Today?s post is by Mark Davis; Sr. Vice President of Operations and CTO at SafeSourcing

For millions of people the past 4 days represent sports Nirvana as college basketball teams fight to become Champions.? As always happens, underdogs upset higher ranked teams and this weekend had many of those games.?

Today we are going to look into a few aspects of how these teams prepare; how they should deal with adversity; and how those things tie into your sourcing projects.

The Game Plan ? Every successful team has a game plan for how they win.? These factors and processes are a big part of why they are successful and how they leverage the resources and talent in the best possible way to win.? This is just as important in a sourcing project where the goal is to find the best source of product or service based on offering, value and cost.? To achieve this, a game plan must also be established in advance so the team knows the goal and how they are going to achieve it.? Teams with bad game plans run into issues they don?t know how to overcome and are usually not happy with their results.

Communication ? How a team executes their game plan and communicates with each other during the game/project is crucial.? When upsets occur many times the source begins with a breakdown in communication between team members.? Assumptions and misunderstandings lead to mistakes and missed details all because the team is not communicating well.? Creating pre-defined touch points of communication to re-establish how the project has progressed and where it is going is key.? When necessary, just like in games, call a time-out and regroup to get the game plan back on track.

Don?t Panic ? Every upset begins with a momentum shift and for the team about to be upset that is usually a bad thing.? The difference between teams that win and those that lose, is that the successful teams recognize that issues will occasionally arise in every project.? Knowing this, planning for this and dealing these issues right away without panicking will turn an upset around and produce the results you are looking for.? Stick to your well-prepared plan and the project will get back on track.? If you end up needing to slow things down to get control back then make the decision and notify everyone involved early so that the ?game plan? can be adjusted.

For more information on preparing your sourcing projects and planning for the things that can derail these projects, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.??

We look forward to your comments.

This is not a general complaint although the majority of folks believe they are overworked today. This complaint is in regards to using today’s e-procurement tools to reduce their costs across the board. How about, my team is to busy with other initiatives to take a look at this now.  Or our buyers and category managers work eighty hours a week and already get the best prices.

I work a lot. I always have. More than most if you were to ask my customers, employees and other individuals I am associated with. When someone tells me their people work 80 hour weeks, I flat don’t believe them.

Here’s a simple fact: IT”S ABOUT THE MONEY! From a corporate perspective if you are not profitable, you will die. This holds true for both public and private companies.

Let’s talk about retail for a bit. I don’t care what retail vertical you work in, for the most part your cost of goods are going to be between a low of 50% (you better hope not) and a high of 70%. Most of these companies have net profit of a couple percent at best.

Fact: E-procurement tools and specifically reverse auctions will reduce your costs.
Fact: You do not know where all the available sources of supply are.
Fact: Neither you nor your team has time to look for them or vet them.
Fact: Once vetted neither you nor your team have time to collect and analyze bids from all available be sources of supply.
Fact: Because of the facts listed above, you can not guarantee that you are receiving the best price.

Let’s do some simple math. If you are a $100M retail company. If your net profit is 2%. If your cost of goods are 70%. If you were to assign 10% of that to a full service company that offers e-procurement tools in the form of a service. If they were to achieve 20% in savings for you.
 
Fact: Your Company would more than double their net profit.

If you still do not believe me, please contact me and test me.

I look forward to and appreciate your comments

Ron Southard
CEO SafeSourcing
ronsouthard@safesourcing.com

The front page headline of the Dayton Daily News on Thursday January 19,2012 read, ?Americans spend more on tech bills than utilities.?? With people spending more money on? things like internet, mobile devices, and cable or satellite in their home than they do for basic utilities such as power, water, and natural gas it brings up the question of where the priorities are for the American public.? According to the Dayton Daily News article, ?63% of U.S. households spend 35% more on technology bills than they spent on utility bills.?

This author wonders if the American public is spending so much of their time and money on technology, how much time and money does your company spends on focusing that attention for your benefit?? The online presence of a company can help increase the client base which in return can help increase your bottom line. So what are the ways you can increase your online presence?

??Facebook ? a social networking service that has more than 800 million active users.? According to Wikipedia, ?a 2009 study ranked Facebook as the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users.?
??Twitter ? an online social networking and micro-blogging service and it currently has over 300 million users.
??LinkedIn- a business related social networking site and it currently reports more than 135 million users in more than 200 countries.

