Archive for the ‘B2b Supply Chain’ Category

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The pilgrims also ate a lot of seafood during their Thanksgiving festival.

Thursday, November 22nd, 2012

I was watching television report lat night about the safety of gulf seafood as a result of the BP oil spill from last year. Don’t worry, most of our seafood comes from elsewhere.

Do you ever wonder where the sea and lake food that you eat comes from and whether or not it is safe to eat? Are the seafood buyers at your local grocery or restaurant concerned for you?

Almost three years ago during my first post I promised that The SafeSourcing Blog would call attention to and comment on safety concerns within the global supply chain that may impact your customers, employees, families and other stake holders. I’m sure like me; many of you have been impacted by safety inconsistencies in our supply chain. Personally I have had issues like this impact me, members of my family and my pets.

I recently was watching a little snippet from YouTube attributed to ABC News about the origin and quality or lack there of regarding seafood we consume. As a kid growing up on the east coast near Cape Cod I kind of always assumed that all fish was fresh fish from our Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf waters. Well today, more than 80% of our seafood comes from foreign countries such as Thailand, Indonesia, China and Costa Rica to name a few. Of this, only 1% is tested by the FDA and most of it fails inspection because it includes chemicals, poisons, antibiotics and other additives and is even in some cases farmed in unsanitary conditions. The primary reason for the import to locally fished discrepancy is as you might suspect; price.

This author would hope that all seafood and lake food buyers for our restaurant and grocery chains would ask their suppliers a few of simple questions.
 
1. Where is the seafood you are selling us coming from?
2. Where will the incoming shipments be tested before you deliver it to us?
3. Is it safe for our consumers to eat this fish?

If the answer is not to your liking and documented, don’t buy it. Your consumers will thank you.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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Are you keeping track of all of the new supplier invitees from your e-RFX initiatives?

Wednesday, October 10th, 2012

So how would you go about keeping track of these suppliers, or finding new ones if you had to?

Do you have to be a student of the database industry to understand what may be available to you without having to do a lot of work? At the end of the day a database is just a list albeit a sophisticated list with lots of tables and joins and other database features that allow for the combination and use of data.

As an example, when looking to build a retail supplier database there is certain information you require in order for the data to be believable. UDDI (Yu-di) is an open industry initiative, sponsored by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), enabling businesses to publish service listings and discover each other and define how the services or software applications interact over the Internet. These service listings can take a number of different forms such as business registrations, for UDDI they are in the following formats.

  1. White Pages — address, contact, and known identifiers;
  2. Yellow Pages — industrial categorizations based on standard taxonomies;
  3. Green Pages — technical information about services exposed by the business.

Combining these data which is readily available from a variety of sources provides a great start. From there the challenge to add other attributes that are important to you such as certifications, sic codes, detailed company descriptions, sales figures, products carried, experience, ratings etc.

This author has always believed that reinventing the wheel is a misguided way to accomplish development initiatives and with all of the open source available on the market today and the cost of IT talent as high as it is we have to explore these alternatives to core development if time to market is a critical success factor.

So there you have it, my thinking and process for building our database. The next question is how we keep it fresh an updated. And that my friends are a trade secret.

So, unless you feel you have the time, energy or resources to do something similar, why not reach out to SafeSourcing and let us provide you access to our SafeSourceIt™ Database or find suppliers for you that may be right in your own back yard and you don’t even know about..

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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Should you join a Group Purchasing Organization (GPO)?

Tuesday, July 17th, 2012

According to Wikipedia a group purchasing organization (or GPO) is an entity that is created to leverage the purchasing power of a group of businesses to obtain discounts from vendors based on the collective buying power of the GPO members.

When is a company a GPO and when are they something else? Many organizations take on procurement functionality based on the spend of their members. They can be industry wholesalers, share groups, consortiums, distributors and a variety of other types of organizations. They may take on all procurement opportunities or specific opportunities like energy. GPO’s can be vertically focused or horizontally focused. They can also be horizontally focused within an industry vertical. An example might be a wholesale grocer that is focused on a retail industry vertical like supermarkets.

The question is should you join one or many? Maybe you shouldn’t join any. The only way to answer the question is to understand your own organization in terms of its strengths and weaknesses relative to the products or services categories you hope to source. As an example; if you are just buying from a wholesalers price book, it’s a good bet you are not getting the best price. It’s also a good bet that other members of the same wholesaler are getting a better price and they may be smaller than you. However you may also have a huge energy spend and this is something that your product wholesaler can’t help you with. As such, there may be a specific GPO for energy that can offer some expertise.

