Archive for the ‘B2b Supply Chain’ Category

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Thanksgiving and Black Friday is really a story of a supply chain found and developed!

Friday, November 24th, 2023

 

Todays post is by Ronald D. Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc.

Happy Thanksgiving Weekend from SafeSourcing

One hundred and two pilgrims and crew arrived in Massachusetts after a 3,000 mile trip from England on the Mayflower. It is safe to say that as a result of that distance there was no existing supply chain to leverage, so one had to be developed and quickly. This began with basic hunting and gathering and later included trading with the areas indigenous peoples known as the Wampanoag’s for corn, seed and foraging and planting techniques.

The Thanksgiving holiday we celebrate today really stems from the feast held in the autumn of 1621. Since the pilgrims had only arrived on November 21st of 1620 they had really not been there long enough to develop a fully reliable and renewable supply source. They had however established collaborative relationships with the local Wampanoag people who became regular trading partners and who helped them celebrate the colony’s first successful harvest.

The most detailed description of the “First Thanksgiving” comes from Edward Winslow from A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, in 1621:”Our harvest  being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors.

The fowl referred to above certainly could have included a wide range of fowl that was plentiful in the area such as wild turkey, pheasant, goose, duck, and partridge and unfortunately by today’s standards even eagles.

The pilgrims probably didn’t have pies or much of anything sweet at the harvest feast because they did not yet have ovens. They had brought some sugar with them on the Mayflower but by the time of the first Thanksgiving, the supply had probably run out.

Their meals also included many different types of meats. Vegetable dishes, one of the staples of today’s Thanksgiving, didn’t really play a large part in the feast. Other items that may have been on the menu certainly included sea food such as clams and lobster, Indian corn, wild fruits and nuts, meats such as venison and seal and certain dry herbs and spices.

The Thanksgiving meal that has today become a national holiday is a symbol of supply chain cooperation and interaction between English colonists and Native Americans.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Happy Thanksgiving.

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Bankruptcy is not fake news, and you might be next if you don’t pay attention.

Thursday, November 9th, 2023

 

Today’s post is by Ron Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing.

I read an article today on TheStreet.com by Kirk O’Neil titled Beloved fast-food chain files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Quite frankly it took a while to figure out what chain the article was referring to because it spent a lot of the article talking about the problems Rite Aide is having who also filed for Chapter 11. Then it went on to talk about  a furniture company that had to close 27 stores in 14 states and ultimately had to file for Chapter 7 liquidation.

The article did finally mention a restaurant chain that had to file for chapter 11 because sales have not recovered from the Covid Pandemic. How often have we heard this?

The fact is the fast-food sector of the retail is suffering, the model has changed quite a bit. How often do you go inside your favorite location to order your food (it is faster). Most of the takeaway or to go traffic is done through the drive-up windows. I’m pretty sure we are going to start seeing them again in the c-store space as they continue to try and capitalize on fresh food offerings, some of which have become outstanding. Even food service distributors are shifting their attention to the c-store vertical as a new source of business.

So, what’s the point? There is a lot of pain in all retail, it’s a war for the customers reduced spending. Thank the FED, The current Democrat Administration, and the Banks for that. However, where there is pain there is opportunity. If you look for it, it may just save some jobs or pay for that new self-checkout because you can’t find enough staff  for the shift work in 24-hour operations.

If you ask, you can find lower prices on just about everything. Capital Projects, Cost of Goods and Expense. Here’s the thing, you are understaffed for the job you have to do. There are other projects that the company will never get to.  You don’t have the time to do it yourself. That’s where SafeSourcing comes in. We know the categories as well or better than you do. We know where all of the suppliers are and have relationships with them, that you do not.

If you wan to reduce costs, I mean really reduce them so you can afford to do other things, Contact SafeSourcing. We guarantee our work, and our ROI is often greater than 10X and immediate.

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All of you Retailers are paying way more than you should be for just about everything.

Tuesday, November 7th, 2023

 

Today’s post is by Ron Southard CEO and Chief Money Saver at SafeSourcing Inc.

The pandemic scared everyone. The retail industry had moved largely toward single source supply chain initiatives. The last two years has not really seen much movement away from that. The result is that retailers are paying way too much for everything. As a good cop in this equation, I try to keep customers and prospects informed as to market movement on as many commodities, supplies and services as I can. It’s pretty easy, because I can actually look back at what retailers were paying two to four years ago and I can compare it to what other retailers are paying now. The best I can do with that information is share it in a nonspecific way. Example: Two Years ago, you paid X for Y. Last week another customer ended up paying X for the same Y. They are paying less than you are.

