, the RSS fed alerts and recall section is located in the top right hand corner of the page. If you had been logged on to our system today you would already know that the listeria outbreak associated with cantaloupes has already killed four people and has spread to multiple states. What is listeria you ask? Visit the SafeSourcing Wiki to learn about many procurement related terms.

Are you aware of the Tylenol recall?

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in E-supply Chain, Sourcing Safe Foods, Sourcing Safe Products

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

Corporate CEO’s & CFO’s don’t have this much trouble with debt ceilings or managing debt.

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

Unfortunately politics gets in the way of governments using debt tools properly. Fortunately for the CEO’s of the many companies that fuel our economy they do not have the same difficulty in aligning their growth with the proper use of debt. When CEO’s don’t get it right and don’t manage costs they way they should the result is generally receivership or protection from creditors that allows them to restructure their finances, trim operating costs and get their expenses more in line with their revenues. In most cases this costs the CEO his or her job. It continues to amaze this author that our government has to bicker to the extent they do in order to raise the debt ceiling to drive economic growth and assign accountability to not properly managing the budget.

Companies use a variety of spend management tools in the procure to pay process in order to indentify costs that need to be driven out of their businesses that are a result of poor visibility, mismanagement, maverick spending and other supply chain issues. Our government could do the same thing. Unfortunately as we have all just witnessed politics get in the way. At companies the executives are accountable to the board of directors and share holders. Who is the government accountable to? Oh, that’s right US!

Remember that at the next election.

Posted in E-supply Chain

What is “The International Green Construction Code”?

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design or LEED seems to get most of the press, and is a program of the U.S. Green Building Council or USGBC. However there are multiple ways to drive construction projects in a green direction.

In addition to LEED, in 2009, the International Code Council  or ICC launched the development of a new International Green Construction Code (IgCC) initiative, subtitled “Safe and Sustainable: By the Book,” committed to developing a model code focused on new and existing commercial buildings addressing green building design and performance.

In the future SafeSourcing will be vetting SafeSourceIt™ suppliers against both of these initiatives in order to provide the broadest support of Construction Company’s support of our customers CSR initiatives.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Posted in B2b Supply Chain, E-supply Chain, Green eProcurement Practices, Retail Supply Chain, Supply Chain Procurement

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