This author believes that your best bet is to focus on a procurement company that is horizontally focused with specific expertise in a number of verticals such as health care, retail, distribution, financial services etc. I have often seen these companies significantly out perform GPO’s by a significant amount as the overall overlap of expertise across multiple industries suggests a level of creativity that GPO’s may not have.

Ultimately understanding what your company’s limitations are as well as the opportunities that are available to you is a first and important step. After that, it’s who can do the most for you with the least disruption across the broadest area of spend.

SafeSourcing is such a company. Please contact us if you would like further information on how to improve your bottom line in the present quarter risk free.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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STOP! Do not call the seller! Research, research, research your options!

Monday, July 2nd, 2012

Today’s post is by Heather A. Powell, Account Manager at SafeSourcing.

Dear Buyer,

This is your 30 day notice that your annual contract is coming up, let’s discuss how we can extend your current contract…

Sincerely,

The Seller

STOP! Do not call the seller! Research, research, research your options!

Do not procrastinate to the point you are struggling whether or not to stick with your current supplier or search for a new supplier.  Give yourself time to research your alternatives. If you know a contract is going to expire within 60 or 90 days, start your research NOW! There is no harm in learning as much to know as possible about your product and your company’s annual needs for that product.

Maybe your current supplier does have the best price in town, maybe not…. If you could save 5, 10, 15, even 20% or more on your current product why would you stick with your current supplier, and why not explore your options with a new supplier who can give you better savings, maybe better service, with a better product? Are you lost and not sure which way to look? Are you unsure of where to start or who to talk too? You don’t have enough time to start the process or do the research you know needs to be done? Let SafeSourcing be your guide and source to getting you the answers you need, even if you did procrastinate and have 30 days left. We can do all of this for you and your company from research of the product, to research of the suppliers, to follow through of hosting an RFQ to get your company the best possible savings and value of your product.

Don’t become the King or Queen of Procrastination! For more information about how we can assist with sourcing your needs for your company, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative. 

We look forward to your comments.

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Vending machines are not going away and they aren?t just for candy and soda anymore!

Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

Today?s post is by Lauren Gentry; Account Manager at SafeSourcing.?

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, ?Restocking the Old Vending Machine with Live Bait and Prescription Pills,? the vending machine industry has taken a complete turn.? ?Traditional vending machines disappeared from 134,000 locations between 2007 and 2010.? Not to mention that ?sales from vending machines sank more than 11%, to $42.2 billion in the same period.?

The vending machine industry has to either find a change in product or customer in order to continue to be profitable at all.? A change in product is exactly what has happened.? Vending machines are now found with things such as live bait, over the counter medications, rental videos, and high tech gadgets. ?Machines, like Coinstar Inc.?s Redboxes, are smart enough to rent DVDs.? At airports, vending machines with headphones and electronics are now common.?? The industry has made an obvious change in product sold in order to stay relevant.? There are several indicators as to why the industry has shifted; fuel and food costs increasing are the leading indicators.

So, how do these companies source the content for these more current versions of a historical format? Not much has really changed there. Or, maybe it has and you should take a look at SaaS based cloud offerings that also do similar things in very different ways.

With changes and innovation taking place in a commodity industry such as vending machines, how will your company adjust to a shift in your industry? And will there be a difference in how you control your costs?

For more information on SafeSourcing and how we can assist you while transitioning your company to new delivery models and its related cost centers, please contact a SafeSourcing?Customer Service Representative for more information.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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Vending machines are not going away and they aren’t just for candy and soda anymore!

Tuesday, March 27th, 2012

Today’s post is by Lauren Gentry; Account Manager at SafeSourcing. 

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, “Restocking the Old Vending Machine with Live Bait and Prescription Pills,” the vending machine industry has taken a complete turn.  “Traditional vending machines disappeared from 134,000 locations between 2007 and 2010.” Not to mention that “sales from vending machines sank more than 11%, to $42.2 billion in the same period.”

The vending machine industry has to either find a change in product or customer in order to continue to be profitable at all.  A change in product is exactly what has happened.  Vending machines are now found with things such as live bait, over the counter medications, rental videos, and high tech gadgets. “Machines, like Coinstar Inc.’s Redboxes, are smart enough to rent DVDs.  At airports, vending machines with headphones and electronics are now common.”  The industry has made an obvious change in product sold in order to stay relevant.  There are several indicators as to why the industry has shifted; fuel and food costs increasing are the leading indicators.