My reaction to the above would be, tell me more and tell me how soon we can fix it. In fact, SafeSourcing has reduced its costs on everything we do including interest rates on all types of debt. We can do the same for you.

I know planning for the future and worrying about what to do about shrinking labor pools or lack of shift workers or how to attract more customers away from one format (fast food to C-Store) to yours is all top of mind, but many a fine MBA professor has told their students ITS ABOUT THE MONEY. What are the two most important things to a retailer? People (customers) and Money (cashflow/profit).

I can help you get there sooner rather than later.  Or maybe you’re just waiting to be bought out or get fired.

SafeSourcing is a Procure to Pay SaaS based Managed Services provider of a number of e-Procurement solutions and associated white glove services that are part of our SaaS offered SafeSourceIt™ eSourcing suite . Our average annual savings against all categories are in excess of 24%. Think about what those numbers would do to your bottom line whether they are from cost of goods or expense. Protect your precious headcount because it is the right thing to do,

For more information, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Services Associate.

 

 

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Best Practices to ensure that you have a sufficient supplier community for your eRFX process.

Tuesday, September 26th, 2023

 

Todays post is from Ron Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc.

Suppliers can be broken into multiple categories such as Manufacturers, Wholesalers, Distributors, jobbers etc.  SafeSourcing maintains a robust database called the SafeSourceIt™ Supplier Database that consists of greater than 427,000 global suppliers. While this is our primary research facility for identifying suppliers that participate in our eRFX events, we also use other sources such as the Thomas Register, Alibaba, and a variety of Search Engine tools.

While it would be ideal for manufacturers, growers etc. to be the primary participant in an RFP or RFQ, for the most part these companies determine how and to whom they want to take their products to market. In many cases, Manufacturers refuse to go to market directly and often direct us to use their distributors. Quite often they will recommend a couple of distributors because distributors typically have value added services that they want to provide and may bid the base products differently even if they are receiving similar volume discounts. In some cases, there may only be a couple of manufacturers of a particular product. An example in the C-store space is spill bucket liners and drain plugs where historically there were only two manufacturers.

Once we have compiled and reviewed a list of suppliers internally for a category, we review it with our customers who may from time to time have the name of a supplier we are not aware of. Although that is rare. Upon approval from our customers we then send invitations out to the suppliers and await acceptance over a pre-determined period. After that time has expired, SafeSourcing will reach out to all suppliers whether they have accepted or not and encourage all suppliers to participate. We are well practiced at this methodology and do not accept no as an answer. Our team regularly goes through training as to handling objections from suppliers to convince them to participate.

Historically the average number of suppliers participating in eRFX events has been between 5 and 7. That is over many years with categories like hotels or temporary labor that included 100’s of participants. We quite often will have to invite more than the 5-7 average to get that many to accept. Ultimately it is up to the suppliers if they want to bid on our customers business.

Obviously, the number of suppliers we end up inviting, convincing to participate, training, answering questions and hosting increases SafeSourcing’s workload as the numbers grow. As such we have always charged a second event when the number of actual participants reaches 10 or exceeds twenty-line items.

While one may think that the larger the number of participants involved, the better the results will be, that is not actually the case. The spill bucket and drain plug category mentioned above, we have achieved 19.7 percent savings with just two participants and have hosted events with just one participant. Suppliers do not know how many others are bidding in any given event and that is part of the process for them not to know.

While customers may challenge participation from time to time, rest assured that SafeSourcing is continually driving to get as many participants involved as possible.

If you’d like to learn more about working with SafeSourcing, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services associate. Make sure to ask about our risk free trial program.

 

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What is the benefit of a ranked reverse auction?

Thursday, June 29th, 2023

 

Today’s post is by Ronald D. Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc

A tool that can be effective when running a reverse auction is called ranking. While this feature is not used all the time, it can be of strategic importance when trying to get to the best net landed cost for products that have very slim margins at the supplier level. The feature can be set up to let all suppliers know where they rank or a select number of suppliers like the top five (5). The feature can also be turned on for a specific time during the auction like in the last 5 minutes. As an example, you might have tight bidding for a particular commodity-based product. Only the low bid vendor knows that they are indeed the low bid and resultingly is not entering any more price adjustments. If ranking is deployed, vendors can find out if they are 2nd or 3rd etc. and this may entice them to try one more or make multiple more entries if their desire to win the business is strong enough. This is particularly true if the bidding activity has been robust to a point with the low-price indicator switching back and forth between multiple vendors.

