Category Archives: Suppliers
I’m about to throw you a curveball… How does Procurement Analytics relate to the baseball-themed movie, Moneyball? Well, if you haven’t seen the movie before, let’s recap the story. Brad Pitt stars as Billy Beane, General Manager for Oakland Athletics (A’s). Beane is faced with the challenge of assembling a winning team, but he is handicapped with the lowest salary constraint in baseball. If the Oakland A’s ever wanted to win the World Series, Beane knew he needed to find … More
One day last week, I was driving to work and listening to a story on NPR about a coffee farmer from a remote region in Guatemala. The story continued as they discussed a hip coffee shop in Portland, Oregon that is using spend visibility to sell cups of coffee. Okay, they didn’t say, “spend visibility,” but the coffee shop is certainly following spend analysis logic. The story by Allison Aubrey was about how a struggling coffee farmer managed to cut … More
Contract management is an important aspect of managing supplier relationships and ensuring that commodities and services are negotiated at the right time. Unfortunately contracts are often managed poorly within a company. Even a smaller company can have hundreds of active agreements, adding up to thousands of contract terms and clauses. As you may know, not one of those contract terms carries much weight if the agreement isn’t monitored and enforced. Procurement Managers know that getting a fair price on goods … More
Many times organizations begin using eSourcing tools with the mistaken assumption that the tool will automatically take care of all the work for them. Communicating with suppliers throughout the eSourcing process is probably the most neglected, yet important, piece of an eSourcing project. One of the biggest mistakes a project manager can make when running an eSourcing event is to publish the project and then wait for supplier responses. The project manager needs to engage suppliers and demonstrate how important … More
It’s easy to get caught up the “go live date” for your eSourcing software implementation. Many procurement leaders believe their team will be empowered to succeed simply by turning on a tool. However, that is not the case. Michael van Keulen from VF Corporation (an Iasta client) shared some best practices and advice at eWorld London for groups who are rolling out new eSourcing software. Michael shared some key elements from VF Corp’s successful eSourcing technology adoption that included: Developing … More
In Part One, I introduced a discussion of some surprising trends I found when looking at supplier registration forms from a wide variety of companies across many industries. The first surprise for me was that so many of these companies are asking the same questions from supplier companies. In this post I’ll discuss the other unusual thing I discovered: some organizations ask potential suppliers essay questions. It’s not quite as open as the classic American “How I Spent My Summer … More
When organizations adopt formal supplier management programs, one of the first steps they take is to focus on a more disciplined approach to collecting and managing basic information about current and potential suppliers. I am interested in the kind of data they collect and how they use it to manage suppliers so I took a look at supplier registration forms for a wide variety of companies and I was surprised by a couple of things: First, the data requested from … More
Many products and services you are currently buying may be ideal candidates for a reverse auction. Reverse auctions allow you to collect pricing information in a competitive bidding environment and have comparative reports available at the conclusion. Suppliers submit pricing within a pre-determined time frame and receive real-time feedback on where their price stands by being able to include ranking or pricing information. Ask yourself these six questions to help determine if a sourcing project is appropriate for a reverse … More
This is the fourth post in our 10 part series. Click here to read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3. Investing in capabilities to support basic supplier management activities is Spend Matter’s fourth idea to enhance procurement’s value across the organization. During the Webcast, Jason Busch presented a few key supplier management activities including: Supplier on-boarding (i.e., the need to efficiently electronically enable suppliers for eProcurement and invoicing) Supplier portals (i.e., basic portal capability designed to capture supplier information … More
Recently, Iasta sponsored a Webcast featuring Jason Busch from Spend Matters. Busch presented 10 ideas that go beyond basic sourcing to enhance procurement’s value to the business. By embracing new sourcing-related tools and services, teams can gain critical knowledge about spend to drive additional cost savings. The following post blogs will outline the 10 ways, outside of transactional related focus areas, that both Spend Matters and Iasta see delivering new value to organizations. The first idea Busch presented was to … More
Sustainable sourcing — considering environmental and social impacts in selecting and managing suppliers — can enhance your company’s brand, improve operations and drive efficiency while promoting a healthier environment and stronger community. Regulators, consumer groups and customer demands drive sustainability requirements. Trillions of dollars are being invested in green funds, and companies tout their sustainability initiatives through ad campaigns. Risk management experts know that a company’s reputation can be tarnished by the careless environmental actions of its suppliers. Procurement organizations … More
In the past few years, the procurement world has developed better ways to level the playing field between new suppliers and incumbent suppliers. Buyers have successfully driven costs down by embracing processes and technologies that increase competition between suppliers. Generally this trend has made it easier for suppliers to get “introduced” to buyers. Supply relationship management technology has also increased the pressure for incumbent suppliers to maintain competitive pricing. Clearly the risks associated with switching suppliers are commodity dependent. It’s … More
Over the last several years, health care providers such as physician offices, clinics and hospitals have seen a dramatic increase in costs to run their facilities. The new HIPA regulations and the much anticipated “Obamacare” will continue to raise costs in the coming years while reducing reimbursement payments for services rendered. These changes will make it even more critical to find ways to reduce costs and maintain a high quality of service to patients. A Practice Management and Healthcare Billing … More
