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

The theme of our posts for the next few days, follows the idea that the retail and wholesale prices we are seeing on about everything are unrealistic and exceedingly high. That includes the favorite ingredient in your St. Patrick’s Day dinner, Corned Beef. While you are paying too much at the checkout, many vendors are posting record profits while raising prices and buyers have had enough. One well known Chicago area butcher has seen his cost go up 67.7% year over year for Corned Beef. It is certainly no fun for him to quote these increases to his customers and it is no fun for consumers looking forward to an enjoyable holiday meal to have to foot these increases.

At any rate, at SafeSourcing our primary business objective is to keep costs down for our customers. Our pricing has not changed nor has our approach. Give us your best price and we will find you better pricing and or alternative sources that may operate at better margins.

If you like to speak with us about reducing your costs, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Services Associate.

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

The number of people that have started working from home has spiked since the beginning of the pandemic. While not all have that ability, like nurses, drivers, and essential employees, those that do have shown great ability to adapt and maintain performance. Because of the pandemic and the ability for many to perform their duties from home, it has led to more demand of home services.

One such demand has been at home internet services. With schools and work being remote, as well as the reluctance or outright inability to see family and friends, web-based services have been a necessity. In fact, it has even led some to try and make internet services more affordable and available for those without access or resources.

Another significant increase is the number of home delivery services. Uber eats and Door Dash are just two of the rising new companies to seize the demand for at home food delivery. In the same realm, the demand for food and supply pick up has increased significantly too. With grocery store and big box store pickups, some even available the same day it is ordered. This fulfills the needs of everyday goods and groceries, without the need of ever leaving your car.

Another change we have seen is the increased ability to perform almost every need from home, from doctor consultations, watching new movies, remodeling your kitchen, or even buying a car. With the right tools available, nearly any task can be performed in a new way. Even within your company or organization. Using the tools of a procurement partner, like SafeSourcing, can help you get the services or supplies you need.  While you maintain the business activities you need to, SafeSourcing can detail your project needs, find the right people who fit those needs and collect pricing and other information to help you choose the best vendor for you.

For more information on how SafeSourcing can help your organization 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 blog is by Margaret Stewart, Director of HR, and Administration at SafeSourcing

Before Covid-19, most people not in the supply chain rarely ever thought about logistics and the supply chain. Since then, and with so many disruptions and obstacles, it has now become something most people are acutely aware of. In fact, the reliance on our supply chain and logistics will likely grow in the future with the increasing amount of online shopping and demand for goods quickly.

Now, as winter strikes different areas of the country, the focus on the logistics of the supply chain are again hitting home. People are stocking up on bread and toilet paper and the need for a consistent and reliable supply is likely a concern for many retailers. Delays due to weather, a workforce shortage, or illness can cause a lot of disruptions down the road and are something every retailer should have plans in place for. Empty shelves mean less that can be sold and could in turn be felt in the pockets of your organization. So, what should you do? There are a number of ways that you can better prepare for supply chain disruptions.

One way you can prepare is by having reliable suppliers and manufacturers who you can count on for steady and well running processes. This will not only provide peace of mind that things will go as planned, but also will likely be consistent in supplies and business practices.

There will still sometimes be delays, so another way to prepare is by having a variety of suppliers that you can obtain goods from. Then if one vendor has supply problems, you may still be able to fill your shelves in the meantime from another vendor. This can be especially beneficial during inclement weather, from hurricanes and snow to forest fires.

If you or your organization is having problems already with the supply chain or logistics, another great tool is to utilize a procurement partner, like SafeSourcing.  A procurement partner can help your team find the supplies you need or the suppliers you can count on and ensure your organization’s needs are addressed, helping to keep your shelves stocked and allowing you to pass your products onto your customers and ensuring they stay customers.

For more information on how SafeSourcing can help your organization 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 timely repost is by Dave Wenig is the Senior Vice President of Sales and Services at SafeSourcing Inc

Recently I wrote about cost avoidance and the how the impact of avoiding a cost increase can be just as beneficial as creating savings. In reality, I would argue that the difference between cost avoidance and savings is minimal.

We measure savings as current cost (what you’re paying for something today) minus the cost we are able to negotiate using our eProcurement process including an online RFQ Event. If you’ve received a price increase, then you can no longer buy whatever you were buying at your previous price. Because of that, the old price is no longer your current price. Current price defaults to whatever price you can actually expect to pay. That might not seem with pointing out, but it’s very relevant with today’s fast changing prices for things like freight costs, pulp costs, resin costs, and labor costs which will alter the pricing of nearly anything you would buy.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that I have several conversations with customers every single day about rising costs. This week, I heard about price increases in categories such as shelled eggs, salsa, tomatoes, sour cream, and more. I had conversations with some people who still think they haven’t seen this in full effect yet. I’ve had conversations with people who, like me, believe we’ve been seeing this in effect for at least all of this year. We’ve forced back many of these price increases significantly. As one final example of what I mean, here’s a graph from our new SafeSourceIt™ Event graph view that shows a corrugate product RFQ where the incumbent vendor (yellow) had just passed along a price increase that they said was necessary and based on the markets. You be the judge, but I don’t believe that price increase is justified based on the final pricing submitted by that vendor’s competitors (blue, green, orange).

