Today’s post is by Troy Lowe; Vice President of Development at SafeSourcing, Inc.

Amazon recently released its new 2nd generation Fire TV Cube. The Fire TV Cube is a powerful streaming device that is combined with the Amazon Echo. With the built in speaker and eight microphones, you can now control your television with your voice from any direction within the room. For example, you can view a list of movies by simply saying, “Alexa, show me 4K movies.” The device can also control other functionalities such as controlling the television’s power and volume.   The 2nd generation Cube also comes with the Alexa Voice Remote so that you can control your TV and device without talking as well. Using the Fire TV Cube allows you to enjoy streaming from Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube, HBO, SHOWTIME, STARZ and many other streaming services. You can also access some of your favorite websites such as Facebook and Reddit using the browser apps available for download. You can also stream millions of songs and use the voice activation to request your favorite songs, artists and playlists and control playback through services such as Amazon Music, Apple Music, Pandora, iHeartRadio and Spotify. Since the Fire TV Cube has Alexa built in, you can also control smart home devices, check the weather and all of the other features that Alexa has to offer. Below are some other features that are available with the new version of the Fire TV Cube.

1. Hexa-Core Processor
2. 2160p, 1080p and 720p up to 60 fps Video Output
3. Dolby Atmos, 7.1 Surround Sound, 2ch Stereo and HDMI Pass Through up to 5.1 Audio Support
4.  16 GB Storage
5. 2 GB Memory
6. Bluetooth
7. Wi-Fi Connectivity
8. Ethernet Support
9. Listen with compatible Bluetooth Headphones

If you are looking to purchase new streaming device and would like help researching available options, feel free to contact SafeSourcing.   We can gather all the necessary information for you and help you decide which one meets your needs. If you would like more information on how SafeSourcing can help you, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service representative.  We have an entire team ready to assist you today.

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

At SafeSourcing, many of our customers are retailers or provide products and services to retailers. As a result, we stay abreast of the changes that are either happening now or are likely to happen in that industry. We’ve written in the past about the impact of plastic bags and other changes that affect so many including retailers. But how exactly does a retailer make a decision to switch a product and what are the consequences of doing so?

Just like everything in life, change is hard. That’s true if you’re making a personal decision as small as trying a new hairstyle or something as big as deciding to uproot your family and take a chance on a new career. It’s no different when you’re thinking about switching from plastic grocery bags to an alternative.

As a quick note, the following examples are meant to illustrate the challenges, not to endorse or criticize any specific product types.

Circling back to plastic bags, it’s been announced that New York and Connecticut both have bans on plastic bags that will affect many retailers. Sure there are paper bags as a readily available alternative, but it’s not that simple. The legislation there also allows for fees to be charged to retailers for the use of paper bags. So, the retailers have options. They could consider whether they switch to paper and hope that on top of the higher product cost that they don’t also wind up paying fees. They could switch to reusable bag options and hope that the consumers will bear some of the burden of the process change. They can find environmentally friendly compostable bag options. As mentioned, the decision is made much more complex by the end consumers’ varying interests and needs.

Another recent example of change is in foodservice supplies. Surely you’ve seen some foam and plastic containers being replaced by compostable alternatives. One great example is the bowls in which you might receive your burrito bowls. It’s great that we’re able to either divert some waste from the landfills or at least replace the traditional products with a compostable variety that will decompose in a short period of time. The challenge in this case is that there are also potentially negative consequences that we’ll have to accept when we switch from a plastic or foam-based product to a product made from seemingly more eco-conscious products like fiber. The reason is that there doesn’t seem to be a consensus about what the chemicals required to produce these products will do to our environment and our bodies. It turns out that, in order to use the fiber and allow it to hold its shape while wet, we have to use some chemicals which might have negative health and environmental effects. Understandably, this puts a challenge on our customers who are in the position of making these choices. On the one hand, most people seem to understand that certain products are bad for the planet and will stay in the landfills.

One commonality between these two examples is that no matter what we decide to do about the the eco-conscious challenges many companies face, there will be consequences. Some consequences will be good such as a reduction in waste in landfills and an increase in positive public perception. Some consequences will be bad like higher costs for supplies and yet unknown impact on the environment or consumer health. The decision falls to the retailer to make. So, how do they make the decisions?

The answer depends on the retailer. At SafeSourcing, we see our retail customers falling into two main buckets relative to their eco-conscious strategies.

