Today’s post was written 12 years ago by Ron Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing.

Most if not all of this is still relevant.

Companies with a few customers and companies with thousands of customers are often looking at the same types of issues. The process and the results are very similar regardless of scale and as such require the same careful focus to drive targeted results. If we were to white board what should be included in our procurement goals many of the following areas would be included.

1. Lower costs
2. Consistent and improved quality
3. Products that guarantee safety for your customers
4. Smooth transition to new supplier relationships
5. Quality product specifications
6. Unlimited new sources of supply
7. Well thought out internal and external collaboration and aggregation
8. Support for environmentally focused products
9. Support of CSR Initiatives.
10. Evaluation of low-cost technology solutions
11. Joining and collaborating with share groups or GPO’s
12. Review of Incumbent suppliers
13. E-Sourcing or e-procurement training.
14. Existing procurement tool evaluation
15. Existing contracts evaluation
16. Detailed spend visibility and evaluation
17. Off or Near Shore sourcing opportunities
18. Sourcing and Supply Chain Knowledge transfer
19. For resale sustainable practices review
20. Perfecting The expense category

As your organization develops their list similar to the one above, prioritization and elimination sessions will lead you to a best few focus areas from which you can refine your e-procurement goals for 2023.

Please use the above guidelines as a framework for your thinking. Remember that simple goals written down are the most achievable.

We appreciate and look forward to your comments

Today’ s post is by David Wenig; Senior Vice President of Sales and Services at SafeSourcing.

As we get ready to welcome in a new year, we often speak of our resolutions. Personally, the resolutions that we make are likely to include exercise more, become more environmentally conscious or lose weight. The same concept of resolutions should take hold in your procurement department. Take the New Year as a challenge to drive new initiatives that will reduce spend in a sustainable manner.

If our first resolution was to exercise more, we could also apply that to procurement. That is to say that we could take more steps toward efficient and effective procurement. You may focus your RFI, RFP and RFQ efforts on initiatives that have been deemed the most significant based on spend or some other factor, but what about all of the other initiatives that go unnoticed? How many of these smaller spends are allowed to continue year after year while your focus is on these larger spends? Make a plan to include more of your contracts and share that plan with your strategic sourcing partner.

If you were to say, “I want to lose some weight this year”, couldn’t you also say, “I want to reduce my spend this year?” Just like it is for a body, exercise will lead to weight loss. Stay on track with your procurement plan and you will see the spend dollars drop. Increasing your company’s strategic sourcing initiatives to involve all projects will have a significant impact on reducing your overall spend.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Today’s Christmas Eve post from a former associate is from our  SafeSourcing, Inc Archives

As with most children being curious, my 7  year old niece and I were baking cookies last weekend when she said, “Aunt Heather, what do you do for a living? Mommy is a nurse and Daddy is a policeman. What do you do?”

Well, I said, thinking quickly of how to explain what a project manager does in the e-procurement world at SafeSourcing, “I help Santa with getting toys for presents and delivering them to all the children around the world.”
She said, “Aunt Heather, you’re silly! Santa has elves that make the presents, and Santa has reindeer help his pull the sleigh to deliver the presents!”

“Oh Alli, I have to tell you a secret, but you have to promise not to tell a soul what I tell you, ok?” She agrees.

Santa needs help lots and lots of help. Yes, his elves make the homemade toys, but toys like Furbies and Barbie’s have to be made somewhere else and delivered to the North Pole to be wrapped.

With big eyes, she says, “ooohhhh. That makes sense. Elves are mostly boys and boys don’t know anything about Barbies!”

So then I tell her, that Santa comes to me with his list of toys and how many he needs, and it is my job to make sure he buys them all much cheaper than what he can buy them for at the store. In fact, it is my job to make sure all the companies that make and sell the toys compete against each other to make sure Santa gets the best price for them.

“Wow!” she said, you have an important job helping Santa!

I said yes, but that isn’t all I do for Santa. She said really? I said, yes, I help him deliver the presents too. She said, how?

I said that Santa does use his sleigh and reindeer for most of the night, but the reindeer do get tired. So we help Santa by hiring a charter jet to cross the ocean with the presents and reindeer. Saving him money by having the airlines compete against each other to get lower pricing for Santa. This way the reindeer get to rest and Santa can get to the other side of the world much faster.

Also Santa pre-ships the presents to parts of the world to keep the weight down on the sleigh. So we help him with semi-trucks picking up the presents and taking them to all areas of the globe waiting for Santa to pick them up to deliver them to all the boys and girls. I explain to her that this is called transportation logistics. I told her that, like the people who make and sell toys, we ask the trucking companies to compete against each other lowering their prices for gas (fuel rates was too hard to explain to her), and mileage.

My, oh so smart niece, says, “Santa really has a big job to do in one night. He is so lucky he has you to help him!!”

So I ask her, do you understand what I do now?

She said,” yes, you help Santa buy toys and you help him fly across the ocean in an air plane, and you help him ship presents across the world to be picked up and delivered all in one night, AND you save him lots of money!”

So if SafeSourcing can help save Christmas, what can you do to help save you money in your business?

If you’d like to learn more about how SafeSourcing can help energize your self-service program, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services representative.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.