Archive for the ‘Business Sourcing’ Category

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Collaborative Procurement: No Need to Wait to Buy

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011

Collaborative purchasing and co-op enterprises are concepts that are not new to the business world. 

For decades manufacturers, retailers and consumers have organized associations that allow their members to take advantage of lower pricing than they could normally get on their own due to the increase in the overall purchase amounts made by the collective group.

While this is a great advantage for smaller businesses and retailers, many companies think this is the only way to take advantage of this type of spend. 
Many businesses think that the amount of inventory they want to purchase is just too small to think about purchasing like this and so they wait for a period of time until they think they can justify the amount, all the while losing out on money they could have saved on the product they are currently purchasing.

Luckily for these companies, neither of these situations has to be true for them.   We are conducting regularly scheduled collaborative events, weekly, and are just waiting for these companies to join.  As with any collaborative spend, the more participants involved the better the savings will be and the bigger the opportunity for the suppliers involved.

We are routinely saving customers 10-20% on spends they had previously thought were too small for any type of reverse auction due to the fact we were able to include them in one of these collaborative events.

Call a SafeSourcing Customer Service representative today to see if any of your upcoming spends have associated collaborative events scheduled for the month of March.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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Ready for Valentine’s Day? What about the other 364 days of the year?

Monday, February 14th, 2011

Today hundreds of thousands of people will be out in force going to malls, grocery stores, jewelry stores and flower stores looking for that item in the 11th hour that they will likely pay too much for in order to show someone how much they value them.

It sounds crazy but this same craziness is exhibited all over the world in the purchasing departments of companies who pay a premium for inventory after a contract expiration date has passed, keep incumbent vendors even though they are getting overcharged because it is easier and waste perfectly good excess inventory just because they have no plan for how to control it.
Like spreading the effort of St. Valentine’s Day over 365 days instead of just one, what if companies began to put the plans in place to help them source smarter and safer?

What if companies began leveraging reverse auction tools and services that allowed for the review of the BEST vendor instead of settling for an incumbent because they think it will take too long to find another vendor?
What if companies employed contract management tools that would allow them to be alerted by email so that they never miss important contract dates?

What if companies used a 3rd party to help them move their excess inventory instead of wasting it?

They may find that they end up asking themselves why they weren’t doing it all along!

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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It?s crazy blog Friday! Tell me again why our price on plastic bags is going up.

Friday, February 4th, 2011

Because the price increases relating to plastic bags is based on a Non-Renewable Resource which is oil.

Some plastics are produced from oil feedstocks.? And some resins use natural gas feed stocks.? So if what you make the product from goes up in price the finished product must go up in price.

For those of you that remember Professor Irwin Corey I offer the following explanation of what a non renewable resource like oil is or in fact is not if in fact it actually is renewable.

So according to a variety of sources such as Wikipedia and the SafeSourcing Wiki, a non-renewable resource is a natural resource that cannot be renewed through production on an effective scale. However with that said there is the theory of a biogenic fuel which hypothesizes that petroleum was formed from deep carbon deposits, perhaps dating to the formation of the Earth. In the case of the former the resources are either consumed too quickly to be naturally replenished or only exist in a fixed amount. In the case of the later, the biogenic hypothesis suggests that a great deal more petroleum exists on our planet and maybe others like Pluto or Uranus than commonly thought.

So, is what I think I said what you thought you heard? We?ll leave that up to the good professor.

Enjoy your weekend.

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It’s crazy blog Friday! Tell me again why our price on plastic bags is going up.

Friday, February 4th, 2011

Because the price increases relating to plastic bags is based on a Non-Renewable Resource which is oil.

Some plastics are produced from oil feedstocks.  And some resins use natural gas feed stocks.  So if what you make the product from goes up in price the finished product must go up in price.

For those of you that remember Professor Irwin Corey I offer the following explanation of what a non renewable resource like oil is or in fact is not if in fact it actually is renewable.

So according to a variety of sources such as Wikipedia and the SafeSourcing Wiki, a non-renewable resource is a natural resource that cannot be renewed through production on an effective scale. However with that said there is the theory of a biogenic fuel which hypothesizes that petroleum was formed from deep carbon deposits, perhaps dating to the formation of the Earth. In the case of the former the resources are either consumed too quickly to be naturally replenished or only exist in a fixed amount. In the case of the later, the biogenic hypothesis suggests that a great deal more petroleum exists on our planet and maybe others like Pluto or Uranus than commonly thought.

So, is what I think I said what you thought you heard? We’ll leave that up to the good professor.

Enjoy your weekend.

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Your strategic sourcing plan should already be completed.

Monday, January 3rd, 2011

One example of the above might be to augment the manual processes that many? sourcing professionals use today in order to find new sources of supply interested in bidding for their business rather than continuing to live with the same small, known group of suppliers they have used for years. Historically this has been a very time consuming practice that results in few if any new sources of supply. This represents a great opportunity to deploy a tactic that can have an immediate impact for an organization without the need for the implementation of a complete new sourcing strategy.