1. Proactively eco-conscious. These retailers are on the bleeding edge of the market and likely have a strategy to become more eco-conscious and are adapting this as part of their branding. These companies are changing over to products that will reduce their impact on the environment sometimes even before legislation requires them to do so and are often paying a premium in supply expenses to do so.
2. Reactively eco-conscious. These retailers do not have a proactive strategy to use   environmentally friendly supply products. Instead, they will likely only change to an eco-conscious alternative if there are specific reasons to do so such as new legislation.

Regardless of which bucket the customer falls into, SafeSourcing has experience guiding the customer through the change. When on the bleeding edge of change, a Request for Proposal (RFP) might be in order to understand the types of products available in the market, the pros and cons or the different options, and the costs involved. That amount of information can help guide a decision where there is no legislation to rely upon and where there may be no references to call upon for review. If the customer is acting reactively, they are often able to rely more directly on SafeSourcing’s experience and leverage our specifications library to pick an alternative product specification that they would like to source. Of course, regardless of which bucket a customer is in or what type of product they need, a reverse auction or RFQ is always the best way to ensure that no matter what you buy, you’re getting it at the best possible price.

We have experience in dealing with all of these factors and approached and more. As time goes on, more and more of SafeSourcing’s customer base is either making the switch to eco-conscious products or considering whether and how they will. We work with both proactively eco-conscious and reactively eco-conscious customers, so no matter which bucket you fall in, we can help.

Contact SafeSourcing, Inc. if you need assistance on your own path to becoming eco-conscious. Change is hard, but it helps if you have someone to guide you.

Source:

Hines, Morgan. “‘Cancer-linked’ chemicals in Chipotle, Sweetgreen packaging? There’s more to know, experts say” USA Today. August, 13 2009.

Today’s post is written by Heather Powell, Director of Major Accounts and Special Projects at SafeSourcing Inc.

Reminder of what proprietary foods are: those which are not standardized under regulations and may contain primary ingredients and some generic additives. For examples, energy drinks and custard powder which contain starch, dextrose, flavor and color. These foods can be made from milk or milk products, from carbohydrates, with or without a basis of milk, from meat, fish, or eggs, from vegetables, fruits, or nuts, and sometimes from fatty substances.1

So why would you expose your proprietary food item to potentially be copied or even the recipe stolen?

You will have the opportunity to grow your business, your bottom line, and depending on how hands on you are with your product will be added time. Some people have the opportunity to take out parts of their proprietary recipe to bid. What are the most expensive items you purchase to make your product? Are there items that have pricing tied to a market index? Do you just go to a wholesale club or foodservice provider for your ingredients?

Looking at your spend and looking at your savings opportunity may open the opportunities for you to engage suppliers in a bid. In many summer salads, mayonnaise is a key ingredient. Do you have a flavor profile preference? Do you prefer a specific brand? Did you know that you can take your specific requirement to bid? Many of the major manufactures of mayonnaise have participated in online request for quotes through SafeSourcing and our clients have received an average of 20% savings from their preferred brand or flavor profile of mayonnaise.

Determine your item(s) you want to take to market and the volume or quantities you will need, be prepared to have the discussion of a 1-year agreement with no price increases versus a 2- year agreement with an index escalator/de-escalator percentage added. You will also need to provide current pricing, purchase history, invoices, or past contracts to your e-procurement company. Where do you store your item(s)? How often is it shipped to your location? Is freight included or added to your pricing? All of these details will make sure your needs, wants, and expectations are met throughout the process.

In the final part, part six of this series, the author will provide the details of why it is important to test and sample the proprietary product before signing that final contract. Meanwhile, SafeSourcing can assist you in exploring your procurement solutions for your proprietary product on our “Risk Free” trial program for RFPs and RFQs, 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.

References:

1. www.quora.com/What-is-proprietary-food

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

For those keeping score at home, this is the fourth installment in the Baseball Season and eProcurement series. In the previous posts in this series, we highlighted some examples of how SafeSourcing customers have achieved and enjoyed hitting singles and doubles in their online Request for Quote (RFQ) Events. A triple is an Event that creates savings between 15% and 19.99%.

In the past, we had reviewed a couple of different examples for each. In today’s post, we’ll focus in on one interesting example of a triple. In future installments of this series, we’ll focus on Home Runs and Grand Slams.

Today’s example is one that many might not think of when they consider eProcurement or reverse auctions. Often, when considering categories for eProcurement, many of our customers first look to indirect spend items with many focused on supplies. While those are great items and reducing the cost of copy paper and other suppliers is fantastic, there are many more opportunities that are often left out of consideration.

