The U.S. Congress is finally going to ban BPA. It only took us a year after Canada did the same.

Our president says our nation’s food safety system is at risk. Is Bisphenol an example of something that required our attention long before now?

On March 13th both the house and senate introduced legislation to ban bisphenol A in all food and beverage containers. Even better news is that Sunoco indicated that it will effuse to sell BPA to companies for use in food and water containers for children under three. The question here is what comes first the chicken or the egg. With the number of lobbyists that Sunoco has in Washington, they certainly were aware of the fact that legislation was going to be introduced.

Studies continue to indicate that this product is extremely harmful. It is this author’s belief that BPA should be banned in all products period. There is just no good reason for use by a product of this nature in any food related product. BPA has been tied to obesity, diabetes, breast cancer, testicular cancer, hyperactivity and reproductive failure.

As major manufacturers such as Gerber and others step up and discontinue using BPA in the making of baby bottles, it is time for all manufacturers to follow suite.

What questions does your e-negotiation supplier ask when sourcing private label bottled water, or other beverages or food products on your behalf relative BPA.

If you would like to learn more about this product please visit our blog post from November 9th of last year “Re-Examining bispnenol A BPA in North America”

As always we look forward to and appreciate your comments.

The U.S. Congress is finally going to ban BPA. It only took us a year after Canada did the same.

Our president says our nation?s food safety system is at risk. Is Bisphenol an example of something that required our attention long before now?

On March 13th both the house and senate introduced legislation to ban bisphenol A in all food and beverage containers. Even better news is that Sunoco indicated that it will effuse to sell BPA to companies for use in food and water containers for children under three. The question here is what comes first the chicken or the egg. With the number of lobbyists that Sunoco has in Washington, they certainly were aware of the fact that legislation was going to be introduced.

Studies continue to indicate that this product is extremely harmful. It is this author?s belief that BPA should be banned in all products period. There is just no good reason for use by a product of this nature in any food related product. BPA has been tied to obesity, diabetes, breast cancer, testicular cancer, hyperactivity and reproductive failure.

As major manufacturers such as Gerber and others step up and discontinue using BPA in the making of baby bottles, it is time for all manufacturers to follow suite.

What questions does your e-negotiation supplier ask when sourcing private label bottled water, or other beverages or food products on your behalf relative BPA.

If you would like to learn more about this product please visit our blog post from November 9th of last year ?Re-Examining bispnenol A BPA in North America?

As always we look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Is this subject area the next focal point of mismanagement after the government is finished with the Banking system?

According to President Obama he is creating a special advisory group to co-ordinate food safety laws and recommend how to update them. The President made these comments during the announcement of Dr. Margaret Hamburg as the head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The president also mentioned that there are too many groups responsible for food safety and that the FDA did not have enough money or workers to conduct the annual inspections they are required to perform.

Although this author supports any activity that drives quality improvement to food safety guidelines; the question is how can a new advisory group help, and who will be held accountable? During a safesourcing blog post from last summer titled The Food and Drug Administration fills 1300 Positions I applauded the effort of adding these positions during a continuing down turn in the economic climate. Now the government is claiming that the FDA is still understaffed and we have suffered the second largest food born illness outbreak in the last three decades since these positions were filled. So, what the heck are the 1300 new hires doing?

What we do not need is another committee to suggest changes that go to Congress which will create another committee and send their recommendations to the Senate where another committee will be created which will drive legislation that if and when approved will be handed to the FDA, USDA and other groups to administer that already admit to having limited staff to administer what is in place today.

Although I applaud our new President for his quick and focused action on food safety, what consumers can not afford to have is another horse created by another committee. I would like to see the following from the executive branch to be carried out within ninety to one hundred and twenty days.

1. A deadline for the launch of the committee.
2. Initial goals to be handed to the committee not designed by the committee.
3. A fixed size of the committee.
4. A deadline for the delivery of committee findings and recommendations.
5. A deadline for committee recommendations.
6. A deadline line for implementation of the committees recommendations

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Is this subject area the next focal point of mismanagement after the government is finished with the Banking system?

According to President Obama he is creating a special advisory group to co-ordinate food safety laws and recommend how to update them. The President made these comments during the announcement of Dr. Margaret Hamburg as the head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The president also mentioned that there are too many groups responsible for food safety and that the FDA did not have enough money or workers to conduct the annual inspections they are required to perform.

Although this author supports any activity that drives quality improvement to food safety guidelines; the question is how can a new advisory group help, and who will be held accountable? During a safesourcing blog post from last summer titled The Food and Drug Administration fills 1300 Positions I applauded the effort of adding these positions during a continuing down turn in the economic climate. Now the government is claiming that the FDA is still understaffed and we have suffered the second largest food born illness outbreak in the last three decades since these positions were filled. So, what the heck are the 1300 new hires doing?