You have the ability to do this too. Don’t keep accepting cost increases and wishing you could create cost reductions. Contact SafeSourcing with your procurement needs and we can help. For more information, please contact SafeSourcing.

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

With the news that 4.5 million workers quit their jobs in November, it reminded me that businesses should look at using staffing agencies to help fill the positions that they have open.  Some are calling this event the Great Resignation.  It does not appear that the workers are just quitting and walking away but they are taking a step back and making choices to change careers to better their work-life balance.  With this influx of new workers, it might be the right time for you to look into getting help finding the right talent for your business.  Using a staffing agency may help you save valuable time and money.

Hiring new employees can be a very daunting task.  Sometimes it can be a real struggle finding the right talent.  Even if you find the right talent the new hire may not fully satisfy your company’s needs.  This can result in wasted time and money.  As a result, a lot of companies choose to work with staffing agencies to help them find the right talent.  When done in-house the vetting process for a new hire can be very time consuming and expensive.  Staffing agencies can help with this because they do all of the vetting and may absorb other costs such as skill assessments, background checks, drug screenings, driving records and training.  Because of this, using a staffing agency ensures that you get qualified candidates that can come aboard and start being productive right away.  Below are some other reasons to consider working with a staffing agency.

• Faster Hiring Process
• Better Candidates
• Save Money
• Superior Market Knowledge
• Lower New Employee Overhead
• Performance Guarantees
• More Effective Job Descriptions
• More Access to Experienced Candidates

If you are planning to hire new employees and would like help finding a staffing agency, 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 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 blog is by Margaret Stewart, Director of HR, and Administration at SafeSourcing.

When reflecting on the last two or so years since the emergence of Covid-19 and thinking about all the many things that have happened and changed since then, the best image I can use to express what this whole time has been like would be an amusement park (albeit a pretty unamusing one). There are a number of different ways an (un)amusement park and our world now are metaphorically similar.

First, it’s easy to get lost. Amusement parks are often pretty large, with endlessly winding roads and new shops and attractions around each bend. It’s difficult to navigate through the maze just as it is difficult to traverse through the world now with so many twists and turns. You may find yourself wandering around, looking for a good place to stop, only to find you are back where you started except no way out. Much of Covid-19 has been like this for so many people and there no gleaming exit sign to show us the way to go.

Second, it’s unpredictable. With each new twist and turn in amusement parks as well as Covid life, we can only guess what we think the future might hold and what will be coming next. Just like the roller coasters that go up and down, all around and back again, the market for so many goods or services (or even companies like GameStop) have been completely unpredictable. Many people have struggled to find things that they normally would an abundance of, like toilet paper in Covid life or just a toilet for amusement park life.

Third, it’s exhausting. With so much uncertainty and the inability to find rest both since covid and at amusement parks, naturally we grow weary of it. We may want things to change and go back to normal, but for now we can reminisce about days before Covid or amusement parks and look forward to a time when normalcy returns. Until then, we must keep striving on and doing the best we can, but there is some help out there. A procurement partner, like SafeSourcing can help you navigate the chaos of the market and help to source the goods or services that you have not been able to find.

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.

I recently had a conversation with a procurement professional who is responsible for generating savings for his organization. His job is to use his skills to purchase goods and services at a better cost than they have been able to do previously. It’s simple and it’s common.

As you may know, this market has seen astronomical cost increases across nearly every category there is. This poses quite a challenge for the procurement professional as his livelihood depends on his ability to achieve savings.

Yet, there is a tendency within some organizations to view savings as a rigid formula where current cost – new cost = savings. I absolutely get that and have worked for many years to achieve that very goal consistently.

That said, the conversation must shift, and procurement professionals need to be held to a more realistic standard. In this market, cost avoidance is just as valuable. If an organization waits until the market allows traditional savings as defined above, then they will lose out on the savings they can achieve through cost avoidance.

Accepting vendors’ price increases as-is because “not is not a good time” to source a category is to agree to pay more than you have paid before. If you use tools like our eProcurement RFQ, for example, in this market, you might avoid that cost increase altogether.

What exactly are you waiting for?

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.

