Today’s post is by Steve Schwerin; Account Manager at SafeSourcing.

I read a book written in 1970  titled  Future Shock.  Though the title sounds ominous, it wasn’t about the apocalypse or ancient calendars reaching their terminus.  The authors were trying to communicate the coming changes in world economies not due to negligence, greed or regime change as much as due to technology.

There were opportunities in these disruptions that I think procurement professionals should constantly be reevaluating.  The authors could see the day when much of the current tasks being done would be automated and human creativity could use the new technology in ways only dreamed of before as well as some not yet dreamed of.  I suspect that the author of Future Shock would put procurement professionals squarely in the category of people facilitating this change.  Why?  Procurement professionals are constantly facilitating technology making its way into their organizations and often how.  We see this in various ways.

More Products– We now have more of almost every product available than ever before which makes the marginal cost of using and selling most products less than ever before.

Different Products– Cars, computers and even blogs did not exist at one time.  Variety allows for targeting pockets of micro-demand not possible before the internet and mass production.

More Services– Food services, pest control and B2B services didn’t exist in their present forms until recently.  For instance, it wasn’t until recently when eating out became a common occurrence for the average person.  Pest control?  Grab a mouse trap.  And B2B?  I guess lick that envelope quicker?  What we are seeing today is that scalability allows vendors to add some services at very little extra relative cost, though it may take a little discovery and negotiation.

Different Services– Web design didn’t exist before the web, and what was the form of the customized packaging industry before technology provided for blister packs and plastic bottles in every conceivable shape?  Can any of these services add value for your customer?

Better Services-One thing to keep in mind with services is quality verses quantity.  Can taking another look at SLAs, SOPs, or SOWs add value while costing little verses their benefit to anyone involved in the procurement process.

Adding value and constantly achieving higher levels of service have largely made the above mentioned deliverables possible.  It takes a human mind to recognize and implement any of this, however.  Why not take the bull by the horns in the new year?

What Future Shock was largely predicting these changes would usher in was a more customizable world.  Cost cutting is still perhaps the best way to impact your bottom line.  At times, cost cutting might take the shape of adding something-read customizing-while keeping the cost similar.  What might actually be more valuable to your client is a different product or perhaps a more customized product than others are offering.  Who is in a better position to address this than the procurement professional?

To understand more about how we can help you begin to find your new opportunities, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.

We look forward to your comments.

Absolutely!

For those of you that do not think that all types of social networks have a place in the business world or in our procurement world in general, just remember that these are the tools of choice of our younger generations. That would be those that are coming after those of us with more than a few years of experience. By the way, that includes the use of these tools in their work lives and BYOD to access them. Want to know where the best place to look for procurement talent is? Give up? It’s LINKEDIN.

The blogosphere is crowed with any number of opinions on any number of subjects and feeding the engines of big data. As a medium it has evolved from on line dictionaries in the early to mid 1990’s. Blogs are a form of Social Media just as Wiki’s are. Forums have been around for thousands of years (I think there’s one in Greece), it is only natural that as technology evolved to include more people that offerings such as Facebook would evolve to include many of these tool types as well. It is only a matter of time before they evolve to help us solve complex problems in all areas of life and that includes the procurement space.

If you visit the SafeSourcing Sourcebook™ and become a member you can host forums on anything you wish to learn about in the procurement space and post that forum to thousands of other members. It may be something as simple as a question like this. Can anyone tell me how they are presently planning to source paper products based on the rumors of an up pulp market? How might you plan on mitigating price increases?

Job specific social communities are not the way of the future, they are here today. Visit Sourcebook™ and create your forum.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

The term “lean” as it applies to our subject was coined to describe Toyota’s business during the late 1980s by a research team headed by Jim Womack, Ph.D., at MIT’s International Motor Vehicle Program. According to lean.org; the idea behind lean organizations is to maximize customer value while minimizing waste. Simply, lean means creating more value for customers with fewer resources.

In Lean Thinking, by Jim Womack and Dan Jones, the authors suggest that companies or organizations think about three fundamental business issues.

1.  Purpose: What customer problems will the enterprise solve to achieve its own purpose of prospering?

2.  Process: How will the organization assess each major value stream to make sure each step is valuable, capable, available, adequate, flexible, and that all the steps are linked by flow, pull, and leveling?

3.  People: How can the organization insure that every important process has someone responsible for continually evaluating that value stream in terms of business purpose and lean process? How can everyone touching the value stream be actively engaged in operating it correctly and continually improving it?

So, how does this apply to the procurement process? A typical misconception is that lean is suited only for the manufacturing process.  This is not true. Lean applies in any and all businesses for any and all processes. Some areas you might consider relative to a lean procurement process would certainly include but not be limited to the following.

1.  How many internal resources are dedicated and at what cost to procuring products and services for resale or internal use.

2.  How much time do these resources spend to review and renew contracts?

3.  How many new sources of supply are vetted regularly to insure you are receiving the best possible product at the best possible price?

4.  How long have you been doing businesses with existing suppliers in every category?

5.  What are your Procurement Key Performance Indicators and how often do you review them?

6.  your Procurement KPI’s link directly with your corporate KPI’s

Ultimately a lean organization understands both internal and external customer value and focuses its key processes to continuously improve both. Your solutions provider should have tools to help you evaluate your current process and suggestions as to how to reduce cost and infrastructure to support a lean procurement organization.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Today’s post is by Mark Davis; Sr. Vice President of Operations and CTO at SafeSourcing and this post has nothing to do with Supply Chain, procurement, sourcing or really business of any kind.  However, please Enjoy and reflect!

