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

Especially in today’s world, you should be paying attention to this. If not, you’ll be glad to know that SafeSourcing does.

The Inventory Management Program and Control Technique (IMPACT) is a way to maintain the stock keeping items at desired levels, whether they be raw materials, goods in progress, or finished goods.

Inventory Management and Control is a scientific method of determining-

1. What to purchase
2. When to purchase
3. How much to be kept as stock for a given period

Efficient inventory management and control means, never falling short of anything, never overstocking of anything and never dispatching too many small orders too often.

The SafeSourcing Wiki is an excellent source of information and educational content for procurement professionals and organizations. Better than that, its free to use. Even better than that, if your company is  looking for education delivery programs and certifications, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Services Associate to discuss our programs.

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

The following is an excerpt from my White Paper Titled Re-Imagining Procurement

Procurement is based on data. It is not based on CPO’s, Category Managers, Buyers, Suppliers, or any titled person with some measure of spend authority or approval. It is based on data. It has always been and will always be. If you do not have data and you do not know where to get data, then your procurement process will be faulty, your pursuit of results lengthy, and less than what they should be. Your company will also be at significant risk. Data can provide the leverage to differentiate you from your competitors and dramatically better results. It was Archimedes who said, “Give me a fulcrum strong enough and a lever long enough and single handedly I can move the world.” Let your data work for you. However, beware that you are going to have to know where to get it and how to interpret it

Data:

Let us talk a little bit about data. For the purposes of this whitepaper, I will restrict data to three areas. However, they are particularly critical areas because without all three, no matter what tools you use or how many resources you deploy or how big your company is, you will end up paying more, experience less quality and suffer shaky less sustainable supplier relationships. The data that are important as we reimagine procurement should not be a secret to anyone. It is the information you always are looking for but cannot often find. These are the three pillars of great procurement results. Tools are only as good as the data they rely on.

SafeSourcing is a data rich company built to support procurement professionals. Included on our website are several million words in the form of white papers, a sourcing wiki, a specifications library, a daily blog focused on procurement and a supplier database including a query tool that allows you to search global sources of supply. There are many more tools and data sets that are here to make your life easier.

Check back tomorrow to learn more about the types of data I discussed in the whitepaper.

If you’d like to discuss the use of our data with a SafeSourcing customer services associate, please click here.

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

I love to read, it is an opportunity to gain experience, an opportunity to escape and opportunity to prepare and adjust and so much more.

Early on, I read a lot of self-improvement books as well as success stories of everyone from Donald Trump to Teddy Roosevelt. One speaker/author/motivator I liked a lot was Charlie “Tremendous “Jones. One of his best quotes ever was as follows.  “You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” “Leaders are readers.”  This statement help shape who I am today.

I historically read mostly motivational and or work-related content. Later, I shifted to all types of novels with a variety of like suspense thrillers. I always seem to have a couple of books going at the same time on variety of technologies that are available today as well as the tried a true manually turn the page while relaxing in my reading room. And if you are feeling lazy, in today’s world you can even listen to audio content.

I have reinforced reading for job improvement in every management position I have ever held. If you continue to read and research in your chosen and related fields, no one will ever question your expertise.

If you’d like to read any of our procurement related white papers, or our procurement related wiki, please contact SafeSourcing.

Today’s post is from our archives at SafeSourcing

People can be unpredictable. Its part of what keeps life interesting. But when a project gets thrown a curveball by someone who missed a deadline, overlooked a requirement, or is just plain uncooperative, the complexities that emerge are not typically the kind of “interesting” we want to experience. Michael Porter and Henry Mintzberg were the originators of the concepts of Deliberate vs Emergent strategy more than 25 years ago, and their views are still relevant today. We can account for most of the variables rational players bring to the table, but human beings aren’t always rational, and therefore not always predictable. This is why a balance between deliberate and emergent strategies must be achieved for any project.

The aspects of your project that should be deliberate are things like financial goals, timeframes, logistical requirements, etc. High level criteria for success often do not change and should be deliberate, pre-planned, and static. When our expectations regarding the execution of this strategy collide with reality in a way that will not resolve without adaptation, our ability to develop emergent strategy is essential.

