Specialized procurement focused wiki?s may be just the type of tool you have been looking for.

According to the king of all wikis, Wikipedia; a wiki is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language. Wikis are used in businesses to provide affordable and effective intranets and for knowledge management. Ward Cunningham, developer of the first wiki, originally described it as “the simplest online database that could possibly work”.

“Wiki? is a reduplication of “wiki”, a Hawaiian word for “fast”. It has been suggested that “wiki” means “What I Know Is”.

The SafeSourcing wiki is one of many tools available on the SafeSourcing website which is dedicated to easy to use and free sources of information for retail procurement professionals. This type of wiki is generally referred to as a specialized wiki. As such, the Safesourcing wiki is focused on procurement terms and discussions that provide general knowledge relative to any number of procurement and supply chain related issues. Subject matter can be wide ranging and could include the following subjects, and much more.

1. Safety in the supply chain
2. Environmental consciousness in the supply chain
3. Retail procurement terms and definitions.
4. Supply Chain Standards

An example of how a procurement team or individual knowledge worker might use a wiki could evolve like this. A retailer decides to develop their social responsibility programs around the procurement of humane raised meat products, sea food products and other environmentally supported products. As you have noted through following the above links a well thought out wiki can provide greater definitions, discussions as well as links to other information sources such as group websites etc.

The nice thing about wikis is that the definitions and discussions are not static. Authorized users can add to definitions, discussions as well as rate the site. This in and of itself is educational. In this way a body of work can grow from the contribution of all users and help to provide a reliable source of data for professionals in a specialized field.

Please feel free to visit the safesourcing wiki regularly and offer your comments, terms, definitions and suggestions. This section of the SafeSourcing website is a free tool for procurement professionals. It is just one way we try to support the retail procurement and supply chain professional, which is the most difficult job in retail.

We appreciate and look forward to your comments.

Ron Southard

This author would bet that he has your attention now.

The reason you are reading this paragraph at all is that bad news and weather sell. Bad news about the weather sells better. We see it at the grocery, convenience or drug store checkouts every time we make a purchase. How often do the news channels lead in with Good Samaritan stories? Everyone wants to follow the bad news. Men in particular like to follow news of bad weather. My wife says I can tell you the temperature and elevation at any time of the day as well of the impact of one on the other.

So what do you do in case of a storm? What is your information source?

From a procurement perspective we do have a storm brewing and it?s based on a lack of easily accessible information, we can be faced with any of the following on any given day.

1. The loss of a source of supply
2. Damaged goods
3. Product recalls
4. Product safety issues
5. Food borne illness issues
6. Environmental impact issues
7. Poor product specifications
8. Lack of adequate inforamtion at our fingertips
9. No way to openly collaborate with other procurement professionals
10. Transferred or promoted resources that leave a departmental brain drain

The question is how do we deal with this? There are a variety of portals, search engines and website home pages that may or may not contain what you are looking for. The question is there one that contains it all and does not cost a nickel to access. If there were, it would need to include the following.

1. A central repository and launch point for industry alerts
2. A central source for procurement information
3. A central collaboration point for all procurement professionals to hold open forum conversations.
4. A central location where one can find specifications on hundreds of products.
5. A central database of new global and local sources of supply
6. A central location that tracks suppliers environmental practices
7. A central location that tracks suppliers product safety practices
8. A daily educational commentary that can be commented on or forwarded to others in the procurement space for review.
9. A central location for your team to hold private forum conversations and share private documents.
10. A central location where companies can trace beyond one forward and one back if necessary after they have bought products or services.

The best offense is a good defense. When a storm approaches having the right tools to insulate you from the storm surge are critical. There is only one tool in the procurement space that can answer yes to providing all of these tools. To investigate further, please follow this link and spend a little time to see if you can find them all.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Many e-procurement companies claim to have provided outrageous ROI’s orreturns on investment as a result of savings generated by e-negotiation events.Are these accurate

There are literally dozens of calculations that go in to calculating a companies ROI onany type of purchase they make. In fact the entire procure to pay process has a number of steps that require analysis when a company reflects their net savings. A very simple example is that of switching costs if a new supplier is selected. There are several other cycle measuring terms that also describes this total process.

Life-Cycle Costing is a procurement technique which considers operating, maintenance, acquisition price, and other costs of ownership in the award of contracts to ensure that the item acquired will result in the lowest total ownership cost during the time the item’s function is required.

An oldie but goody is Total Cost of Ownership or (TCO) which is a financial estimate designed to help consumers and enterprise managers assess direct and indirect costs commonly related to software or hardware. It is a form of full cost accounting.

