Category: Category Management

Procurement Outsourcing – Keep your Integrity!

Why Get a Product Sourcing Agent?

Like so many professionals Procurement people are very proud.  They are proud of the job that they do and the contributions that they make.  And they are most always proud of their ability to negotiate and get the best deal!

But at some point in their careers, especially in the age of Outsourcing, they are likely to have to deal with potential suppliers who provide Procurement services.  Procurement typically negotiates deals for other functions like I/T, HR, Manufacturing and every other area in the company.

Now they are faced with dealing with companies who basically state that they can do a better job at negotiating and Procurement than they do.

In the face of such a perceived, direct challenge to your abilities how do you and your Procurement team deal with this professionally and with integrity?

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What is Virtual Procurement and Why Should You Care?

Outsourcing Sourcing! 5 Lessons from Around the Globe!

Any of this sound familiar?  Then you need Virtual Procurement!

“With recent minimum wage increases, I need to find better ways to control my costs and to stay profitable while still delivering the highest level of service to my customers.”

“We are too small and can’t afford to hire a full-time procurement person. We are busy and just don’t have the time to focus on procurement.”

“We hope for good prices, but we usually just accept what suppliers offer. We are leaving hard earned money on the table.”

“Contracts are stored in someone’s drawer or lost, never to be seen again. Contracts often expire leaving us scrambling.”

“Supplier relationships are too close. They don’t deliver on their promises. Communication is lacking or too casual.”

If any of these statements resonate with you, please keep reading.

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The Supply Chain Detective™ and the Inventory Turnover Mystery!

Get Our Inventory ManagementEBOOK HERE

The company I had just joined went to market declaring that it was a world leader in Distribution and Logistics. That was a clear contradiction to the Inventory Turnover Mystery I was about to discover.

As I settled into the job and started learning, and studying, the various Supply Chain metrics I was surprised when I looked at the Inventory Turnover performance of the company.

Looking at recent and historical Inventory performance I could see that turnover always stayed around 5-6 turns with little variation. Everyone seemed content with the situation and unmotivated to make it better.

For a company that declared their world leading capability I was astonished. 5-6 turns? True leadership in this areas would require double digit turns.

I needed to figure out what was truly going on and get this Inventory Turnover mystery solved. This was another case for the Supply Chain Detective™.

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Ensure Your Supply Chain Doesn’t Break on Black Friday!

The 5 Point Last Minute Black Friday Supply Chain Checklist!

The Black Friday/Cyber Monday period is the busiest time of the year in E-Commerce and Retail.

For most companies selling in these channels they will see a spike in demand unlike anything they’ve experienced the entire year. And if successful they will be seeing growth much higher than the prior year.

But its one thing to sell and take orders for all of these products. It’s quite another matter altogether to fulfill that demand and do it successfully.

The exponential demand increase, in such a short timeframe, will stress any Supply Chain system to the maximum.

How do you ensure that your Supply Chain bends, but doesn’t break?

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Procurement Terminology is a Mess!

Featuring Our 12 Best Procurement Articles!

From one Procurement organization to the next, Procurement language and terminology differs.

Of course, it’s impossible to expect that every company would work within the exact same framework of understanding and messaging, but the lack of being able to communicate can sometimes be the difference between success and failure.

Procurement is a function, that is undergoing transformation; technologically and ideologically.

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Why Your Business Needs a Category Management Plan!

What’s the Difference Between Commodity Management and Category Management?

Businesses must be aware of several factors to remain competitive in today’s volatile market. A solid procurement strategy can help streamline and refine purchase decisions, ultimately improving the bottom line. A sound procurement strategy includes category management and a category management plan.

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Sourcing Priorities: Low Cost Geography or Domestic On-shoring?

The Disintermediation of the Supply Chain!

For many years the predominant priority in sourcing has been finding the lowest cost possible. This paradigm has driven an incredible the movement of a tremendous amount of production to lowest cost regions such as Asia.

However the continuity of supply issues caused by the pandemic has created a call to repatriate much of this manufacturing into domestic, albeit higher cost, regions.

What is the appropriate sourcing strategy going forward?

Should you keep work in low cost geographies, establish sources in multiple geographies, or on-shore work into high cost domestic countries?

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What is Procurement’s Place in the Value Chain?

Could the CPO Be Replaced by the Chief Value Officer?

Where does Procurement stand in your organization’s Value Chain?

Hopefully, you’ll be able to formulate an answer to that question after reading this post.

I speak with Procurement, Sourcing and Purchasing professionals every day, from various globally functioning organizations, and there’s a resounding similarity in every one of those conversations…

Procurement is — still — largely viewed as a secondary activity in most organizations’ value chains.

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Total Cost of Ownership Procurement Model Failure – What’s Missing?

