Managing Volatility

1 comment January 2nd, 2007 David Bush - Iasta

I recently ran into an article on CPO agenda and was surprised to see that it was written by… Jason Busch. I was especially pleased to see that Jason’s viewpoints are being embraced by print media and giving him an even larger platform. It shows how far spend management blogging has come and how much it has impacted the industry in a short time.

This particular article was continuing the drum beat on supply risk management that is always well discussed by experts like Jason and Jim Lawton of Dun & Bradstreet. There is a good deal of high level sourcing strategy within the article that describes situations such as: price volatility due to regional factors and labor costs, potential infrastructure issues, granular analysis of pricing elements, and matching sell side analysis to buy side.

Use of e-Sourcing software can be helpful in building the business case for understanding these risks. Collecting information from the supply base to analyze responses in coherent and efficient way is critical. Also the nature of e-RFx allows companies to share information and collaborate globally in real time. Furthermore, optimization is very helpful in designing constraints to account for allocation scenarios.

The only question I have is: Did Jason write this UK friendly version or did the editors make some lingual changes on his behalf?

Entry Filed under: General, Global Supply Issues/Risk