One great example of this type of overlooked item is prepared chicken salad. Because this is an item that will vary in style, taste, and quality from supplier to supplier, many of our customers would not consider sourcing their prepared chicken salad using SafeSourcing’s RFx tools to reduce costs. That said, one of our more experienced customers did just that with really incredible results. This customer, a retailer, had a very large annual spend in their chicken salad that they utilize in their foodservice offering. Their savings was an incredible triple that generated a triple with their current supplier and some alternatives. What that meant was that not only could they have gone elsewhere if the samples from the competitor were of the right perceived quality, they could also get that savings from their current supplier and not change a single thing other than the price they pay. That is exactly what any customer would want to happen in this scenario. This proves that even if the item can’t be defined as precisely as a ream of copy paper can, the process and the tools used by SafeSourcing will reduce your costs. This customer knows that’s true and has over $650K in savings to remind them.

By the way, after this particular Event, the incumbent supplier also called SafeSourcing to reduce their costs and they were successful in that as well. So far, that customer has hit a double and a home run.

There are many results like these and there are interesting stories including great savings dollars behind each. In the next entry in this series, things will get pretty exciting as we look at some examples of Home Runs.

Contact SafeSourcing, Inc. if you’re interested in learning more about how RFQ Events can help your company advance the bases and achieve savings.

Today’s post is written by Ivy Ray, Senior Procurement Specialist at SafeSourcing Inc.

While recently reflecting on my time working at NCR Corporation, I wondered what happened to the historic machines that were previously housed in the Dayton, Ohio NCR Headquarters Product Center after the company headquarters was relocated to Georgia. People used to come from all over the world to tour the center. I was relieved to know that the products remain in Dayton and have been placed on display by the Dayton Historical Society at Carillon Park. The historical cash registers produced by NCR (formerly The National Cash Register Company) are not the only lasting impression of the company. Among his many accomplishments and contributions to the business world and to the community, NCR Corporation’s founder, John H. Patterson was a sales pioneer.

Known as the father of American salesmanship, John Patterson revolutionized the sales strategy as the owner of the National Cash Register Company from 1884 until his death in 1922. When Patterson first set out to market his early cash register to retailers, his sales force had the difficult job of selling a relatively expensive product that had no demand. The sales person had to explain to business owners how the machine would prevent internal theft and give an accurate account of the day’s receipts, in order to ensure accountability and preserve profits. One of Patterson’s many known quotes is “If the prospect understood the proposition, he would not have to be sold; he would come to buy.”

John Patterson was determined to overcome this obstacle and set out to develop the company’s sales force by creating an intricate system of management to monitor and train his salesmen. He developed the first sales training school and was the first to utilize massive direct mail solicitations. He held conventions and themed sales contests and created a method of sales management which included the calculation of quotas, commission rates, and territorial sales regions. Patterson initiated a sales script known as the NCR Primer which divided a sale into four steps: approach, proposition, demonstration, and close.

Patterson’s sales techniques had a major impact on the development of modern selling. So many prominent businessmen were trained and fired by Patterson that some business historians regarded experience at NCR as the rough equivalent of an MBA degree. After being fired by Patterson, Thomas Watson Sr. became the President of CTR which was later renamed IBM.

I was the Training Coordinator at the Sugar Camp location in Dayton, Ohio, the grounds of the first sales training school, which is located only a few blocks away from the current SafeSourcing office in Kettering, Ohio. John Patterson literally changed the landscape of Dayton, but he also changed the landscape of business as we know it today. He coined the phrase for his service division, “We cannot afford to have a single dissatisfied customer”.

For more information on how SafeSourcing can assist you in exploring your procurement solutions for your business 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.

References…………………………………………………………………….

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCR_Corporation
2. https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/cash-registers-marry-artistry-and-commerce/2Wbn8qYmWcgeL0x5thGGrO/
3. http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/National_Cash_Register_Company
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_Patterson_(NCR_owner)
5. https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/john-h-patterson-and-the-sales-strategy-of-the-national-cash-register-company-1884-to-1922

Today’s blog is by Margaret Stewart, Director of HR and Administration at SafeSourcing Inc.

You may have noticed while researching topics or just browsing through videos online that there are topics that say “trending”. So, what does that really mean? Like any trend, it is something that is growing in popularity, most likely at a higher rate than normal. Sometimes topics or videos “trend” due to recent media coverage and a large number of people are seeking more information. Sometimes, though, the trending topics seem obscure. Is it possible that “trending” could be based on more than popularity alone?

The short answer is yes. You can, with a certain amount of money, pay to have your video, tweet, or topic show “trending” in certain platforms. The idea behind this is that if your chosen topic trends enough, you will get a larger amount of exposure, thus increasing personal ad revenue, site traffic, and simply gaining a larger audience of potential customers.