What we do not need is another committee to suggest changes that go to Congress which will create another committee and send their recommendations to the Senate where another committee will be created which will drive legislation that if and when approved will be handed to the FDA, USDA and other groups to administer that already admit to having limited staff to administer what is in place today.

Although I applaud our new President for his quick and focused action on food safety, what consumers can not afford to have is another horse created by another committee. I would like to see the following from the executive branch to be carried out within ninety to one hundred and twenty days.

1. A deadline for the launch of the committee.
2. Initial goals to be handed to the committee not designed by the committee.
3. A fixed size of the committee.
4. A deadline for the delivery of committee findings and recommendations.
5. A deadline for committee recommendations.
6. A deadline line for implementation of the committees recommendations

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Do expensive spend analysis tools achieve the primary objective of e-negotiation tools which is to reduce costs immediately.

Simply put, spend analysis is designed to provide companies detailed information about the entire companies purchasing data.

At the surface this seems to be pretty simple. In fact it is anything but. If we just look at the retail space, spend analysis relies on data from a number of disparate systems. Most retail organizations to this day do not have a single source of information or an enterprise data warehouse where data is available in one location for use by many applications. In mid tier retailers this is almost universal.

In fact in many retail organizations the following systems would require access in order to gain all spend data necessary for analysis by advanced real time analytics and workflow management systems.

1. Retail ERPS Systems
2. Retail Planning Systems
3. Merchandise Management Systems
4. Supply Chain Management and Execution Systems
5. Store Operation Systems
6. Corporate Administration systems

Certainly, if access to this data is available benefits such as instant access to information and better decision making are certain benefits that can be derived from these types of solutions.

The question for most however is how much time is required to conduct this integration. Would retailers be required to create another data repository and is a data mart of this sort really required to drive savings to the bottom line the shortest amount of time?

For many organizations, there are e-negotiation solution providers that offer these same analytics in the form of a professional service that is embedded in their event pricing. This may result in a more expeditious time to market and savings that can impact the organizations bottom line in the present reporting period.

All solutions do not fit all industries and there are generally alternatives worth exploring that may fit your needs more closely at a more economical price point.

We appreciate and look forward to your comments

Should suppliers be interested in participating in an e-negotiation process when contacted by a solution provider on behalf of a potential new client?

This authors company places a great deal of value in our Supplier Database which consists of over 300,000 suppliers located around the world in countries like Mexico, Canada, The United States, China Korea and Japan. It may in fact be our most important asset. We believe that well thought out next generation e-negotiation tools can provide significant benefits to both buyers and suppliers whether they are hosting or participating in e-negotiation events.

A few benefits that should drive supplier interest when being asked to participate in e-negotiation events hosted by SafeSourcing are:

1. Easy to use e-negotiation tools limited to a single page view where suppliers can be completely comfortable that their company?s best foot is being put forward to the soliciting company.

2. An increase in new business opportunities through engagements they would otherwise not be exposed to.

3. Clean accurate data relative to the soliciting company and an accurate listing of their event guidelines, specifications, terms, conditions and other information necessary to build an accurate and successful pricing strategy.

4. Best practice training in event participation and strategy development.

5. A clear focus as to what?s important beyond pricing in next generation e-negotiation data such as supplier safety certifications, traceability and environmental practices that can differentiate them from other participating suppliers.

6. Instantaneous reporting of results of the specific e-negotiation event a supplier participates in as well as a detailed supplier feedback questionnaire report.

7. Significant time savings that reduces costs associated with new business development.

8. Industry pricing trends extrapolated from their view of low quote information during the event if allowed by the soliciting company.

9. Use of these tools for their own price compression needs.

We appreciate and look forward to your comments.

Definitions of complexity are often tied to the concept of a set of parts or elements which have relationships among them differentiated from relationships with other elements outside the relational regime.

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 generic drugs in the retail space or raw materials used to manufacture components that require special handling, shipping and standards adherence.

This author would suggest that any event including multiple line items each 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…

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 supplier needs to have an understanding of the specific market place and practices and processes in place that allow these activities t bring complex events to market in the shortest period of time. Generally this should occur within less than two weeks from event notification to event completion.

In a two part post from October of 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

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.

Well obviously in the procurement space internal collaboration would only seem to make common sense, but according to an Aberdeen Research Brief from April of 2008 titled Print and the (Collaborative) Revolution, that?s not always the case.

Collaboration with other internal departments is very critical for successful procurement strategies as it puts more spend available to suppliers resulting in potentially greater savings. Additionally, continuous process improvement strategies or sustainment initiatives may add additional savings that are commonly neglected in procurement ROI?s. According to Aberdeen, companies that collaborate save an average of 42% more than companies that do not.

