Daily Insights, Trends and Solutions for Professionals, Experts, Students and Society
Procurement involves the tactical and strategic procurement of all goods and services required for the operation of any single business or organization.
All over the business landscape, more companies in more diverse industries are transforming their Procurement functions and Procurement strategy.
They’re leaving behind more transactional models and becoming more strategic, implementing total cost of ownership Strategic Sourcing models, either centre-led or decentralized.
Continue reading “10 Steps for Procurement Strategy Development! (Infographic)”In any company or industry that sells products the cost of the raw materials and components is often the single largest expense. Despite the magnitude of this cost however there is a wide range of focus put on managing this expenditure from proactive and strategic to reactive and tactical. This is all managed by either Commodity Management or Category Management.
In some cases there is a great level of planning applied before a single purchase order is placed. In other cases buying decisions are made subjectively and with very little focus. Further the experience in those buying these goods can vary significantly as well.
Supply Chain is about much more than just negotiating lower materials costs. A well constructed Procurement Strategy will raise the value of the Supply Chain to your company.
How do you manage your materials spend? Are you executing a Buying Strategy or are you just blindly placing purchase orders ?
Continue reading “Commodity (or Category) Management – What is your Buying Strategy?”
Who is your best supplier?
Can you pick one, or a few, out of the bunch?
Some procurement professionals can quickly identify their key or champion supplier partners.
Unfortunately for many, basic supplier insights, such as contract, spend, performance, risk, and compliance data aren’t so easy to get a hold of or begin to analyze.
Listed as a top key finding in a 2020 WBR Insights report, it was found that “The top concern for procurement professionals is making buying decisions without the necessary insight” (WBR Insights 2020).
Access to reliable insights is incredibly important when aiming to know which suppliers are the ‘right suppliers’ to collaborate with.
Continue reading “Who is Your Best Supplier?”Welcome to the Supply Chain Game Changer ™ blog.
The Supply Chain touches all of our lives whether it be in business or personally. No matter what industry you are in or are touched by, all involve the movement of goods, services, and information. So the most efficient functioning of the Supply Chain affects us all. And it affects us in every aspect of our lives whether we are consumers, employees, or business leaders.
With a career spent in Supply Chain I’ve seen many ways of performing the processes involved in managing the Supply Chain. Many of these processes are highly efficient. Yet many more are highly inefficient. Regardless, everyone strives to improve the way things are done. And every experience has been an opportunity for growth.
In this blog I’d like to share my experiences, and those of others, in improving, working in, managing in and being managed by the Supply Chain.
There have been some remarkable achievements and there have been some missteps along the way. However there are lessons to be learned and experiences to be shared in every case. And I hope that this learning and shared experience will be of value as you seek to improve the Supply Chain you are a part of.
On top of that we want to share anything and everything related to Leadership, Change Management, Technology, Procurement, Purchasing, Distribution, Logistics, and much, much more.
Overall Supply Chain Game Changer can serve you as a guide as you do your jobs and as you progress through your career. The issues and challenges that you face will be different for everyone on any given day. There is something for everyone in Supply Chain Game Changer.
Additionally I invite you to comment and send me content. By learning, not only from successes but from failures, we will all be better going forward. There is a wonderful world of people and experiences that we can all learn from.
So again I welcome you to the Supply Chain Game Changer™ blog.
Let’s go!
Creating a Responsive Supply Chain in advance of the peak shopping season is a no-brainer. While the season is usually described as the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, responsive processes have a lasting effect.
A Responsive Supply Chain offers greater flexibility with labor management, streamlines warehouse operations, reduces dock constraints, and much more. Managing the balance between peaks and lulls is essential, and supply chain leaders are starting to focus more on building responsive, proactive strategies well in advance of the peak holiday shopping season.
As noted by Inbound Logistics, “Many manufacturers start assembling products, mapping out product specs to determine capacity needs, and working with their transportation and distribution partners on reliable and cost-effective logistics solutions up to six months in advance.”