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

Possibly one of the biggest changes we have seen in the last 15 years or so, at least financially, has been the rise of cryptocurrency. Even in the last year or two alone, the number of different cryptocurrencies has soared. Perhaps you have wondered what it is, how you even begin, or what it all means economically.

Cryptocurrency is a digital currency that can be bought, sold, traded, or used electronically. In addition, it is also not issued by any country and therefore is not regulated by any origin country, which can allow for more freedom of use and less government regulation. This freedom from regulation and ease of transfer is a leading cause of the rise of cryptocurrency because all you need is a computer to make transactions. There have been downsides to the lack of regulation too. Often hackers will hijack a company website or database and demand cryptocurrency in exchange for the company information release. Because the nature of cryptocurrency being unregulated and secured by cryptography, it means it cannot be traced.

There are good things about cryptocurrencies too. Cryptocurrencies vary and there are a number of different ones out there. With some research, one can discern which currency they think will continue to grow and there are a number of different ways of beginning. One good way to begin is to choose an app or other platform from which you would like to buy, sell, and trade from. While most apps are free, there are varying fees for transactions and finding the right fee base is dependent on how much you plan on spending and how often you think you will make transactions. From there, you can link bank accounts or credit cards to purchase currencies and sell currencies. In some places – which are growing more common – you can even buy goods or services through cryptocurrencies, especially when linked to other pay platforms, like Venmo, PayPal, or others. SafeSourcing  now accepts Bitcoin and Ethereum as forms of payment for all of our services.

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.

With the New Year here we tend to use the occasion to set resolutions for ourselves surrounding changes we want to make in our lives. These changes are not isolated from the workplace, in fact millions of 2022 resolutions will directly apply to people’s jobs/careers. Many procurement professionals will look at their decisions and direction and begin to plan changes in those processes as well. Unfortunately for as many people who will try to make changes, many will fail to reach their goals and in today’s blog we will look at a few reasons why that happens.

People don’t know how to get there: There are many places in this world I want to go, some of them are not that far from my home, and yet without preparing directions, or in today’s world, loading a GPS device, I would have no idea how to get there. I may be able to head in a general direction but in time I would get lost and frustrated and head right back home. New changes to your procurement processes are no different. They require a plan of action, directions on where you are going, in order to get to where you want to be. This, of course, assumes a knowing of where you want to be and how to measure whether you actually got there which is all part of the plan.

People forget to take the baby steps: So many resolutions fail because people set goals of losing 50 pounds by June or quitting smoking or managing stress better with the perception that getting there is just a matter or wanting it bad enough or having enough willpower. Willpower like anything that is exercised takes time to get in shape you wouldn’t get off the couch and run a marathon the first day and neither should expect lofty goals and resolutions to be achieved on the first day. Starting with short term achievable goals that can provide momentum is the key. Instead of focusing on a lofty reduction of costs by 20% this year, focus on how you can reduce the time from project start to actual realized savings by 3 days or on including one extra supplier in the process to help you make better choices leading to higher value for the company.

People don’t really want to change: Some resolutions fail because we subconsciously want them to fail. The truth is many of us like to eat food that is bad for us and indulge in habits that are bad for us. Many others are afraid of bettering ourselves in our career because it may someday mean stepping out of our comfort zone into a world with different responsibilities and expectations. This can be especially difficult for people with more introverted personalities. One of your goals may be to increase new projects with new departments within the organization by 15%. In many cases this is going to require selling your department’s service and expertise to those departments and this can be a scary place for some professionals who are fine taking orders. To be successful in types of goals start by knowing where your strengths and weaknesses of your team are and whether you will be able to do the things necessary to achieve the goals/resolutions you are creating.

For more information on how SafeSourcing can help you with your projects, 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 blog is by Margaret Stewart, Director of HR, and Administration at SafeSourcing Inc.

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, people across the globe have faced some extreme situations, from hospitalizations and death to lack of workforce and supplies. While the last two years have been a challenge to say the least, there are still lasting impacts on families, society, and businesses. There have been some great advances, however. We have seen the rapid development and rollout of several vaccines, the dedication and creative problem-solving decisions by schools and employers, and the rise of community help in times of need.

While there are many struggles for many people and businesses, the obstacles the world has overcome have been huge. These struggles for the last two years have started causing some consumers to be less forgiving for covid-related excuses. The reason behind this is that some consumers view the covid-related problems as something that can be expected and should be overcome, so not being able to fulfill business promises becomes the business’s failure to meet expectations and has not upheld the needs of the consumer.

Although not all problems may be predicted, some can be. Things like rising costs and lower supplies can be challenges and obstacles, but not without hope. Teaming up with a procurement partner, like SafeSourcing, can help your business or organization overcome some of the obstacles we all currently face and can help you find the products you need and avoid having shelf space go empty.

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.