No two procurement projects have to be run the same, and in fact usually should not be. Often times the optimal strategy for achieving pre-determined goals will not be known until some insight has been gained about the supplier base; how many suppliers are capable of providing the product/service? What is the geographical availability of capacity? Is pricing market regulated? What service level guarantees are available? Is the market experiencing price increases/supply shortages? These variables should influence our strategy for execution, by changing things like baseline pricing, terms and conditions, SOW’s, and freight considerations.

Some managers believe that any form of adaptation is a weakness of strategy. It isn’t. The old way of thinking about strategy is to assume all outcomes can be known and predicted. That’s why most of the Fortune 500 Companies that existed 50 years ago don’t exist anymore. They believed their position to be a product of previous strategy that should never be changed. The companies that have thrived over the years have continuously adapted, reinventing themselves over and over again to stay relevant, and capable of exceeding their customer’s expectations.

For more information on how SafeSourcing can assist your team with this process or on our “Risk Free” trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.  We have an entire customer services team waiting to assist you today.

We look forward to your comments.

Today’s post is by Dave Wenig, Senior Vice President of Sales and Services at  SafeSourcing Inc.

Usually when we start talking to someone about eProcurement, they think of commodity items like copy paper or other somewhat boring examples of what they think you can source with a reverse auction. Do not get me wrong, if you are buying copy paper for your enterprise, there is no better way to get a better price than to use an online bidding event like a reverse auction. You will be glad you did.

What is often underestimated is just how many different areas within your spend you can use this process. Here is a first look at a couple of examples of how we have taken that to new heights.

I would bet that when you think of SafeSourcing and eProcurement, you probably do not think of aviation. Yet our services have been successfully employed to get deep discounts on our customers’ aviation needs. Sure, we have managed travel services and booking, but that is not really that interesting.

Believe it or not (believe it, it is true) we’ve separately sourced both jet fuel discounts and chartered jet services. So, whether your company manages its own fleet of jets, or you find it more economical to go the chartered route, we are proud to report that we can get you a really great discount on either using our eProcurement tools.

The point is that SafeSourcing’s services should not be limited to mere supply categories. We do so much more than that. Check back in the future for part 2 and I will share more examples of some out of the ordinary sourcing activities.

For more information on how SafeSourcing can help your procurement efforts, or on our Risk

Free trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.  We have an entire team ready to assist you today.

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

Depending on who you talk to, most executives responsible for procurement will tell you the road ahead for procurement is either going to be difficult for a while longer or a whole lot longer. The reality is there are a bevy of challenges putting pressure on the markets for nearly all goods and services and it will take a while for enough of that pressure to be relieved to see a measurable improvement. If you are in the procurement space, that sure sounds like life giving you lemons.

It has been this way for a while though, so there is no sense on dwelling on the challenges. It is better to face the challenges head on. The best procurement teams and most savvy executives will – like always – find a way to make lemonade.

Much has been said already about the constant price increases we are all seeing. You cannot read the news or watch TV without seeing or hearing about the prices of everything going up. But it is not all about price. Sure, price is an important piece of procurement, but price is not everything. Price is merely a symptom. Right now, what is more important is ensuring that you will be able to receive the products or services you need on time or even at all.

Not too long ago, this was a given. You order products and the products arrive. You contract for services and the services are rendered.

With this shift of importance, the ability for a strong procurement team to source what they need becomes a competitive advantage. The construction company that cannot source their windows is one who cannot open a new office building. The ever-growing importance of a robust database of qualified vendors and the ability to source and negotiate well in times like this can be the difference between failure and success. Sourcing activities now require even more attention and resources to complete. More complex negotiations are commonplace just to achieve normal results. The stakes are much higher for procurement than the cost reduction goals of the past.

Yes, you have been handed lemons. Make sure your team realizes that now is exactly the right time to make lemonade and that this can be done well.

You have the ability to do this too. Do not keep accepting cost increases and wishing you could create cost reductions. Contact SafeSourcing with your procurement needs and we can help.  If you would like more information on how SafeSourcing can help your procurement efforts, or on our Risk Free trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.  We have an entire team ready to assist you today.