Archive for the ‘E-procurement’ Category

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What should our category savings be?

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

The answer is that it depends on the industry, company or vertical within an industry as well as who you are asking and what you will actually be measuring. There are dozens of procurement focused websites that speak to or quote category savings.

The reason the answer depends on who you ask is that to begin with every company defines their categories differently. Yes there is similarity across industries in areas like fleet maintenance or currier services. However when we look at the retail landscape and an example like bottled water, thinks get a little murky. Is bottled water really a category or is it a sub category of beverages which is a sub category of grocery. If it is a true category, your buyer or category manager should be able to provide you with pricing, margin and any related cost that shrinks the later.  So, the first question that needs to be answered is…are you looking for true category savings or are you looking for specific product savings. The products savings are good, but don’t get the product to your shelf.  The next question one might ask is, are you asking for actual realized savings or are you asking for savings that are hi-lited at the end of an e-procurement event? If you are asking for true realized savings, there are a multitude issues that need to be discussed.  If the successful supplier is your incumbent, then the savings may actually be closer to those viewed during the e-procurement event; however, reality indicates that a large number of incumbents do not end up as the low quote.  If the supplier is not the incumbent, there are actually quite a few elements that result in true savings that have to be considered.  By in large, they can be included in a bucket referred to switching costs. To begin with the supplier that you may have just awarded business to may not be an authorized vendor in your data base. As such, the IT department and or the finance department are needed to add them to your database. A new contract may also be required with a company that you have not done business with before. This requires the involvement of your legal department and may, in fact,  add delays to the process that require you to order additional product from your existing supplier at potentially higher prices than awarded during the e-procurement event.  If products are being delivered to a distribution center, slotting requirements are needed and pick lists require updating in order for the product to be available when ordered by individual store locations.

All of the above assumes that your buyers know where to find additional suppliers in order to make the event competitive in the first place. Should they go to other wholesalers, manufacturers, distributors, other vertical suppliers that don’t traditionally supply your vertical?

Now, let’s go back to the actual e-procurement event for a minute. At the end of the e-procurement event when business was awarded were the savings the same as displayed during the event? Did the e-procurement event just provide you with high level savings made up of all low quotes; or, if business was awarded to multiple suppliers ,were savings calculated in that manner?  Were funds, if included in the winning bid, included in the savings and treated the same way that your company treats them from an accounting perspective? Were distribution charges and other uplifted costs removed or bid on separately?  Are pre-event historical savings a result of how companies awarded business; or are you being quoted a historical average of all low quotes run through a system even though business was not actually awarded that way and savings may not have been realized?

In order to actually answer the questioned posed in this post, the real answer is that I need to ask you some questions and depending on your answers I can give you a range of savings based on the size of your total spend and dependant on other market influences such as fuel costs and other related commodity costs.

So, what can you expect for category savings in an e-procurement event? The answer is it depends.

We look forward to your comments.

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We plan to launch a procurement department. Now What?

Thursday, December 1st, 2011

The following twenty bullet points are certainly not a complete list, but are areas that should be considered for any supply chain re-structuring including what is needed to drive success. These points should help frame your thought process and get you headed in the right direction.

1. Request CEO and CFO support.
2. Empower the Department.
3. Structure and staff the department for success. Not just one person.
4. Plan a detailed review of all contracts.
5. Plan a detailed review of all suppliers.?
6. Improve the performance of all suppliers or replace them.
7. Find a way to gain access to additional sources of supply.
8. Improve your view of all spend categories. Technology, Technology,? Technology.
9. Review any off shore and near shore sourcing.
10. Meet with all departments that controlled historical spend.
11. Review all sourcing methods being used by others today.
12. Review all Environmental strategies
13. Review all Product Safety strategies
14. Collect or create a product specification library
15. Conduct detailed category discovery session
16. Review lower cost SaaS oriented solutions that can ramp up quickly.
17. Develop and education plan.
18. Outline a plan of where you will be in 90 days, Six months and a Year.
19. Develop short and long terms goals that support your plan.
20. Build a department that delivers zero incremental cost to the organization.

As you use the above list and grow it, it is important to remember that the job of a procurement management leader is to think outside of the box and educate while looking for innovative ways to do things better, faster and at a lower cost. And to hopefully create an environment that will inspire co-workers while doing that.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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When using e-procurement tools are you just driven by a reduction in price?

Friday, November 4th, 2011

The real question you should be asking is just what makes up total cost to begin with. A good friend of mine who has been a fortune 100 retail CFO helped to crystallize my thinking in this area. As such we look at cost differently today than we did a year ago. So, when we run an RFX event for our customers at SafeSourcing we think of cost in the form of three basic dimensions that cause a different type of thinking during discovery and strategy. They are as follows.

1. Price: This is the unit cost. It is expressed as an amount per unit. Price involves vendor comparison and negotiation.
2. Use: This is the consumption of a product or service. This is driven by the activities or needs. Authorization and control processes are key elements. Without these, you may not derive all of the savings from negotiating price alone
3. Mix: This is the inclusion of similar products or services to achieve a similar result. Company policies support this.

