Political Correctness

Add comment March 10th, 2006 David Bush - Iasta

Whether you’re a Democrat or Republican, it’s interesting to read how the lobbyist Jack Abramoff is causing both sides to run for cover. I laugh thinking that the politicians are doing mental inventories of all the “favors” they’ve accepted from Mr. Abramoff, or any other lobbyist.

For some reason, it reminded me of the “good ole days” of purchasing. For a few companies, purchasing was an art based on relationships, word of mouth and sometimes a few favors. We’ve all heard the stories about somebody in purchasing who took a big European vacation or had their whole house built piece-by-piece by the company’s vendors. Fortunately for most companies and their honest purchasing teams, they were nothing more than colorful stories.

In today’s Sarbanes-Oxley climate, stories like these can make purchasing teams run for cover. That’s why it’s become so important to have consistent purchasing practices and eSourcing products that enable the adoption of these purchasing practices. Luckily for Iasta customers, SmartSource helps support operational procedures and companies’ need to document all purchasing decisions. All dialogs between buyers and suppliers can be documented in the RFQ, RFI, bid graph and event forum. This new way to centralize and document award decisions makes it so much easier for the buyer to do his job and not get “Abramoff’ed”.

Entry Filed under: General, Technology