With the use of these popular networking sites, a company can quickly increase their client base.? Technology can be accessed from home, work, and a person?s mobile device.? Therefore, if you can get a person looking at your company on any one of these social networking sites, you and your company can reach a person at any time.? According to the Dayton Daily News article, ?That?s the way you measure yourself as a 21st-century society, is by making these (technologies) basic services (essential) for daily life.?? So make yourself and your company essential for daily life.? Technology makes it easier!

For more information on SafeSourcing and how to increase your company?s technology footprint, please contact a Customer Service Representative for more information.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

We have some friends in town this week. So, last night we decided to rent the movie MONEYBALL. According to wikipedia, The movie is based on the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (ISBN 0-393-05765-8)? by Michael Lewis, published in 2003, about the Oakland Athletics baseball team and its general manager Billy Beane.

First of all the game of business is unfair, so let?s just accept that as fact. There are winners and there are losers. As I have mentioned in prior posts I tend to look at the world in terms of our profession of procurement. In the aforementioned movie, two things stuck out like a sore thumb. The first was the inability of professionals that have been in a job for a long time to accept change. The second was the benefit realized by those that are willing to embrace change and often this is not the earliest of adopters. In the case of the book, the Oakland A?s won a lot of games by using a new philosophy of player acquisition through specific data points. The Boston Red Sox used the same formula to win a world series that had eluded them for almost a century a couple of years later. Does this still mean that bigger companies using the same philosophy will always win? Or, does it allow the smaller company to compete on a more even playing field

So what does this mean to the procurement professional? Relative to the first point it means being open to change and not thinking that you already know everything. An example might be that reverse auctions of today do not run the same way as the reverse auctions of yesteryear. These tools have been rethought by companies that are newer to the space and not restricted by legacy thinking. To the 2nd point, it is never too late to think through how you are doing things. An example might be thinking through whether or not it makes sense to run an RFI with every RFQ? How do the savings compare in this environment versus the historical way of doing things.

What?s your plan to do things differently?

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

We have some friends in town this week. So, last night we decided to rent the movie MONEYBALL. According to wikipedia, The movie is based on the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game (ISBN 0-393-05765-8)  by Michael Lewis, published in 2003, about the Oakland Athletics baseball team and its general manager Billy Beane.

First of all the game of business is unfair, so let’s just accept that as fact. There are winners and there are losers. As I have mentioned in prior posts I tend to look at the world in terms of our profession of procurement. In the aforementioned movie, two things stuck out like a sore thumb. The first was the inability of professionals that have been in a job for a long time to accept change. The second was the benefit realized by those that are willing to embrace change and often this is not the earliest of adopters. In the case of the book, the Oakland A’s won a lot of games by using a new philosophy of player acquisition through specific data points. The Boston Red Sox used the same formula to win a world series that had eluded them for almost a century a couple of years later. Does this still mean that bigger companies using the same philosophy will always win? Or, does it allow the smaller company to compete on a more even playing field

So what does this mean to the procurement professional? Relative to the first point it means being open to change and not thinking that you already know everything. An example might be that reverse auctions of today do not run the same way as the reverse auctions of yesteryear. These tools have been rethought by companies that are newer to the space and not restricted by legacy thinking. To the 2nd point, it is never too late to think through how you are doing things. An example might be thinking through whether or not it makes sense to run an RFI with every RFQ? How do the savings compare in this environment versus the historical way of doing things.

What’s your plan to do things differently?

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Today?s post is by Mark Davis; Vice President of Operations and CTO at SafeSourcing.

Recently we hosted a Request for Information for one of our customers for Mobile Technology for pharmacies.? This was such a good event because so many of companies aren?t even sure what is available to them with all of the technology advancements being made in the internet and with mobile devices.

Today we will be looking at all of retail and some of the new features your company should be considering with changes to your Mobile Technology strategy in 2012.

Just the Basics? ? For those companies that are just looking to start adding this technology to their customers there are a few standard features that should be included.?? The store locator feature is a standard offering that provides users a tool to instantly find the closest store to them, frequently providing maps and directions.? Another common feature is allowing the users to sign up for mass email coupons and discounts.? These are not focused to the user but rather the same email going to all customers that participate.? Having a link to the weekly advertisements in a smaller format is another standard mobile offering many retailers first give their customers.