While this may seem entirely good, there can adverse effects. Let’s say your topic is trending and many people are exposed to it. What would happen if, say, you have a typo or bad grammar, or even worse – wrong information? Then any positive exposure you had hoped for is likely turned to negative and negative exposure can actually lessen your customer base. With the overwhelming power of social media, someone is able to expose wrongdoings like corruption in civil services or blatant discrimination, yet they can also resurrect a beloved television show or spread positivity of doing good deeds for others. So, being careful about what you present is important. We at SafeSourcing can help with your trending needs or help you achieve the trending goal of cutting costs without sacrificing quality of service.

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 from our SafeSourcing Archives

Nobody hates workplace discipline more than those that are forced into having to dole it out. For management, performing disciplinary tasks are time consuming, awkward, personally taxing, and carry a huge opportunity cost. However, the need for disciplinary action can be reduced by getting ahead of the problem through investment as a preventative measure, and with exponentially better return compared to the alternative.

Most infractions can be reduced to shortcomings in SELF-discipline: Wasting company time, miss-management of schedule, not learning best practices, tardiness, lack of effort, lack of respect, etc. In these common examples, improving self-discipline proactively, prevents the need for discipline reactively. Self-discipline is not just a character trait to be valued in our personal lives; it’s a worthwhile investment for any company to make in its workforce. Although there are many different approaches to improving self-discipline, my research has found several recommended practices common to most approaches, shared below:

•  Do an assessment of your self-control: How “in control” of your life do you feel? When you have a goal, do you always accomplish it? Or do you feel rolled around by whatever random thought, unhealthy food, uncontrollable desire, distraction or consequence of poor planning might get in your way? Are your circumstances in control of you? If the answer is yes, you’ve found the reason to look seriously at the rest of the steps below, and identified their targets.
• Increase delayed/deferred gratification: Avoid activities of instant gratification for a while, with one target at a time. Rather than going out to eat: Cook a meal. Instead of buy: Build. Instead of streaming the movie: Read the book. Go throughout the day looking for opportunities to practice delayed gratification, find things you have to “earn” before you get the reward. Start with small things. The point here is to improve your ability to wait for the payoff. Once you can apply that to small goals with short waiting periods, you’ll can keep building up until you are able to accomplish anything no matter how long the investment period, or how hard the work..

• Increase “grit”:  Angela Duckworth defines grit as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals”. This trait is not the same as delayed gratification, but the two do depend on each other. Grit is a little bit darker, in that it deals with maintaining the belief in our abilities and a positive outcome, in the face of failure or hardship. How do we increase grit if our “grit score” is low (you can take a survey that will score you here https://sasupenn.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_06f6QSOS2pZW9qR)? Small wins are your key to success. Don’t give in to the temptation (or bad advice) to accomplish overwhelmingly large goals before you’re ready. Start small, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good, and get some small wins under your belt before graduating to larger ones.

• Find alternatives for accountability: Accountability can be summed up as ‘find something you value, and put it at risk as a consequence of failure’. Although it should be used carefully so as not to lead to discouragement or take unwise risks, many people have found this useful in keeping their feet to the fire when they would otherwise slack off. Online programs like www.stickk.com allow you to put money or other objects on the line, and partner with coaches to hold you accountable.
• Positive self-talk: Have you ever had someone give you encouragement that made you feel what they were saying, even if you didn’t believe it? That’s because the brain’s mirror neurons reflect what we hear emotionally, even if our cognitive functions believe something differently, and hearing ourselves works the same way. Try a quick experiment if you don’t believe it: The next time you find yourself assigned something you don’t want to do, keep telling yourself how tired you are/how difficult it is/how pointless it is. Then the next day compare the difference in how you feel to telling yourself that it’s NOT that difficult/you’re NOT that tired/this IS very important, etc. Using self-talk to get through a task or challenge you find particularly difficult can give you the small edge you need to get over the finish line.
• Mindfulness Meditation: I love learning. A lot. Sometimes so much so that I lose track of really important things, because I have so many thoughts running at one time that I’m not able to choose and prioritize. Mindfulness meditation involves concentrating on your breathing, then your pulse, then your muscle movements, and so on, until you are keenly aware of the here and now. If you find yourself distracted by your own thoughts, mindfulness meditation can help to pull your head out of the theoretical things you’re learning about, and into the present moment, where you can prioritize and accomplish the tasks in front of you. There are many places online where you can find more detailed instructions.

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.

Today’s post is written by Heather Powell, Director of Major Accounts and Special Projects at SafeSourcing Inc.