For the many terms or buzz words that describe net savings or ROI and there are dozens; probably the most accurate way to determine the real numbers are to ask prospective solution providers for a reference and then ask the retailers finance team how they measure results and for a couple of specific examples by category and how they flowed through the Profit and Loss statement.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Many e-procurement companies claim to have provided outrageous ROI?s orreturns on investment as a result of savings generated by e-negotiation events.Are these accurate

There are literally dozens of calculations that go in to calculating a companies ROI onany type of purchase they make. In fact the entire procure to pay process has a number of steps that require analysis when a company reflects their net savings. A very simple example is that of switching costs if a new supplier is selected. There are several other cycle measuring terms that also describes this total process.

Life-Cycle Costing is a procurement technique which considers operating, maintenance, acquisition price, and other costs of ownership in the award of contracts to ensure that the item acquired will result in the lowest total ownership cost during the time the item’s function is required.

An oldie but goody is Total Cost of Ownership or (TCO) which is a financial estimate designed to help consumers and enterprise managers assess direct and indirect costs commonly related to software or hardware. It is a form of full cost accounting.

For the many terms or buzz words that describe net savings or ROI and there are dozens; probably the most accurate way to determine the real numbers are to ask prospective solution providers for a reference and then ask the retailers finance team how they measure results and for a couple of specific examples by category and how they flowed through the Profit and Loss statement.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

A company that is socially responsible is one that actively contributes to the welfare of society in addition to their profit driving activities.

Contributions to the welfare of society can come in many forms such as supporting the arts, further education, give to social welfare agencies, supporting community-building initiatives, reducing pollution, and the other charitable causes. Businesses that adopt socially responsible directives help to allow government agencies to minimize their involvement with the corporation

One way that retail companies can add to their social consciousness is to try and use Certified Reference Materials or (CRMs) which are ?controls? or standards used to check the quality and traceability of products. Requiring these standards prior to purchasing products indicates a lot about companies commitment to its stakeholders which includes its consumers and those associated with them. It also mitigates risk should recalls occur as a result of harm.

As an example, a reference standard for a unit of measurement is an artifact that embodies the quantity of interest in a way that ties its value to the reference base. At the highest level, a primary reference standard is assigned a value by direct comparison with the reference base.

A primary standard is usually under jurisdiction of a national standards body such as the ISO or The International Organization for Standardization which is an international standard -setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Relative to an example of a primary standard, you might refer to the Future ISO 26000 standard on social responsibility published as Draft International Standard which ties very nicely to this post.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Today?s guest post is from one of our account managers David Wenig. A company?s best advertisement is from its customers and associates.

If you?re using an e-procurement service or if you are thinking about using one, you need to think about an important factor; what kind of service will I receive? At SafeSourcing, there is a significant focus placed on getting your RFQ event from specification to run in less than two weeks. In this timeframe, there will be no cut corners. All participating suppliers will receive training, any RFI?s required will be collected, and final event approval will be secured and the event run within the two week timeframe.

Think about the benefit of efficiently running your events. If you are looking to reduce your costs quickly, you will find success. If you are nearing the end date of an existing contract and want price compression before renewal, we can run your event. In the SafeSourcing customer service department, we know that time is of the essence.

But efficiency by itself is not enough. Companies should also expect their e-procurement service provider to provide a personal touch and be willing to take the time to work directly with you to plan for and to run your events. Your SafeSourcing team will be there from the start to help find categories and products that will benefit from e-negotiation. From there, we will work directly with you to develop an action plan to reduce your spend quickly. ?One retailer recently said to me; you are just more detail oriented than others?.

These are just a couple of examples of what companies should expect from their e-procurement provider. You owe it to yourself to research the providers and to know what to look for. For additional free e-procurement information please visit our SafeSourcing Wiki and our SafeSourcing Blog archives.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

What retailers do in a down market with their suppliers can have a huge impact on their future including staying in business?

Retail is a tough business to begin with. The supermarket business vertical in general is a net one percent business and has been for as far back as one would care to look. As such, the impact of a down market can have an immediate impact. So it just makes sense that during tough economic times those retailers and their suppliers have to continually shuffle their priorities in order to keep the doors open.

In an article in the Arizona Republic titled Lessons of recessions resonate with retailers by Anne D?Innocenzio of the Associated Press it was stated by Michael Niemira the chief economist at the International Council of Shopping Centers that 143,000 retail stores closed last year and that 140,000 would close this year followed by 135,000 in 2010. That?s a total of 418,000 stores.

That is some major hunkering down. Retailers very quickly retract to profitable operating areas, profitable stores and profitable products. Some are forced to enter bankruptcy for protection. Supplier relationships become extremely important. However these business environs are no friendlier for suppliers whose business is also shrinking and could leave retailers without a source of supply if they go into bankruptcy or worse out of business.

It is precisely at this time that retailers should be looking for alternative sources of supply. This does not mean they have to change sources of supply, but a backup plan certainly makes sense with the potential impact that a lost source of supply might have. With the forward looking forecast for store closures to continue through at least 2010, there is still a need to protect and increase your view of the available supply chain.