As we head into what will undoubtedly be a week of joy and celebration for peoples all over the world it causes me to pause and to think about the lives of the people, not only in Connecticut, but everywhere; whose lives have been turned upside down by events that were completely beyond their control.

2012 has been an especially challenging year as regards a variety of tragedies yet it seems that no matter where you lived, that tragedy didn’t miss leaving its mark on you in some way or another.

I’d like to use this post to encourage each and every one of you to take some time, give hugs and appreciate the lives of the people who are still with us, and remember and reflect upon those who are not.

I will be honest in that this time of year has always been a special one for me and I have never usually had a problem getting into the Holiday spirit.   This year has been a struggle to stay positive in the midst of all the chaos; I honestly believe that I am not alone in this feeling.  However, I am also aware that with struggle comes the potential for hope and with hope comes change and change can lead to a view of the world that isn’t quite so dark as the one many of us face at this moment in time.

And so I cling to hope that in the midst of struggle and I encourage you and your family to do the same as we embrace this Holiday Season for what it truly represents.

We continue to wish you the Happiest of Holidays and a Bright and Hopeful New Year!

It’s hard as a business owner, CEO and conservative to not comment on a regular basis about the state of the election opportunity we face in the United States. There is so much rhetoric that it’s hard to separate the chaff from the facts in order to come up with the truth. With that said, it is up to a board of directors to do just that for companies. They must listen to a CEO’s plan, opinions, opportunities, proposals, ideas and excuses and then make an intelligent choice as to the best way to move forward with that CEO based on execution against that plan and the results achieved.

It really is that simple. It’s not about who came before you or what they did. That works in business for about 6 months (honeymoon period). After that, you as the CEO are responsible for your plan and your results versus that plan.

We could discuss P&L’s and the detail that we can glean as we peel back the onion skin, we can talk about new brand images (the look & feel of the company). What we have to look at are the basic results. In a company those are sales which forecasts future growth, revenue which is the financial yardstick of the company and a reflection of recent retraction or growth and the cash needed or lacking to support the companies future. And finally, the last piece is the profit that supports the company’s investment in the future.

So let’s take a look at President Obama’s results that loosely tie to the measures that most CEO’s would be held accountable to and listed above.

1. Gas Prices when entering office $1.84. Today $3.69, a 101% increase.
2. Unemployment when entering office 7.8%. Today 7.9%, a 1.2% increase.
3. Food Stamp Recipients when entering office 31.9M. Today 46.7M a 46% increase.
4. Poverty level (people) when entering office 39.8M. Today 46.2M a 16% increase.
5. National Debt when entering office $10.6 Trillion. Today $16.2 Trillion a 53% increase.

In the example above, increases are not a good thing. A CEO that raises sales, revenue and profits at the surface would be doing a good job. A CEO with the results listed above would be considered an abysmal failure.

Our greatest privilege as a citizen is our right to vote and to vote our conscience. When we are in that voting booth, no one can tell us what to do. Our choice is based on our understanding of promises made and promises kept.

What any board of directors would do when faced with the results from Mr. Obama’s first four years listed above, would be to fire the CEO immediately. In fact it would not have taken four years to act.

Vote your conscience and Thanks for voting!

From 1776 to the present day our military bothers and sisters have sacrificed and many have paid the ultimate cost to insure our freedoms.

WAS!

IS!

AND ALWAYS WILL BE!

FREE!

Two good ways to help control and reduce retail shrinkage is to offer overstock and out of cycle items in the form of a forward auction or retail barter. Which is better?

Why is it that we never hear of retailers running forward auctions? There are dozens of sources waiting to buy your overstock which all retailers know will reduce shrink and improve bottom line profitability. Many companies that may have large amounts of excess or slow-moving inventory use corporate barter transactions to move this inventory. This author thinks that a forward auction may drive better cost recovery.

If you go to any internet search engine and type in the term overstock, the data returned is in the millions of pages. Many of these links are locations? for Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) companies that will gladly agree to participate in e-negotiation events in the form of a forward auction to purchase your overstock or liquidated products for resale through their on line offerings.
Online forward auctions are an ideal way to get the best price for capital equipment, materials, overstock and services you may want to sell, such as when you need to liquidate excess inventory. There are two basic types of forward auctions. The first is a liquidation auction where sellers are reducing inventory from overstock or liquidation and buyers are seeking to obtain the lowest price for items they have an interest in for resale and other purposes. The second type is more of a marketing auction where sellers are trying to sell unique items and buyers wish to obtain unique items. This is typical of an eBay type of offering.
Much of retail shrink happens in the back room or receiving area of retail stores. It just so happens that this is also the location of much of the overstock in the retail community. Much of this product sits there month after month resulting in significant margin hits to quarterly and annual earnings and as such to a company?s stock price.

Ask your e-negotiation solution provider how they can help reduce your overstock and shrink with forward auction tools, and who they would invite as buyers. You company stakeholders will applaud your efforts.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.
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The Certified Professional in Supply Management® is the qualification that supply management professionals strive to earn. The CPSM® will be relevant internationally and reflect the expanded knowledge, skills and abilities needed to be a successful supply management professional.
 
Certification for the CPSM is offered by the Institute for Supply Management or (ISM) which was founded in 1915 and is the largest supply management association in the world as well as one of the most respected. ISM’s mission is to lead the supply management profession through its standards of excellence, research, promotional activities, and education. ISM’s membership base includes more than 40,000 supply management professionals with a network of domestic and international affiliated associations. ISM is a not-for-profit association that provides opportunities for the promotion of the profession and the expansion of professional skills and knowledge.

Supply chain workers should be proud of their profession and earning your CPSM is one way to brag about it.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.