A proprietary process is like grandma’s secret lasagna recipe. Lots of people make lasagna, but nobody does it quite like grandma. In fact, you don’t even like other lasagnas; because grandma’s is so much better that it makes all the others seems cheap and terrible!

You might be currently selling grandma’s lasagna but want to expand your customer base, or you are looking to take the recipe to a manufacture to create your own private label lasagna to be sold by distributors. How do you protect your recipe? How do you maintain ownership of the recipe if you want others to mass produce it?

To be clear, there are a lot of confusing technical terms that need clarification of how to protect your recipe:

Patents: Patents protect new, useful, and non-obvious inventions (ideas!). An invention can be a device, a structure, process, machinery, etc. A patent for a composition of matter, including a food recipe, allows you as a small-business owner sole right to prepare your product for sale to consumers and profit from those sales for a period of years. A United States patent has strict filing requirements, and the approval process can take months to years to complete. You must describe the shape, look and ingredients that go into making your product in great detail. Your product must also meet the “nonobvious” requirement, meaning your recipe must not be easily discernible to a professional with food training or the everyday consumer. A patent for a recipe usually covers either mass market products or those designed to perform specific functions within existing products. In seeking your patent, you must decide how you intend to use your product in the market. For example, if you’re designing a product to increase the shelf-life of existing products, you must name that as your product’s purpose in your patent application. You probably won’t win patent approval if you have no intended use for your product or concrete business plan.1

An inventor’s patent will expire after 20 years, and in any case, require the inventor to publish every step of his or her creation. In essence, filing a patent for a recipe requires the chef to let the cat out of the bag.3

Trademarks: Trademarks protect source identifications, usually for brands, slogans, logos, or designs (sometimes even scents or colors). A trademark protection may extend perpetually.

A trademark allows you as a business owner to protect a word, design, symbol or phrase used in connection with your company’s proprietary products. Many companies large and small choose to trademark brand names for products and business logos to ensure each company’s products and business logos remain easily recognizable to consumers. This helps companies maintain brand recognition over time. You have the right to enforce your trademark in court by suing for damages if another company attempts to use your company’s product symbols or business logo.1

Copyrights: Copyrights protect original textual works and visual or artistic expressions.

Copyright law does not protect recipes that are mere listings of ingredients. Nor does it protect other mere listings of ingredients such as those found in formulas, compounds, or prescriptions. Copyright protection may, however, extend to substantial literary expression—a description, explanation, or illustration, for example—that accompanies a recipe or formula or to a combination of recipes, as in a cookbook.2

Trade Secrets: Trade secrets protect valuable secret information like ideas that must be kept confidential. Others to whom they are disclosed to must also keep them confidential. Similar to trademarks, trade secret protection may extend perpetually.

Unlike trademarks, which protect recognizable designs, trade secrets protect information such as formulas, drawings, patterns, customer lists, programs, devices, methods, techniques or processes. A recipe may be either a “formula,” “method,” or “process” and can be legally protected as a trade secret so long as (1) the owner takes reasonable steps to keep the information secret, and (2) some independent economic value is derived from the information.4

How to Keep Your Trade Secret Top Secret?

Treating your signature product as a “trade secret” is the easiest and cheapest way to protect your culinary assets, unlike the legal hoops required in filing a patent or trademark.

• Keep your recipe under lock and key. Make sure only your top team members are in your “circle of trust,” such as an executive chef or manager. Word of caution: not every recipe on your menu can be a trade secret, but only those that have a unique feature that sets it apart from competitors’ offerings, like the recipe behind Thomas’ English Muffins’ “nooks and crannies,” may be a trade secret.
• Quantify the dollar value of your recipe. Keep track of the sales generated specifically by your signature product.
• Make sure the keepers of the recipe actually know it’s a secret. Include a confidentiality agreement in your manager’s employment contract. Also, remind these employees regularly during training and at staff meetings of their legal duty to not disclose your restaurant’s signature recipes.4

In part four of this series, the author will provide the clarification of a confidentiality agreement and non-disclosure agreement. Meanwhile, SafeSourcing can assist you in exploring your procurement solutions for your proprietary product on our “Risk Free” trial program for RFPs and RFQs, 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.

References:

1. https://smallbusiness.chron.com/recipe-patent-vs-trademark-20893.html
2. https://lizerbramlaw.com/2015/04/07/copyright-protect-recipes/
3. https://www.tuckerlaw.com/2018/03/19/secret-recipe-still-secret-protect-restaurants-signature-recipes/
4. https://www.tuckerlaw.com/2018/03/19/secret-recipe-still-secret-protect-restaurants-signature-recipes/