Archive for the ‘Procurement Company’ Category
Thursday, March 25th, 2010
First and foremost to getting this process right is to select a solution provider or partner that knows what they are doing and is willing to hold your hand during the early part of the process. The plan for each company will be somewhat different as we have discussed in a number of previous posts. There is however a general order to things that will offer the best opportunity for success.
1. You need a strategy
2. You must complete a detailed discovery
3. You must understand how to set up events even if done by your provider.
4. You must have a quality process and extensive database for sourcing suppliers
5. You must clearly communicate how events will be run or executed to all involved parties
6. You must review the process for sustainability and adjust as necessary
As mentioned above it is incumbent upon your e-procurement solutions provider to be able to assist you in completing these tasks in a reasonable period of time. You should be checking the background of the team and their leadership that will be assisting you to insure their understanding of the retail industry such as operations, technology, procurement, warehouse management, logistics, transportation, loss prevention, store management and other functional areas of your business that will be sourcing products and services. Retail is about detail and detail will improve quality, reduce costs and insure success of your new e-procurement process.
We look forward to and appreciate your comments.
Posted in B2b Reverse Auction, B2b Supply Chain, Business Sourcing, E-procurement, E-procurement Solutions, Online Procurement, Procurement Company, Procurement Outsourcing, Sourcing Strategy, Strategic Sourcing
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
Posted in B2b Reverse Auction, B2b Supply Chain, Business Sourcing, E-procurement, E-procurement Solutions, E-procurement Tools, E-supply Chain, Eprocurement Auction, Global E-procurement, Green eProcurement Practices, Online Procurement, Online Reverse Auction, Procurement Auctioning, Procurement Company, Procurement Outsourcing, Procurement Purchasing, Procurement Solutions, Procurement Tool, Product Procurement, Retail Supply Chain, Reverse Auction, Reverse Auction Procurement, Sourcing Safe Foods, Sourcing Safe Products, Sourcing Strategy, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain Procurement
Thursday, February 25th, 2010
We often hear the term collaboration or collaborative partners, collaborative supply chains, collaborative commerce or collaborative networks when we are discussing the supply chain. It rolls of everyone’s tongue like we all know what we are talking about. So this author took a look at Wikipedia hoping to gain some insight and clarity.
According to Wikipedia, Collaboration is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together toward an intersection of common goals, and
An aggregate is a collection of items that are gathered together to form a total quantity.
Since collaboration only means different groups or organizations working together towards the same goal, that term can apply to just about any business function. However when we combine it with the word aggregate to form the collective e- procurement term Collaborative Aggregation which was coined by this author in 2006; we arrive at something potentially meaningful.
Collective buying organizations and sometimes share groups often combine purchasing volumes of like products to drive better discounts. Large companies often aggregate their purchases among departments and are more often today doing the same thing across different operating group’s or companies within a larger organizations to drive economy of scale in purchasing.
The unfortunate truth, is that not much out of the box thinking is going on in this process. We are so involved in the process that we can not see the forest for the trees.
Let’s take a look at a small regional retail chain as an example. They buy their products mostly from wholesalers who are able to aggregate the volumes of many in order to earn enough discounts to pass on reasonable pricing to the retailer that is slightly better than the retailer might earn on their own, and reserve a little for themselves in order to support their business. These products are normally for resale products. In the not for resale area or expenses category such as supplies and services, the regional retailer usually does business with a number of local suppliers. The supplies can include everything from cleaning fluids to paper bags. The supplier normally does good job of managing these products against a number different cost structures to maintain a customer margin that is good for them. As an example if the price of oil is up and the resin market high, the supplier might be making less on plastic products such as plastic shopping bags or t-sacks, soup containers, trash can liners etc. The supplier may however also carry paper products and other supplies that can be mixed together to drive a total customer margin. Retailers can do the same thing. Here’s a partial list of how collaborative aggregation can work.
1. Take a good look at the total list of supplies offered from your primary supplier.
2. Compare that to what you are buying from them.
3. Ask your e-procurement provider for a list of suppliers within a 50 mile radius that can provide the same products or some of the same products.
4. Look at local businesses within a five mile radius of your area that are not in your industry but buy some of the same products such as trash can liners, cleaning fluids, paper products etc.
5. Call them and explain how collaborating might save you both money.
6. Ask for the name of their supplier as they might be different from yours.
7. Determine a test group of products to request bids on.
Safesourcing has a best practices program for this type of collaborative aggregation that is included in our event fees. For a complete list or more information please contact us at www.safesourcing.com.
We appreciate and look forward to your comments
Posted in B2b Supply Chain, Procurement Company, Retail Supply Chain, Sourcing Strategy, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain Procurement
Tuesday, February 16th, 2010
This author has discussed on many occasions the various benefits to retailers of using e-negotiation tools. Not the least of which is significant profit improvement. Simply put if a retailer were seriously to assign twenty percent of their above the gross margin line spend to these types of tools, they could increase their net earnings by up to 100%. In addition, much of the following would also happen.
1. They would continue to source high quality products.
2. They would continue to have great supplier relationships.
3. They would free up time to do other tasks.
4. They would improve their company’s net earnings by up to 100%.
5. They would support our fragile environment.
6. They would support global food and product safety initiatives.
7. They would have a larger audience of piers to converse with daily.
8. They would have a single source of information about their profession.
9. They would be instantly alerted to product recalls.
10. They would support a traceable supply chain.
11. They would have an endless source of new suppliers to review easily.
12. They would have product specifications at their finger tips.
If you are wondering why most companies are not enjoying these benefits, the following are the objections we to often hear during initial discovery meetings with managers that have not been exposed to e-negotiation tools in the past.