Certainly there are many more aspects to running a successful RFX like making sure the T&C’s are clear and that the process is managed through the award and contract stages. These steps or KPI’s along with the ones mentioned above collectively serve to insure that your strategic sourcing strategy uncovers all of the clues that have or may cause leakage to your sourcing events. They also proved the basis of a scorecard system that can track progress over time

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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Executive Teams, are you thinking through e-procurement self service? Think Again!

Thursday, November 3rd, 2011

Let’s also assume that you want to drive the greatest possible savings across the broadest range of categories in the shortest amount of time, like the next budget period; and have a sustainable process moving forward.

If all of the above is true, you should consider what constitutes developing full service events and whether you have the requisite headcount, specifications, strategy and research skills as well as new sources of supply to conduct the service yourself. Then there is always the question of what tool sets to use.

The question one needs to ask is; what type of event services can an e-procurement provider offer to help us get ready if we did want to do it ourselves? What we are talking about is to be 100% self-sufficient. A provider should offer readily available classroom education that can be conducted on-site in order to train your team in all the nuances of event creation and support. These skills are the foundation that allows e-procurement providers to support large volumes of events in a full service mode, which drive greater savings over the long term. They should be able to provide reference to where they have done it in the past and how much staff the reference needed to add. Ask the reference what their average savings were in year one versus what a full service provider can drive. Remember, knowledge transfer in this area is one thing; the passion, skill and headcount to carry out these practices on a day by day basis are what drive results.

This process is normally provided by people behind the scenes with a very specific skill set. If you plan to do self service it would be very wise to make sure you have them covered at the same quality level.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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Twenty steps to running higher quality e-procurement events.

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

There are rules which if followed that will create higher quality e-procurement events for the companies and their suppliers?

Here are twenty you can begin with and then refine with others that your own team comes up with.

1. Executive sponsorship is mandatory
     a. This is required at the CEO and CFO level
2. Get the entire buying organization together for a kickoff session.
3. Provide a detailed over view of what you are going to do and the financial impact you expect it to have on the company.
4. Determine who your Subject Matter Experts are.
5. Conduct detailed data discovery sessions with all who have spend authority
6. Set specific success criteria.
7. Under stand that every event is not going to be a homerun.
8. Remember that singles and doubles score runs.
9. Create a fun environment.
10. Use scorecards to reinforce results attainment
11. Hand out E-RFX templates to gather existing product specifications.
12. Develop a standard timeline for event completion.
13. Gather an accurate list of your present suppliers.
14. Calendar your categories.
15. Prioritize by dollar value, date and strategic value.
16. Investigate existing contract language.
17. Look for auto renewal (evergreen) language and other roadblocks.
18. Determine alternate sources of supply with your sourcing company.
19. Develop a standard T& C document.
20. Assign an overall project owner
This list simply provides a format for getting started that offers suggestions that will help to create the best opportunity for reduction in cost of goods, expenses and improvement in corporate earnings. Be sure to combine this with a business partner like SafeSourcing that understands your business.
 
We appreciate and look forward to you comments.

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Very complex e-negotiation events are not difficult to host.

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

 

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 MRO or Fleet Maintenance in the distribution space or raw materials used to manufacture components that require special handling, shipping and standards adherence. The amounts of the total spend for an event really has nothing to do with the complexity of the event. The complexity is determined by the data points requiring management in order to drive the best possible value to the buyer and the supplier.

This author would suggest that any event including multiple market baskets, thousands  of  SKU’s all 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. This can be further complicated by trying to determine the correct decile based sourcing strategies for the event and including product affinities where they make sense.

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 e-procurement provider needs to have an understanding of the specific market place and practices and processes in place that allow them to drive these activities and bring complex events to market  in the shortest period of time. Generally this should occur within less than two or three weeks from event notification to event completion.

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
9. Sales People
10. Third Party Providers
11. Collaboration complexity.

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.

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What are some benefits for businesses of reverse auctions?

Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

In today?s highly competitive world, businesses often find difficulty navigating and negotiating? with the savvy and skilled sales person.? This process can be lengthy, and prohibit implementation, quality and monetary gain associated with negotiating new contracts.?

E Procurement tools streamline and automate this process for businesses, often returning surprising ROI?s and returning valuable time to understaffed purchasing departments.? In fact, numbers don?t lie.? Savings of 5-15% from e procurement services can improve profitability by up to 100%.?

ROI, however, is not the only reason to use e-procurement services.? The transparency of data provided to the buyer allows them to streamline their purchasing process both internally and maximize their relationships with potential vendors while also evaluating meaningful trends.?

Based on the above, these types of hosted solutions are undoubtedly amongst the most cost effective and useful tools your business could use.?

If you are interested in learning more about how these tools could benefit your company please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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“What types of companies find procurement services beneficial?”

Monday, August 29th, 2011

If you’re a business owner, large or small, CEO, CFO, or President of a company you should be asking yourself if your company can benefit from procurement services.  Depending on the size of the organization you may or may not be familiar with all the goods and services that your company is purchasing.  This is where procurement services can come into play! 

