Category Archives: Interviews
Knowledge@Wharton had an interview with David Lee, of Boston Consulting Group, on the topic of China sourcing, covered on Supply Chain Brain. The interview is very in-depth on the issues with managing the sourcing process where China is involved. One particular area of focus was regarding supplier identification and outreach. Chinese suppliers do not always have the same capabilities and the quality level can be highly uneven. But on top of that, we have a very non-transparent supplier market. We … More
Last week I found a great interview about eSourcing. It is available on NLP blog, administered by Charles Dominick. Seriously, I could not have said some of those things better myself. It was nice to do a little cross-pollination with NLP blog. Charles has built a great business in an unlikely place, and much like Iasta, finding these types of solution providers can be very beneficial to a procurement team in the long run. We hope you enjoy the perspective.
I have been desperate to take some time to read this article in SM on the A to Z of SRM. It is a big topic anyway but I was still hoping that It would offer some clarity on what is SRM. However, it gave me a lot more. During a recent SRM conference in Geneva, the speakers outlined how they interpreted SRM within their organisations and what benefits it gave. Let me summarise, by speaker: BP, Bill Knittle – … More
There was recently a two part interview on SCDigest with Ed Marien, emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin and director of its Supply Chain Logistics Management program. During it, I found some interesting quotes about the sourcing dynamic in some of his answers. First off, he feels there is a talent and training issue with many buyers not understanding or bothering to breakdown the total cost of ownership. This is somewhat shocking to me because almost every buyer I … More
In this post I summarize the fifth installment of the CPO Agenda 2007 debate series – What are procurement’s key challenges in the next 1 years? that took place early this summer in Paris. [I think I'll crack a bottle of Cabernet Franc in honor of our European clients.] My summaries of the previous debates on World Class Procurement – The British Perspective, The Next Wave of Savings, Global Sourcing – A Scandanavian View, and What Capabilities Do You Need … More
In this post I summarize the fourth installment of the CPO Agenda debate series – What Capabilities Do You Need To Operate In A Global Market? that took place in Milan in the Spring. My summaries of the previous debates on World Class Procurement – The British Perspective, Global Sourcing – A Scandanavian View, and The Next Wave of Savings are still archived here on eSourcing Forum. The debate included Danilo Augugilaro of UniCredit, Stefano Baghetti of Alenia Aeronautica, Paolo … More
Recently, in their Spring 2007 issue, CPO Agenda ran an executive debate in London with the goal of answering the question What does World-Class Procurement Look Like?. The debate included Andrew Boyd of Britvic, John Collington of the Home Office, Andy Collopy at BP, Philippe Corregelongue of EMEA/Emptoris, David Gilmour at Pilkington, Ben Jackson at Network Rail, John Kirby at Barclays, Heather Rodgers at Centrica, John Taylor at AstraZeneca, Beverly Tew at the BBC, Michael Walsh at Home Retail Group, … More
I read a great opinion piece in ELP by Sven-Anders Stegare (what a cool name too), CPO of SEB Group in Sweden. His comments are laced with common sense and you can almost see the battle scars earned from years in the procurement trenches. He describes how the attention is focused on direct materials and key suppliers until one day, the white knight consultant hits the door with ideas for managing indirect spend and reducing suppliers. At that point, CPOs … More
7. What about language issues? Americans generally only speak English. For India, suppliers tend to have good written English skills. Spoken English can be difficult because of different accents and because of poor telecom connections. A US buyer unfamiliar with speaking with people from India will need perhaps 5 or 10 hours of experience speaking on the phone with people in India before finding it easy to communicate by phone. For China, suppliers tend to have working written English skills. … More
Today, we welcome Carl Greppin from Transpac Access. We took some time to ask Carl questions about Low Cost Country Sourcing to get details on some of the finer points of this process. Part II of this interview will be up tomorrow. There are widely varying opinions about LCCS and best practices, we welcome any additional comments on this topic. 1. There is still lots of buzz about low-cost country sourcing (LCCS). • What should a company do to help … More
Recently Purchasing ran an article which, after noting that strategic sourcing is at the heart of the purchasing function, also noted that analyzing the supplier market, identifying potential suppliers to work with, deciding how you’ll work with them, planning your negotiations strategy, integrating suppliers into your business and monitoring their performance are absolutely critical for successful purchasing and supply chain management. In this article, they discussed five tips inspired by conversations with top practitioners. These tips were: Dive Deeper Build … More
Q11: What were the key benefits of having implemented an e-sourcing solution and what would you say were the main lessons learned? A11: The initial key benefits achieved were: • The creation of a competitive environment for tendering all indirect expense contracts. • Simplification and standardization of the tender process. • Ability to track compliance to the Procurement Policy. • Provide buyers with tools to make better business decisions. On a more long term basis, by having created a knowledge … More
Q7: We had a few postings last year on e-sourcing Ethics/Market Integrity. I know that through some of the consulting support your organization received in the early stages of implementation, this was one of the key topics addressed. Can you comment on a few of the successes and failures when it came to ethics? A7: During the first auctions it became apparent that buyers where not necessarily inviting suppliers to whom they where prepared to award the business too. Their … More
I recently sat down with a former Financial Controller of a Global Retailer to look back at his experience of implementing an e-Sourcing solution in Europe. This is the first in a 3 part interview. Q1: How/Why was the decision made to use e-Sourcing? A1: The initial decision to look at e-sourcing was made by Corporate. Reason for implementation in Europe was the creation of a competitive environment to tender all contracts related to indirect expenses. Focus on expense control … More