Although this brief refers to the print category specifically, the process offered can easily be applied to all categories and for those companies that are creative, to the same categories at non competing companies. A huge opportunity in the retail space is for smaller companies to combine their purchase volumes in order to drive higher savings. This same process has been used for years buy wholesalers and collective buyers that buy in volume from manufacturers, store the products, and ship on demand to the retailers they support. The question this begs is; do these volume based savings always make it to the independent retailer?

An example might be in the area of supplies. The category might be plastic or paper bags or both. All companies use them, and often they are of different quality. A potential scenario might be that Company “A” a 10 store independent, and company ?B? a 5 store independent whose market areas do not overlap combine their purchases. This offers a larger volume to suppliers that may not have considered the geographic area of one or the other of these companies. Additional work may be done by your e-procurement provider to find suppliers that can source both paper and plastic bags. This may not have been considered in the past, and may offer another opportunity for increased savings based on the combined higher volumes.

Under certain market conditions it may not be possible for both companies to save significantly. In fact the benefit may end up being a better product for the same price, which can increase customer satisfaction and retention.

Make sure your e-procurement provider offers tools that allow for aggregating purchase and collaborating internally and externally. Also make sure they have an adequate source of supply and can search it by category to enable these types of events. You may find a few dollars in savings that were not available to you in the past.

We appreciate and look forward to your comments.

While traveling recently a passenger in the seat next to I asked what I was reading. We?ve all known for a while that our seat partners look over our shoulders to see who we are and what we do. I told him I was reading an Aberdeen business brief and who and what they do. I went on to explain that I owned my own company and that it was focused on e-procurement tools for the retail supply chain. He introduced himself as a private business owner with his two brothers and that he had experience biding in reverse auctions with Ariba and Free Markets.

After we discussed SafeSourcing?s offerings we came around to what made events successful for his company in the past as a supplier and what would encourage them to participate again even if they did not happen to be the low bidder. His take was that this was initially an educational process for their company and ultimately would become a way to do old things in a new way, but suggested the following. Openly communicate with the supplier and make sure they understand everything and are comfortable with it. Make sure they have no questions.

We have discussed before that having a significant source of new suppliers wanting to participate is a key to creating a sustainable process. It often surprises me that there are companies and suppliers that have never heard of this process or only have casual knowledge of it. So the initial supplier contact is an enormous opportunity for either success or failure and as such requires careful thought. At Safesourcing we have a specific practice for this area that is broken down into the following steps.

1. Initial Supplier Contact
2. Introduction
3. What to say once you reach the proper contact:
4. Who is SafeSourcing?
5. What is a Reverse Auction?
6. SafeSourcing?s Role in the Reverse Auction:
7. Benefits to the Supplier
8. Other Information

The detail behind this information needs to be presented professionally and concisely. A sample of some of the of the questions that will require explanation are:
1. Does the supplier understand that there is no cost to them to participate?
2. Do they understand they will be trained at know charge?
3. Do they understand event timing and requirements?
4. Does the supplier understand the terms being used and how they apply to a reverse auction event such as?

At the heart of it, it comes down to something we all know but don?t always practice which is open and honest communication. With out which negatively impacts the sustainability of processes that just make good sense.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

With the economy in shambles and retailers results terrible, now is the best time for retailers to use SaaS oriented e-negotiation tools to drive down costs immediately.

During the last several years, we have seen a revolution in technology for the supply chain?why is it important for retailers to address their spending more aggressively now while the economy is in shambles.

The answer may be so simple that it is getting over looked by the executive suite. An immediate and significant reduction in cost of goods can save jobs, reduce prices for consumers and shore up sagging bottom lines. These benefits can be measured immediately have a positive impact on results in the current quarter.

Regardless of the economy, Cost of Goods or COGS is really the last large area that retailers can focus on to drive significant cost out of their business immediately. I know that everyone in graduate school comes out thinking that the best place to cut costs is in personnel, but in this case they are wrong.

During the last two decades, initiatives around customers in the form of CRM programs, Efficient Consumer Response initiatives, and large scale data warehouses for decision support have been implemented. In the same time there has been no appreciable improvement the bottom line for many retailers. Today SaaS oriented low cost e-procurement solutions are available that can be implemented almost immediately at almost no cost to improve the effectiveness of buyers by offering them a broader universe of supplier choices over a shorter period of time, without the need to conduct detailed research, and as such makes their job easier.

We can also immediately calculate the dollar and percentage return on investment at the conclusion of an e-procurement event so the ROI in many cases is instantaneous and with historical saving of greater than 15% is many times 10X or greater. Since these are direct savings versus budget or approved capital expenditure, the dollars drop directly to the bottom line and can easily be converted to basis points of improvement that are factual. This author is not aware of any other application focus area that can make this claim.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.