According to Wikipedia procurement is “the acquisition of good and/or services.  It is favorable that the goods/services are appropriate and that they are procured at the best possible cost to meet the needs of the purchases in terms of quality and quantity, time and location.”

This sourcing professional believes that if a company were to review at least 10% of their annual spend, they would find many opportunities to improve the bottom line.  Below you will see a few of the times that would be most beneficial to take advantage of procurement services.

  1. 1.Reviewing/Resigning a current contract with an incumbent supplier.  –   If you’ve been with the same supplier for the length of multiple   contracts, it’s time to re-evaluate.  You may not be interested in switching vendors, but by taking advantage of procurement tools you will be able to negotiate a better rate for the goods and services that you’re purchasing.
  2. When you start a new task/department within your business. – Every time your business grows or expands is an opportunity to take advantage of procurement tools.  Even if the goods and services that you’ll need to operate this new department are things you’re currently using, the quantity of these items would be a great opportunity to evaluate how much you’re spending to have the goods and services you’re using on a regular basis.
  3. When you are analyzing you upcoming budget – Each year when your company monitors your profit margin and areas within your budget that cause you concern is a great time to evaluate what procurement services would be beneficial for you.  For example, you may find areas of your business that are critical for your end product or service, but you feel that you are spending too large of a percent of your budget to produce such results. 

Just think of all the different areas you bottom line is affected by.  Each of these is an area for potential savings thru the use of procurement tools.  By partnering with a procurement professional, you’ll be able to evaluate more than a few areas of your business where you can start saving for your next purchase or contract for your goods and services.

For more information on SafeSourcing and how we can help you evaluate your savings opportunities, please contact a Customer Service representative.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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When did sustainability become synonymous with the environment?

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

In this case sustainability has less to do with the environment and more to do with process, discipline and execution. Which can also impact green programs focused on  a company’s carbon footprint

According to Wikipedia a simple definition of sustainability, in general terms, is the ability to maintain balance of a certain process or state in any system. It is now most frequently used in connection with biological and human systems. In an ecological context, sustainability can be defined as the ability of an ecosystem to maintain ecological processes, functions, biodiversity and productivity into the future.

Sustainability has become a complex term that can be applied to almost every system on earth.

From a corporate perspective many investors look at sustainability as a framework for disciplined and responsible management, a key success factor in achieving economic gains.  Relative to e-negotiation this means being able to run the same process (events) over and over again quarter after quarter and year after year as the standard way in which  a company endeavors to improve quality, workflow and compress prices. To the extent that this process supports companies social initiatives relative to the environment and humanity new terminologies such as the term triple bottom line are emerging in discussions at the board level.

The Global Sourcing Council tells us that although sustainability has found its permanent place in corporate boardrooms, execution is still a challenging journey. Implementing sustainability in global sourcing operations becomes even more complex as it creates its own unique challenges.

Global service providers that subscribe to sustainable strategies will benefit by gaining competitive, green advantage with the global organizations.

Ask your e-negotiation service provider how they intend to implement a sustainable program for your company.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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Many Mid Tier One and Tier Two retail companies can not afford advanced analytic software! The truth is they also can’t afford to not have it! So what to do?

Friday, August 12th, 2011

Let’s first try to understand what analytics actually is. According to Wikipedia’ a simple definition of analytics is “the science of analysis”. A practical definition, however, would be that analytics is the process of obtaining an optimal or realistic decision based on existing data. Business managers may choose to make decisions based on past experiences or rules of thumb, or there might be other qualitative aspects to decision making; but unless there are data involved in the process, it would not be considered analytics.

So why can’t many companies afford analytics? The answer is because they are complex. In my early days of selling data warehouses with one of the industry leaders, in fact the best in the space today the combination and analysis of data from disparate functional areas of a business were nearly impossible. As such if a company was advanced enough to have this type of information it most likely existed in islands that evolved into departmental data marts like category management systems. These data marts ultimately evolved to complex databases with relational data models that allowed access of data contained in these  disparate systems and then into on line analytical systems capable of managing massive amounts of data .

It’s probably no surprise that the early adopters of these technologies were the biggest of the big companies and governments. So when we get to analytics that support e-procurement systems or procurement systems in general, the systems that provide the analytics have to reside within a company’s corporately supported data model. If not, they initially at least have to have a procurement data model that supports data contained in ERP systems, Financial systems etc. Since the trend is not a backwards direction of recreating islands of information,  pilots of these systems that show significant benefits, will only end up as a corporate roll out through integration within the corporate framework and data model.

I could go on to explain the expense and time associated with these implementations, but there is a reason that these solutions are not readily implemented within lower tier one and tier two retailers. Number one is that many still do not have easily accessible corporate views of data. Number two is the cost; resources and time to implement them are difficult for these companies to justify.

As such there continues to be a need (niche) for providers that understand retail from an operational and financial perspective that know where to look, what to ask for and can assemble, analyze and report on data the old way to support the procurement data requirements of mid tier one and tier two retailers.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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