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

Yesterday we looked at Vendor Introduced Needs that create new sourcing projects in a company and the steps you can take to begin getting the data and information the business needs to make the right sourcing decisions.  We continue that today with Business Introduced Needs.

Business Introduced Need – There are so many changes, both positive and negative, that happen within companies that continually change needs on almost a daily basis.  Companies grow and acquire other companies, they downsize, they expand into other geographies which cross different time zones, and they get new management while other management departs.  These opportunities lead to changes that require new goods or services that have never before been needed, or that the company could not afford previously.

There are a few things that can happen here as first steps depending on how long the product/service has been known about and researched.  In some cases this means a business case has already been established, details about the business have been collected and the only thing left is to determine the vendors who should be invited to submit a Request for Proposal as to how they plan to supply you with what you need.  Frequently a recommended step in this process that is either included in the RFP process or as a separate step after a simpler Request for Information, is to have vendors perform an assessment of your business and provide what they would recommend in order to address your needs. 

You can accomplish this by issuing each vendor a sample scenario to assess, give each a real world scenario to assess or have them all assess the same scenario, or you can accomplish the same result by simply providing the vendors background on where you are coming from and where you want to head (i.e. Improving File Transfer Success rates by 50%).

For more information about how you can begin to take a look at your companies new projects, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.  

We look forward to your comments.

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

Over the next 3 days, we will be looking at some of the reasons new projects get introduced to a company and the steps you can take to begin gathering data and other information the business requires to make the correct sourcing decisions.

A Vendor Introduced Perceived Need –  Because the  Information Technology Industry changes so fast there are many  cases when a vendor will get an audience with a company for a product the company never even knew existed to fix an issue or a  vendor perceived problem that the customer in some cases  doesn’t even know they have.  Good vendors will leave that meeting having convinced the customer that they do have a need. Almost always, this means there is also no budget planned for this need, let alone the fact that you are already resource constrained. 

As such these situations can become a two goal project. The first goal being to try and understand the market as well as other companies that can also offer the specific product tor service. The additional requirement is to at the same time build a business case that can be presented to leadership in order to stage potential funding in order to pay for non budgeted offerings.  A nice way to get started is to begin with a strong RFI; these can be fashioned in such a way that the vendors can help you to create your business case.  Collecting information relative to the vendor, product, service, an ROI and the vendor’s rationale for choosing them will provide you with everything required to take your case to the next level for approval.

For more information about how you can begin to take a look at your companies new projects, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.  

We look forward to your comments.

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

There are so many new sourcing projects that get introduced every day within companies around the world.  For one reason or another, businesses begin to look at purchasing new products and or services that they have never purchased before and nowhere is this more common than in  IT Departments.  Technology changes so fast these days that entire market segments or even industries (i.e. Social Media Planning) have not only been born ,but they are becoming formidable categories in their own right for spend. And there are not many that have the experience to source for their needs

Over the next 3 days, we will look at some of the reasons projects get introduced and the steps you can take to begin collecting data and information the business needs to make correct sourcing decisions.

For more information about how you can begin  should be looking at your companies new projects, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.  

We look forward to your comments

As your organization begins to realize savings across varying categories, you will find that you are able to achieve savings on even some of your smallest spend categories. One of the benefits of having an eProcurement partner in place can be that you can work with them to consider more spend categories where you may not have had the time and resources available to analyze these smaller spend categories.

The risk that your organization must be aware of is that sourcing too many small spend categories and not enough of your larger spend categories will create a huge opportunity cost. As an example, a company that might be enjoying an average eProcurement savings of about 20% over all categories should see any category not sourced using the eProcurement format as one in which they are leaving potential savings on the table.

As the champion of your eProcurement program, take a step back and review the categories being sourced. If you find that the amount of spend running through the program is low compared to your overall budget or expenses, then you are most likely underutilizing your eProcurement partner.

This author would challenge you to engage your strategic sourcing partner to fully capture potential savings. Once you are more fully utilizing eProcurement techniques, you will quickly find real dollar savings on categories that might otherwise have been untouched.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

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

In today’s Part II of this  blog post we will continue looking at some of the ways you can begin to affect positive changes in your company’s sourcing strategy that don’t necessarily require an army of new employees or unlimited budget to do.

Policies – Soliciting executive support is one of the first steps to take to create sourcing change.  With it, the processes and partnerships and change you hope to create will have the backing that will help carry it through, especially in areas (and there will be some) where that change won’t be welcome.   This is sometimes difficult to get at first and may require some small measurable victories to help get the backing you need, but to affect big change this will be necessary.

Processes – Once you have determined you have the desire to improve your company’s purchasing effectiveness, you will need to perform an assessment of where you are today and where you would like to be.  An important part of getting to where you want to be is to make sure you have standard methods for understanding and approaching new sourcing projects.  This does not mean every project will be the same but making sure no steps are missed in the process of examining those categories is important.  Determining if an RFI should be run, or internal survey conducted, or if the category should be completely re-examined are things that should be reviewed at this time.

Partners – In today’s world there are few organizations that have the wherewithal to grow big changes internally.  It is a commonly accepted practice to enlist the aide of third party partners with the staff, resources and expertise to help with the changes you need to make.  These partners can have various levels of involvement, from simply providing eProcurement tools for you to use to full-blown consulting arrangements that will examine all of your company’s spend.  The level of involvement you look for will depend on your budget, the type of help you need and the amount of support you are getting from the executive level.  Getting some quick results to show the company can go a long way to creating greater more permanent change in your organization and outside partners are a great way to do this.

For more information about how you can begin to create positive changes in your company’s sourcing processes, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.  

We look forward to your comments.

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

As I sat on a plane this weekend reading about Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World a common thread connected the majority of them in some way; most became influential by being an “ambassador of change.”

Equally common was the change that each ushered in came at a cost, be it money invested, time invested, people and resources invested or simply the desire and passion invested to see change occur for the better.

It made me think about our industry and how many professionals consider, or for that matter, even want to become “ambassadors of change” for their company.  Obviously millions of dollars or 100 new employees can go a long way to creating this change but how realistic is that for any of you?  I would venture to say, not very realistic.

So short of an army of new procurement professionals and an unlimited budget how can you achieve change?  The answer lies above in simply having the desire and knowing that change in some cases can take time and will require patience.  Over the next few days we will looking at some ways to begin to affect change in your organization.

For more information about how you can begin to create positive changes in your company’s sourcing processes, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.  

We look forward to your comments.

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

One of the common new trends in the business world today to help refresh a company?s image and approach to doing business with the rest of the world is to rebrand the company.? In cases where the brand is not as well known and popular as to lose value with a change such as this, it can mean a boost in positive energy not only externally with the customer base but internally with your staff.

As part of undertaking a project like this there are many things which will be affected, from letterhead and business cards, to invoices, to uniforms, to signage.? Past blogs have talked about a few of these items but today we will focus on the things to consider specifically when rebranding requires a refresh of the graphics in your truck fleet.

Check back tomorrow for Part II of?? ?Are you considering all of the options you have when it comes to updating your fleet graphics? where we will discuss the specifics of a complex event of this nature.?

Until then, if you are interested in information about sourcing other complex categories, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.