The Single Point of Failure in Supply Chain – Semiconductor Fabrication!

Many businesses use some form of Total Cost of Ownership model to support their Procurement and sourcing decisions. In fact these models are not just used casually, but they often are designed to inform and make optimal sourcing choices.

But many dynamics that we have experienced in the last few years suggest that these models are less than optimal. From chronic global Supply Chain breakdowns during the pandemic through to disruptions caused by outsourcing and single points of failure, sourcing decisions have been exposed as being less than ideal.

What is the current nature of these Total Cost of Ownership models, and what needs to change to make their use more robust and responsive?

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What is the Best Supplier Vetting Process?

Strategic Supplier Relationship Management – Do’s and Don’ts

Does your business rely on at least one supplier? Or do you need multiple suppliers in order to perform your daily operations? Either way the quality, reliability, and value for cost of your suppliers and supplier vetting is crucial to your organization’s success.

On the other side, if your suppliers don’t live up to the standards you require, your organization can be damaged. 

Suppliers can tarnish your reputation by causing you to deliver unsatisfactory products to your customers.  A supplier with internal problems can delay your orders, making you miss deadlines and break promises.  Late or low-quality products could cause you to lose major customers or be forced to process refunds.

It’s vital, then, to use a consistent Supplier Management system to vet excellent suppliers and secure the ones that will help your brand to stay strong.

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Suppliers are Friends, not Food!

Strategic Supplier Relationship Management – Do’s and Don’ts

“Fish are friends, not food.” Similarly Suppliers are friends and not food.


Bruce, a great white shark, and his two shark friends gather alongside Dory and Marlin, taking a sacred oath, swearing off eating fish. This scene became an instant classic in the homes of the hundreds of millions that have seen Pixar’s mega-success, Finding Nemo.


If you’ve never seen the film, treat yourself by watching this clip below, and directly after you finish this blog, do yourself a favor and stream the entire film.

Now…
Is there something to be learned from this quote in Finding Nemo, that we can apply to procurement and sourcing? As buyer and suppliers aren’t we all living in the same ocean, existing in the same ecosystem, and working towards the same value creation?

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Strategic Supplier Relationship Management – Do’s and Don’ts

Procurement Don’t go to the Dark Side!

Shortly after I joined the Commodity/Category Management Procurement organization I was invited to attend the annual Strategic Supplier Awards event. It was all about Strategic Supplier Relationship management.

There were Executives from dozens of Suppliers in attendance. The event concluded with award recognition given to Suppliers based on their scoring and standing as being of Strategic value to the company.

Prior to joining the Procurement team I had neither understood nor appreciated the importance of Supplier Relationship management. But having seen how motivated and inspired these Suppliers were I started to understand.

But in the weeks, months and years to come I also became much more informed about the good and bad aspects of Supplier Relationship Management.

From company to company I came to develop a list of Strategic Supplier Relationship Management “Do’s” and “Don’ts”.

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Enable Spend Aggregation in Procurement!

Spend Aggregation Obstacle Course for Procurement!

Aggregating your procurement spend for the purpose of delivering greater value is a sound objective.  Theoretically you should be able to generate better service, better terms and conditions, and better cost.  Therefore you should enable spend aggregation.

Yet there can be many obstacles in your way to achieving this seemingly simple goal.  Loss of control, fear of job loss, questionable benefits, and a perceived loss of margin are some of the obstacles you may run across.  We discussed these in greater detail in our post Procurement (Part 1!) – The Spend Aggregation Obstacle Course!

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Differentiate With Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)!

Strategic Supplier Relationship Management – Do’s and Don’ts

Democratic institutions around the world promote the core doctrine that all people are created equally. This is clearly not the case in the world of supplier management. All suppliers are not created equally and they should all be managed with this distinction in mind. As such you can differentiate with Supplier Relationship Management.

This article on how to differentiate with Supplier Relationship Management will look at a model for stratifying and segmenting your supply base within the confines of a structured and formal supplier relationship program (SRP).

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Digital Procurement Ecosystem Creation in 8 Minutes!

What is the Digital Supply Chain?

I was in Paris last week, touring around as people do in Paris, and visited Fondation Louis Vuitton. What does that have to do with a Digital Procurement ecosystem?

If you’ve never been before and are a fan of art, architecture, and culture, I can highly recommend adding it to any future itineraries.

The museum’s collections are magnificent, and the building itself is a true masterpiece. Beyond the artwork, Fondation Louis Vuitton offers an experience to tour the multiple levels of decks that interweave themselves between the inside and the outside of the building’s structure.

On one of the decks sits a piece of artwork named “Where the Slaves Live”. It is a living organism, composed of inorganic and organic materials, forming a ‘living sculpture’ that is a small scale ecosystem- an ever-changing work of art.

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