Targeted Marketing ? Unlike the mass emails and weekly ads, targeted marketing can take a few different forms, each of which provides the user marketing and coupons that are targeted just to them.? Some mobile functionality allows a retailer to ?see? a customer?s registered phone when it enters the store and has the capability to provide them with immediate texts and alerts.? If a grocery store manager wants to run a short discount on meat to get it moved they can send out a text to the users in the store in order to focus the sale.? For other systems, based on the customer?s profile and/or buying patterns, texts and electronic coupons can be sent out to focus marketing messages on customers without flooding them with messaging that frequently leads to discontinued use of the system.

Pharmacy Features ? As stated above the recent RFI SafeSourcing ran recently was for Pharmacy Mobile technology which has its own set of unique features.? Prescription related features have been a hot new offering in this space as retailers are looking to give their customers the capabilities.? These include having texts sent to them that their prescription is filled and ready, or that it is about to be out.? Also included in this is the capability for patients to fill and re-fill prescriptions through a mobile app to local pharmacy.? Other frequently requested features are tips for healthy living and links to quick information about their medicines right from their phones.

For more information on finding suppliers and products to help with your companies 2012 mobile strategy, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.??

We look forward to your comments.

When I read the paper, the internet, trade magazines, blogs, books or other sources of information, I subconsciously apply a careers worth of learning or everything I know in order to try and understand the issue. I guess it means trying to understand things through my philosophy. This also allows me to look at what our company does by the way others look at things and apply non procurement based logic to what we do.

When I was reading that airlines did not want to unbundle their ticket prices for consumers it simply indicated to me; that they’re hiding something. Prices have not always been bundled. As an example, original technology models were based predominantly on hardware prices. This was when companies sold huge mainframes. As technology evolved to microprocessors ever more quickly along a Moore’s law curve, hardware prices dropped through the floor. This evolution caused technology companies to find ways to stop their revenue erosion. As such companies began to focus on increasing the services portion of their contracts. One way to do this was through solution bundles. Solution bundles were a hard sell and made it more difficult for customers to understand what the total cost of a product or solution was. Today many of the historical major hardware company’s services revenue are higher than their hardware revenue.

From a procurement perspective, the way one attacks this is through a detailed specification that outlines all the components, commodities etc. that make up the product or service being bid on.

Let’s get back to the airline ticket. Why don’t the airlines want to unbundle their ticket pricing. It’s simple. It creates too many questions. Questions like why is airlines A’s airport costs higher than airline B’s? Why am I paying more for Bags at airline A versus airline B?  Shouldn’t federal security charges be same for airline A versus airline B? What are flight segment taxes?

So why don’t the airlines want to publicly unbundle their ticket prices. The simple answer is because it will cost them money. Just the same as the 2nd bag costs you and the food on the flight costs you and the pillow costs you and the movie costs you. Here’s to full cost disclosure.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

When I read the paper, the internet, trade magazines, blogs, books or other sources of information, I subconsciously apply a careers worth of learning or everything I know in order to try and understand the issue. I guess it means trying to understand things through my philosophy. This also allows me to look at what our company does by the way others look at things and apply non procurement based logic to what we do.

When I was reading that airlines did not want to unbundle their ticket prices for consumers it simply indicated to me; that they?re hiding something. Prices have not always been bundled. As an example, original technology models were based predominantly on hardware prices. This was when companies sold huge mainframes. As technology evolved to microprocessors ever more quickly along a Moore?s law curve, hardware prices dropped through the floor. This evolution caused technology companies to find ways to stop their revenue erosion. As such companies began to focus on increasing the services portion of their contracts. One way to do this was through solution bundles. Solution bundles were a hard sell and made it more difficult for customers to understand what the total cost of a product or solution was. Today many of the historical major hardware company?s services revenue are higher than their hardware revenue.

From a procurement perspective, the way one attacks this is through a detailed specification that outlines all the components, commodities etc. that make up the product or service being bid on.

Let?s get back to the airline ticket. Why don?t the airlines want to unbundle their ticket pricing. It?s simple. It creates too many questions. Questions like why is airlines A?s airport costs higher than airline B?s? Why am I paying more for Bags at airline A versus airline B?? Shouldn?t federal security charges be same for airline A versus airline B? What are flight segment taxes?

So why don?t the airlines want to publicly unbundle their ticket prices. The simple answer is because it will cost them money. Just the same as the 2nd bag costs you and the food on the flight costs you and the pillow costs you and the movie costs you. Here?s to full cost disclosure.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.