It is the deep understanding of markets along with the use of tools like ranking amongst others that are included in strategy reviews with our customers that allows SafeSourcing to regularly exceed customer expectations across all spend areas. Our average annual savings against all categories are more than 24% beyond what you can negotiate on your own.

SafeSourcing is a Procure to Pay SaaS based provider of a number of e-Procurement solutions and associated white glove services that are part of our SaaS offered SafeSourceIt™ eSourcing suite.

For more information, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Services Associate.

 

 

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You can still improve gross margin and net earnings substantially in this market.

Monday, June 26th, 2023

 

Today’s post is by Ronald D. Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc

Example: Prove me wrong if you think you can!

Assume a $150M Retail Company with industry earnings of just one percent or $1.5M. Additionally cost of goods for this company is 70 percent or $105M. Let’s also assume this company were to only source ten percent of their for-resale COGS or above the gross margin line spend or roughly $11M. With below industry average savings of only ten percent, total savings generated would be $1.1M which is a direct impact to net profitability. If all other segments of the P&L perform to plan and all savings are recovered during the same business calendar year net profitability would increase to $2.6M or a 73% improvement.

NO BS Here! If you don’t believe me, I will be glad to personally sit down with your CEO or CFO and Finance team and prove it to you! Imagine what else you could do to earnings if you also attacked your Expense in the same way.

Companies can begin with SafeSourcing almost immediately (SaaS/Cloud offering) with no risk (Cost Neutral Pilots) and no IT involvement at all, why don’t more companies use eProcurement tools. That’s a great question! Probably because they are embarrassed to not already be getting these results.

If this author were you, I just could not ignore this type of opportunity. If you’d like to learn more, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Services Account Manager. Or me.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

 

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Why don’t you use Reverse Auctions?

Friday, June 23rd, 2023

 

Today’s post is by Ronald D. Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc

 Understanding a Reverse Auction according to Investopedia

In a reverse auction, the buyer puts up a request for a required good or service. Sellers then place bids for the amount they are willing to be paid for the good or service, with the winner being the seller prepared to accept the lowest amount.

Reverse auctions gained popularity with the emergence of internet-based online auction tools that enabled multiple sellers to connect with a buyer on a real-time basis. Today, reverse auctions are used by large corporations and government entities as a competitive procurement method for raw materials, supplies, and services like accounting and customer service.

Here’s a real simple truth! If you are not using this tool, you are paying way more than you might think. And your team cannot get anywhere near the pricing that reverse auctions generate. I watched a large company yesterday reduce the cost of any office supply category by 31% beyond what they negotiated.

You can view my comments from an earlier post titled Just what do we mean by eProcurement White Glove Services that supports why our savings average over 24% better than what companies can do on their own most of the time.

SafeSourcing is a Procure to Pay SaaS based provider of a number of e-Procurement solutions and associated white glove services that are part of our SaaS offered SafeSourceIt™ eSourcing suite. That includes our SafeSourceIt™ Global Supplier Database  that includes over 557,000 vendor/suppliers.

To learn more, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services associate.

 

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Specifications?

Wednesday, June 21st, 2023

 

Today’s post is by Margaret Stewart, Director of HR and Administration at SafeSourcing

We all buy things, and we generally look for the best deal we can get, but how do you know you are getting the right thing? Recently a friend tried out a new shopping website and found a great deal on a car jack. This is something that we could all use if we do our own maintenance on cars or just want to be prepared if we need to change a tire. This particular site offered what seem like a reasonable price, much less than you usually see, but not low enough to trigger red flags. So, the car jack was purchased, and they awaited its arrival.

A few weeks later when it arrived, this car jack was approximately three inches high. This was some sort of tiny model of a car jack, and well above the price something like this would seemingly go for. After double checking the website and reviewing the details, this car jack was indeed just three inches high and through some creative photography, no one would be the wiser that it wasn’t full size unless you read the specifications.

There is an important lesson here. You must read specifications carefully to know that what you are purchasing is the right product. This will help you get what you need, but also help you to compare and understand any differences within that category of product. Sometimes by reading about what you think you need; do you discover you may in fact need something else.

This idea goes for sourcing as well. When looking for a product or service, your specifications should be clear and detailed, because otherwise you might get a miniature car jack that only works for small model cars. A procurement partner, like SafeSourcing, can help you come up with the right specifications for the product or service you need and also help to find those that would be a good fit in providing that service of product.

