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

A few months ago Gartner, a leading research firm, unveiled that once again mobile technology will lead the way for companies, from an IT perspective, as their focus in 2013. With so much emphasis on this area and the fact that new smart phones continue to be released with processing power that is catching up with corporate America’s laptops, we will focus today on how your company can begin to leverage this technology for returns that will hit your bottom-line.

Expense Tracking – One of the biggest expenses a company can have is travel expenses because they hit at several different levels. There is the obvious level of the expense itself but there is also the expense that comes when there are not good controls in place and the process gets abused and there is also the expense required to manage the collection, submission and reporting of those expenses by your staff. That is why many companies have to turned to apps like Expensify which allow employees to track everything they do through electronic versions of receipts and statements or with the phone camera to take a .PDF before the employee ever gets back to the office. Companies like Runzheimer are also developing mobile apps for their customers that automatically track mileage using the GPS component of smart phones saving the employee time and improving the accuracy of what needs to be paid.

Virtual Office – There are so many times when meetings must be delayed due to a critical person not being in a place where they can use their laptop to join a webinar. These delays cost money and can lead to bigger issues down the road when milestones get missed. Cisco and other companies like them have created applications for smartphones that now allow companies to get the content of the webinar straight to their smartphone allowing them to participate wherever they are. Along the same lines, companies are using tools like Dropbox and Teamviewer to provide their employees remote access to their desktops and files from their phone allowing them to be more efficient and responsive.

Data Analysis – The first major thing most business smartphone users wanted once they had access to the rest of the internet was access to the data that is useful to them. Many companies are moving to provide their users with access to data that has been captured through their applications. Companies like Roambi are providing business intelligence overlay to data that produces reports, graphs and extra analysis for data their customers already own in a format that is easy to use from a smartphone. Having access to this data outside of the office can allow executives and other employees to make decisions quicker and react to data as it happens in real-time.

Custom Fit – The fourth area that companies will be looking at, is developing their own custom applications for their organization to be used internally and potentially by their own customers and vendors. Real-time order viewing, shipping status, and other updates are just some of the many ways companies will be looking to leverage the smartphone app explosion in 2013.

For assistance on helping you with your mobile app strategy or too learn more about the 2013 SafeSourcing mobile applications, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.

We look forward to your comments.

Today’s post is from Steve Schwerin an account manager at SafeSourcing

It can be easy to focus on only innovations directly related to your company’s main line of business.  After all, isn’t that what you have most control over?  Without a doubt, the key to staying in business is focusing on what you add to the space you occupy in the supply chain.  Have you thought about how Negotiated Sourcing Strategies can open opportunities for savings that come from innovations in other locations along your supply chain?

What does this look like?  As is the case with your company, your suppliers have core competencies on which they are focusing; as with your company, they also have input costs.  Part of becoming better and better at their business is being able to do more with less leading to lower per-unit-costs.  At the same time, changes in their input prices can lead to the same result.  Both of these are the results of your suppliers working on their own profitability and/or benefiting from trends within a sector or even broader macro economic events.  Both of these can also result in lower input prices for your company.  Will they? 

The difficulty in getting these cost reductions passed on to your company is that it is in your suppliers’ interests to keep the cost reductions quiet.  While process improvements might be invisible to you on the outside, lower costs of your suppliers’ inputs, such as a drop in commodity prices, and are things you can keep tabs on through pricing indexes.  Here is where eSourcing can be of use.  Through eRFX strategies including reverse auctions, suppliers are motivated to reveal these price savings and pass them on to you.  While a drop in the level of a commodity index might be an indication of which products or areas to target, without the internet and innovations in sourcing itself savings in other parts of the supply chain would remain invisible.  As suppliers compete for your business, your costs decrease and your bottom line increases. 

staying with your current suppliers bring these savings into your company?  Why not be proactive?  Chances are that if there is pricing leeway within an industry, your suppliers are experiencing it along with their competitors.  Has one company discovered some as yet unknown competitive advantage?  Find out by inviting a basket of suppliers to compete for your business.  While suppliers might not volunteer to hand over some of the savings they are realizing, we all win when lower prices and increased quality are passed on to the end user. 

Let us help you.  For more information on how eRFX tools can help you access savings currently being realized in different areas of your supply chain, please contact your SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.

We look forward to your comments.