There is a specific process to follow that will encourage new sources of supply to want to bid for a companies business beyond just being invited. Simply having your buyer assigned the task of picking up the phone and calling new sources of supply will not result in new suppliers agreeing to bid for your business. There are specific objections to overcome and questions to answer that require a specific skill set.? This is a perfect opportunity for Software as a Service providers that offer supplier research. Skilled providers in this area can provide companies with as many as a half dozen or more willing new sources of supply in as little as thirty minutes? that may in fact reside within a companies existing marketing? area.

Sourcing tactics can be isolated procurement related actions or events that take advantage of opportunities offered by the gaps within strategic plans such as lack of new sources of supply mentioned above.? So our tactic here would be to find additional sources of supply that we can invite to compete for a companies business in a variety of categories. The fact is that additional sources of supply competing for a companies business results in compressed pricing and often better quality products.

We appreciate and look forward to your comments.

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Merry Christmas to all of you.

Saturday, December 25th, 2010

On the twelfth day of Christmas our e-procurement service provider gave to us, a sustainable e-procurement process and improved corporate net earnings.

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My supplier tells me the cost of paper is going up; what should I do?

Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010

The question this begs, is the statement true? The answer is more complicated than just saying the cost of pulp is going up or down because there area variety of pulps and the same pulp is not used for making copy or print quality paper as is made for making paper grocery bags or paper wraps. The type of pulp used for making copy or print quality paper is hardwood pulp. Hardwood fibers are suited for producing smooth papers for printing and writing. They also can achieve good stiffness and bulking ability, but this depends on the tree species and refining conditions.

The trick with the above scenario is that depending on the tracts lumber companies are harvesting there may or may not be a robust availability or supply of hardwood pulp at any given time. And as such we enter the entire supply versus demand equation.

So is it possible to conduct your own research to qualify the statements of your supplier? It is depending on how far you want to go in doing what commodity traders do every day of the week in order to time their investment with market movement.

CME Group is a good site that would allow you to follow futures on a variety of products. The following link will take you to the hardwood pulp futures market which at the moment is trending down.

Let information be your friend, and if you don’t have time call your e-procurement solutions provider.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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Scottsdale Arizona?s SafeSourcing Inc. releases outstanding Q3 2010 results.

Monday, November 8th, 2010

Despite the continuing economic condition SafeSourcing Inc. reported significant 3rd quarter 2010 revenue growth of 42.45% versus the same period of 2009.Safesourcing has also continued to significantly grow its customer base with wins across all retail verticals as well as other new industries. SafeSourcing also recorded significant net income for the same period.

According to Ron Southard SafeSourcing CEO, We continue to honor the commitment we made to the retail market when we launched this company of being able to address all spends regardless of size. During 2010 we have sourced products for companies with 1000?s of stores and for companies with only a single location. SafeSourcing has run hundreds of millions of dollars through our system this year for all RFX types and provided new sources of supply, a focus on companies CSR inititives and significant savings across all categories. Southard continued by saying that they could not be more pleased with the faith that their customers have placed in SafeSourcing during a very challenging economic climate.

To learn more about SafeSourcing please visit our website www.safesourcing.com.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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Scottsdale Arizona’s SafeSourcing Inc. releases outstanding Q3 2010 results.

Monday, November 8th, 2010

Despite the continuing economic condition SafeSourcing Inc. reported significant 3rd quarter 2010 revenue growth of 42.45% versus the same period of 2009.Safesourcing has also continued to significantly grow its customer base with wins across all retail verticals as well as other new industries. SafeSourcing also recorded significant net income for the same period.

According to Ron Southard SafeSourcing CEO, We continue to honor the commitment we made to the retail market when we launched this company of being able to address all spends regardless of size. During 2010 we have sourced products for companies with 1000’s of stores and for companies with only a single location. SafeSourcing has run hundreds of millions of dollars through our system this year for all RFX types and provided new sources of supply, a focus on companies CSR inititives and significant savings across all categories. Southard continued by saying that they could not be more pleased with the faith that their customers have placed in SafeSourcing during a very challenging economic climate.

To learn more about SafeSourcing please visit our website www.safesourcing.com.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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Are you anti Social Networks? Be careful how you define yourself.

Tuesday, October 26th, 2010

For those of you that do not think that social networks have a place in the business world or in procurement in general, just remember that they are the tool of choice of the younger generations. That would be those that are coming after those of us with a few with more than a few years of experience. By the way, that includes the use of these tools in their work lives.

The blogosphere is crowed with any number of opinions on any number of subjects. As a medium it has evolved from on line dictionaries in the early to mid 1990?s. Blogs are a form of Social Media just as Wiki?s are. Forums have been around for thousands of years, it is only natural that as technology evolved to include more people that offerings such as Facebook would evolve to include many of these tool types. It is only a matter of time before the evolve to help us solve complex problems in all areas of life and that include procurement.

If you visit the SafeSourcing Sourcebook? and become a member you can host forums on anything you wish to learn about in the procurement space and post that forum to thousands of other members. It may be something as simple as a question like this. Can anyone tell me how they are presently planning to source paper products based on the rumors of an up pulp market? How might you plan on mitigating price increases?

Job specific social communities are not the way of the future, they are here today. Visit Sourcebook? and create your forum.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments

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