For more information on what the SafeSourcing team can offer you, or on our Risk-Free trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service representative. We have an entire team ready to assist you today.

 

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Knowing Who Your Suppliers Are – Onsite Visits – Part I of II

Thursday, May 4th, 2023

 

Todays post is from our SafeSourcing Archives

One of the important practices recognized by many successful procurement professionals is that of performing onsite visits to both their new and incumbent suppliers.  So much can be learned about how your suppliers do business that may affect your future decisions and contracts.

Today’s blog will be focusing on visits to domestic suppliers and Part II will have more details on visiting your international suppliers.

If you are dealing with a new supplier and scheduling an onsite visit, this is the opportunity for you to validate all of the details they have presented in their RFP/RFI response or presentation; validating that they have the staff, resources and facilities to handle the demand you are requiring of them.

This will be an opportunity to meet the sales and support team that will be assisting you and your company when the inevitable problem does occur, so take advantage of this time to get acquainted with the supplier’s staff.

If you are dealing with an incumbent supplier, make sure you have thoroughly reviewed your existing contract so that details about the level of service and quality promised can be focused on as part of the visit.  Make sure that you request, in advance, any additional reporting from your IT department or from the supplier on the history of the relationship so far.  This would include quality issues, shipping issues, product delays, inventory availability or any other special circumstance that may have occurred.  This visit will be the right time for you discuss these with the supplier face-to-face.

A final very important area to spend time in your visit, whether new or existing supplier, is the shipping area.  Here you will have a very clear idea of how the supplier is organized and you may even get a glimpse at the companies they get their raw materials from as well as other customers they are shipping too for future reference and follow-up.  Information found in this area will also go a long way when having contract negotiations with your incumbent suppliers for concessions on how your products and deliveries are handled.

Onsite visits are critical to understanding who you suppliers are and can be extremely valuable negotiation checkpoints.  My next blog will focus on the differences and things to consider when visiting international suppliers.

If you are interested in locating potential new sources of supply, please contact SafeSourcing.  The SafeSourceIt™ Supplier Database contains 457,000 globally.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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Knowing Who Your Suppliers Are – Onsite Visits – Part II of II

Friday, March 24th, 2023

 

Yesterday we posted  about the importance of onsite visits with your suppliers, how to prepare, what to look for, and the value of performing these visits.  This week we will be taking a look at some of the additional things that you need to think about when visiting a supplier in another country.

Visits to international sites will need to encompass the same types of information gathering as a domestic one such as reviewing the cleanliness of the facilities, observing production, logistic and storage processes, but there 3 important areas that must be considered in addition to these that may determine the success or failure of the visit.

Language – Assuming you are visiting a supplier that is not located in a predominantly English-speaking country, the capability to communicate onsite is an important one that should be addressed well in advance of the visit.  Many times the supplier will have staff that is fluent in more than language and can act as an interpreter, however procuring your own interpreter is also a suggestion and possibility. Also, some basic considerations of your own communication style would be to speak more slowly than usual and pause in between sentences to be understood more easily.

Culture – This is an important area to prepare for because in some countries seemingly minor things can create a tense atmosphere.  Determining whether to bow and the details surrounding when and how, if the country shakes hands when they greet and which hand they shake with are all important items in some countries and should be learned prior to your visit.  On the other hand, it is equally important to note the things that are normally unaccepted behaviors in the U.S. which many times are not viewed the same way in other countries.  Americans would generally never answer a phone call in a meeting or show up to an appointment late, but in other countries these behaviors are far less important and frequently occur during the course of doing business.

Capturing the details – Visits to international suppliers generally come with a price tag that is not insignificant to your company, so capturing as much data as possible is important on these visits.  Wherever you go during your visit take a notepad and camera with you to record what you see and hear while on the visit.  Many manufacturers will allow you to take occasional pictures as long as you ask in advance and have it cleared.  Some may not allow it and others may allow it as long as no employees are included in the pictures.  Capturing these details will be very useful to you and your team in the future and can potentially save trips for other employees in the future.

Onsite visits to your suppliers are incredibly valuable and important to your organization and are a terrific tool for knowing who your suppliers are and how they do business.  They are also important forums to gather details necessary for later contract negotiations.

If you are interested in locating potential new sources of supply, please contact SafeSourcing.  The SafeSourceIt™ Supplier Database contains 457,000 globally.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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