One way to do this is through the use of e-negotiation tools. Specifically supplier databases. A sensible place to start is with your existing procurement tools provider if you have one. If you don?t; now may be a good time to review alternatives available specifically for retailers.

Some characteristics retailers should look for in a supplier database might include but are certainly not limited to the following.

1. A database of retail suppliers
2. Availability in the form of SaaS
3. The size of the database
4. Search Flexibility
5. Export Parameters
6. Category structure
7. Sub category structure
8. Additional data elements
a. Safety focus
b. Environmental focus
9. RFI data

Retailers should remember that much the same as they are trying to protect their customers and market share with coupons, discounts as well as any number of continuity and other marketing programs that all suppliers are doing exactly the same thing. Suppliers that you are not doing business with have programs and discounts to offer in order to attract new business. Your existing suppliers are offering the same. This may be the best time ever to explore these opportunities.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Ron Southard

Article points to an area that requires more attention and more CEO’s and CFO’s need to get more involved.

I was reading an interesting article in the Money Section of the September 10th issue of USA TODAY titled Hospital CEO’s find ways to save by Del Jones. You have to be kidding me. The sub title was Managing staff time, inventory can cut costs. Does this mean that while times were good and profits were a plenty that this was not the right way to run a business?

One reference in the article went on to discuss how a hospital carried twenty varieties of rubber gloves of different colors and thicknesses and that now doctors would have to choose from just two types. The article also indicated that this would reduce costs on gloves by almost 52% because of a larger volume based on just two types. You have to be kidding me. This is just an example of poor negotiation and poor purchasing discipline. We are talking about basic collaboration and aggregation strategies that most large organizations should have in place already. Surprisingly many do not. This type of collaboration should be taking place between disparate departments by aggregating similar product purchases. The products do not even need to be the exact same products to drive deeper discounts or quality improvement.

There are any number of quality management systems, procurement systems and supply chain management systems available on the market today. Many are available as hosted on demand offerings that make these tools easily accessible for companies of all sizes.

It still amazes me that they are not in greater use.

As always, we look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Article points to an area that requires more attention and more CEO?s and CFO?s need to get more involved.

I was reading an interesting article in the Money Section of the September 10th issue of USA TODAY titled Hospital CEO?s find ways to save by Del Jones. You have to be kidding me. The sub title was Managing staff time, inventory can cut costs. Does this mean that while times were good and profits were a plenty that this was not the right way to run a business?

One reference in the article went on to discuss how a hospital carried twenty varieties of rubber gloves of different colors and thicknesses and that now doctors would have to choose from just two types. The article also indicated that this would reduce costs on gloves by almost 52% because of a larger volume based on just two types. You have to be kidding me. This is just an example of poor negotiation and poor purchasing discipline. We are talking about basic collaboration and aggregation strategies that most large organizations should have in place already. Surprisingly many do not. This type of collaboration should be taking place between disparate departments by aggregating similar product purchases. The products do not even need to be the exact same products to drive deeper discounts or quality improvement.

There are any number of quality management systems, procurement systems and supply chain management systems available on the market today. Many are available as hosted on demand offerings that make these tools easily accessible for companies of all sizes.

It still amazes me that they are not in greater use.

As always, we look forward to and appreciate your comments.

It is up to retailers and their solution providers to assist their consumers by insuring that their suppliers in fact adhere to product specifications they source to.

This author does understand that insuring specification adherence is not an easy job. In order to do so, retailers require data that is not readily available to them. As such sources of that data need to come from somewhere. It can?t come from the supplier because you are asking a company to police themselves, and we all are aware of many examples in the past when that has not worked to well. As such third parties such as your supply chain software providers or procurement software providers appear to be the logical choice.

I recently read in the Arizona Republic on September 7th an article titled Anger uncorked at bottle maker by Michael Hill of the Associated Press. The article went on to quote a Vermont teacher who switched to aluminum bottles over two years ago for her two young daughters because of BPA or bisphenol-A which is a substance this author has posted about on a number of occasions. Apparently the manufacturer new that the bottles they sold contained trace amounts of BPA in the epoxy liners, but sold them as green and safe bottles. The manufacturer is now running a mail in recall program through the end of October where consumers can pick a new bottle that no longer contains any BPA.

The question this begs, and so aptly put by the mom is just how far does a consumer have to dig when trying to find safe and green alternatives for their families.

This is a process that e-negotiation suppliers can have an impact on if they capture the correct information prior to assisting retailers in sourcing these products. Beyond just hosting a retailers events, there is a lot of data that can be collected relative to a suppliers certifications and answers to specific questions such as; Does this product contain any BPA at all? In addition, samples can be provided that can also be tested if required.

It?s a shame that consumers have to do research beyond buying products that their retailer of choice markets as safe and green. It?s also a shame that retailers have to add this type of research to their procurement process.

Ask your e-procurement solutions provider how they can help with these processes during the hosting of e-negotiation events.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.