1. I already get the best cost.
2. We’ve done business with this supplier for years.
3. I don’t have product specifications.
4. I don’t have time for this.
5. Switching costs will be too high.
6. I can’t insure the same quality.
7. We need to adhere to certain standards.
8. What about my relationships.
One thing you may notice is that the companies almost always include me or I and almost never we. To much individual emphasis is not a good thing. Healthy skepticism is. If you have an objection that is not listed above, or they pretty much fit your thinking, please review the dozen benefits above and weigh your objections against them.
As always, we look forward to and appreciate your comments
Posted in B2b Reverse Auction, E-procurement, E-procurement Solutions, E-procurement Tools, Eprocurement Auction, Global E-procurement, Online Reverse Auction, Procurement Company
Friday, February 12th, 2010
Why do some companies succeed while others continue to implement program after program with no measurable benefit. First among these is the recognition that effective e-negotiation initiatives like any successful program requires strong support from the executive suite. In Retail this is important because the industry lags well behind other industries in utilization rates of e-negotiation tools. At a minimum in order to get off on the right foot, this means the involvement and sponsorship of your CEO, CFO, CLO or CPO is critical. Once you have this involvement directives can be issued. This will help in the required next step which is to identify savings targets across all corporate spend categories. Once these targets are identified and ranked, a category specific attack plan can be developed that best maximizes savings opportunities. It is important to note, that savings alone do not create a successful e-negotiation plan. What can not be sacrificed in the name of cost reduction is quality, which can include safety as well as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) goals including environmental support programs.
A key challenge for any procurement team directed to implement e-negotiation tools across all of their unique spend categories, is to not over complicate the process into something that can’t be maintained. At a high level, the following 10 steps which are in no particular order offer some assurance that you are headed down the right path.
1. Identify and rank all opportunities by spend
2. Locate all contracts and identify termination language
3. Document your safety and environmental goals
4. Develop a total company strategy
5. Source qualified suppliers
6. Identified fragmented or maverick purchasing and aggregate
7. Negotiate final terms and conditions
8. Award of business
9. Contract completion including review of evergreen and termination language
10. Results Analysis
Most quality e-negotiation solution providers have well developed and well thought out plans that will aid you in developing and implementing your best practices while maintaining quality and supporting your CSR initiatives.
We look forward to and appreciate your comments.
Posted in B2b Reverse Auction, Business Sourcing, E-procurement, E-procurement Tools, Green eProcurement Practices, Procurement Company, Procurement Outsourcing, Procurement Solutions, Sourcing Strategy, Strategic Sourcing
Friday, November 13th, 2009
With all of the issues facing our planet, both future and present employees are weighing their decisions as to prospective work places on more than just money. Are your human resource procurement professionals savvy enough to your company green practices and policies to attract the best and brightest?
Procurement does not only relate to the products your company buys for resale or supplies that your company uses internally. If you ask a human resources (HR) professional they are in the procurement business as it relates to people. In fact many of the tools they use during the recruitment process can in fact be sourced to reduce their cost using reverse auctions such as background checks and drug screening kits. First however they need to get the best candidates to want to work for you. So, these are not the most important products for human resources professional to be concerned with.
The job of human resources when conducting an interview is to sell your company, to make it the first place someone wants to interview and the last place they want to leave once hired. Increasingly, the social conscience of your company is becoming a deciding factor as to whether or not quality candidates want to select you as a place to work. The first question this begs, is your human resources department in a position to clearly discuss your company’s corporate social responsibility programs and initiatives (CSR)?
In a conducted by experience.com of 2,774 college students, the following question was asked. If you had two job offers and one company was “green” would that have an impact on your decision? A full seventy nine percent (79%) answered yes. Let’s hope your CSR program leads to the need to use the other products required in this process because your human resource professionals are armed with a strong story.
We appreciate and look forward to your comments.
Posted in Procurement Company, Procurement Solutions, Reverse Auction
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
During the last ninety day period the SafeSourcing website www.safesourcing.com has experienced significant growth globally. According to a number of rating services including Alexa and Google Analytics our website has had visitors from thirty seven (37) countries. Our reach which is a percentage measure of global internet users has grown 130%. Our traffic rank has increased 168% and our page views have increased 150%.
This growth places us amongst the top websites in the procurement space. Spend Matters and Sourcing Innovation continue to be the ranking leaders in our space. Both are required daily reading for this author.
We are very proud of our growth as it indicates that SafeSourcing is providing valuable content to regular visitors as well as registered members. We are also enjoying a good mix of both returning and new users. In reviewing these data the entire website is being explored on a regular basis including the following areas.
1. Sourcebook our professional social network for procurement professionals.
2. The SafeSourcing Wiki
3. The SafeSourcing daily Blog
4. SafeSourcing environment and safety alerts
5. SafeSourcing specifications template library
6. The SafeSourceIt™ Supplier Database
7. The SafeSourcing Query tool
8. SafeSourcing Product Information Sheets
9. SafeSourcing White Papers
10. SafeSourcing Press Releases.
Thank you to those of you that have allowed us to achieve this growth.
As always, we look forward to and appreciate your comments.
Posted in B2b Reverse Auction, B2b Supply Chain, Business Sourcing, E-procurement, E-procurement Solutions, E-procurement Tools, E-supply Chain, Eprocurement Auction, Global E-procurement, Online Procurement, Online Reverse Auction, Procurement Auctioning, Procurement Company, Procurement Outsourcing, Procurement Purchasing, Procurement Solutions, Procurement Tool, Product Procurement, Reverse Auction, Reverse Auction Procurement, Sourcing Strategy, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain Procurement