So, how do these companies source the content for these more current versions of a historical format? Not much has really changed there. Or, maybe it has and you should take a look at SaaS based cloud offerings that also do similar things in very different ways.

With changes and innovation taking place in a commodity industry such as vending machines, how will your company adjust to a shift in your industry? And will there be a difference in how you control your costs?

For more information on SafeSourcing and how we can assist you while transitioning your company to new delivery models and its related cost centers, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative for more information.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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Why do people from over 30 countries visit our site every day?

Friday, March 23rd, 2012

Our customers are saving millions and our web traffic supports it.

Give us a call if your indirect or direct spend is to high on any product or service.

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Gingrich says he can get gas to $2.50 a gallon! Do you believe him?

Wednesday, March 21st, 2012

One thing is for sure; if you don?t ask you will never know.

There are a lot of factors that drive prices, if that was not true, why can I drive 5 miles from my house and pay twenty cents less per gallon than right around the corner. Why is gas cheaper in Boston than it is in Scottsdale? Why do eggs cost less at the local inner city convenience store than they do at the local chain that won?t come in to the inner city and buys from the same wholesaler? There are a lot of answers to these questions; many of which consumers would not like.

Many companies think that because commodity indices are up that they should not even bother to try and compress pricing.

This is the precise reason why some companies are profitable and others are not. Just because the commodities that are the basis for products we buy are up, is no reason to not try and compress pricing through the use of e-negotiation tools or other more traditional methods. With that said e-negotiation tools will make the process much easier and insure compression in a much shorter period of time.

Whether or not a retailer is willing to share savings with consumers when using these programs is a whole other discussion and could be a reflection on some of their other? program offerings they have not been successful.

There is a lot that goes in to the products companies buy and maybe even more in the prices they pay. Two things are certain. There will always be suppliers that want to bid on your business. There will always be suppliers that are willing to invest to get your business. This dynamic is what will allow you to compress prices in an up market.

Understanding everything about what you re buying and what drives its pricing and using the proper tools to leverage the supply base can and will result in price savings even in an up market.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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Don’t let moving your products from point A to point B be a “freightening” experience.

Tuesday, March 13th, 2012

It really does not matter what type of company you meet with, the question as to how you would source their freight always comes up.

Freight impacts all companies, the challenge is to understand the not so upfront costs and where they’re embedded. Whether you are shipping directly to your customer’s distribution centers with your own fleet, using a 3PL or just sourcing your freight lanes, the issues impacting the cost of freight are the same. If you understand how to unbundle them you will have a much better chance of controlling these costs going forward. It is not as simple as the price of diesel is rising and as a result so is the cost of moving freight.  However following trends does offer some insight as to what the industry is doing in general.

A site that I visit regularly is DAT® TransCore® Trendlines. This site which is updated all of the time that allows you to follow periodic Freight Rates, Fuel and Credit Trends. This at least allows you to measure your contract rates and the escalators and de-escalators associated with them versus up to date industry data relative to the long term and spot market capacity for flatbeds, refers, vans etc. Armed with this information which you can link to your procurement dashboard you can begin to decipher where your costs are relative to the rest of the industry and how to break them out in order to drive your costs down.

Just remember that the more you know the better you can negotiate. If you’re interested in sourcing your transportation rates, please reach out to a customer services representative at SafeSourcing.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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Don?t let moving your products from point A to point B be a ?freightening? experience.

Tuesday, March 13th, 2012

It really does not matter what type of company you meet with, the question as to how you would source their freight always comes up.

Freight impacts all companies, the challenge is to understand the not so upfront costs and where they?re embedded. Whether you are shipping directly to your customer?s distribution centers with your own fleet, using a 3PL or just sourcing your freight lanes, the issues impacting the cost of freight are the same. If you understand how to unbundle them you will have a much better chance of controlling these costs going forward. It is not as simple as the price of diesel is rising and as a result so is the cost of moving freight.? However following trends does offer some insight as to what the industry is doing in general.

A site that I visit regularly is DAT? TransCore? Trendlines. This site which is updated all of the time that allows you to follow periodic Freight Rates, Fuel and Credit Trends. This at least allows you to measure your contract rates and the escalators and de-escalators associated with them versus up to date industry data relative to the long term and spot market capacity for flatbeds, refers, vans etc. Armed with this information which you can link to your procurement dashboard you can begin to decipher where your costs are relative to the rest of the industry and how to break them out in order to drive your costs down.

Just remember that the more you know the better you can negotiate. If you?re interested in sourcing your transportation rates, please reach out to a customer services representative at SafeSourcing.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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