To stay competitive, leaders need to understand the value of a responsive supply chain and what best practices to follow to build responsiveness intuitively into the supply chain.
Continue reading “Create a Responsive Supply Chain to Handle Peaks and Lulls!”When preparing for a negotiation, it is common to identify the issues to be negotiated, decide on negotiating tactics to use on your supplier, think through what your supplier may say and practice saying the words you’ll use during the negotiation.
Those are all necessary components of negotiation preparation.
But, they are not enough. To truly reach your potential in a negotiation you need to understand some key things about your supplier. This article will focus on three major things you need to know about your supplier before beginning a negotiation.
How do you get to know them? You can research your supplier and/or you could – get this – ask your supplier contact!
Continue reading “The Negotiation Before the Negotiation!”Unless your company is amongst the very largest companies in the world then chances are your Procurement team will, at some point, be dealing with Suppliers that are larger than your company. They are the Elephant in the room.
In a function such as Procurement where negotiating is a central part of the role, leverage is a critical element in those negotiations. And in many cases size translates to leverage.
So how do you negotiate with a Supplier that is larger than your company and has greater perceived leverage?
How do you negotiate when your Supplier is the Elephant in the room?
Continue reading “When the Elephant in the Room is Your Supplier!”There is a great line in one of the Spider-man movies, “With great power comes great responsibility!”
Procurement organizations can have the power to spend and control as much as 75-80% of a company’s revenue. Now that is power! And with that power comes a huge responsibility.
Less enlightened organizations still think of Procurement as a back office function processing transactional purchase orders and standard contracts. But better informed and leading organizations see and recognize Procurement for its strategic value.
What actually is the power that is within Procurement’s mandate? And what responsibility does Procurement have commensurate with that power?
Continue reading “Procurement: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility!”Choosing suppliers. Finding the right products. Making requisitions. Getting the right amount of products at the right price. All of these are the challenges of working in procurement, necessitating an automated popular procurement software.
But procurement is one of the most integral parts of running an operation. Whether you’re servicing other businesses in a B2B capacity or serving the general public, you need to be able to procure the right types of items in the right quantities to be successful.
It can be a complicated and challenging process.
Continue reading “Using an Automated Procurement System at Your Business!”Has your friend, or partner, ever looked at you and said, “Let’s go out to eat!”(Side Note: we’re talking about pre- or post- COVID 19 of course) and put a review on Yelp?
There’s often not many seconds between the proposition of eating out, and a frantic barrage of mobile searches on various review sites, blog posts and news articles.
Continue reading “What if Your Supplier Had a Yelp Review?”Every day there are individuals and teams all around the world who are making a difference. They are driving transformational change in their jobs, in their Departments, in the Organization and in their Companies. And they are achieving amazing results that defy what they previously thought possible.
We want to hear your stories and we invite you to share those stories on https://supplychaingamechanger.com so that we can all applaud, and learn from, your tremendous efforts.
Continue reading “Are you a Game Changer? Tell us your Story!”What is the role of the Chief Procurement Officer? And what is the role, and difference, of the CPO as compared to the Chief Value Officer?
Procurement is the process of translating customer requirements into the selection of highly capable suppliers, to timely, accurately, cost-effectively deliver high quality, mission-critical inputs and raw materials to internal customers. As well as assuring the accurate receipt and timely payment of all accrued invoices.
Continue reading “Could the CPO Be Replaced by the Chief Value Officer?”Over the last 100 plus years of the history of SCM (Supply Chain Management) has evolved from an initial focus on improving relatively simple, but very labor-intensive processes to the present day engineering and managing of extraordinarily complex global networks.
We will take you through the last 60 plus years below and end the post with an amazing infographic.
Continue reading “The History of Supply Chain Management! (Infographic)”Every organisation spends money on multiple areas regularly to keep the business running. From purchasing raw materials to availing of specialised services, your company takes a chunk out of its treasury to fund its operations and attain its objectives.
If you wish to boost your savings and control the funds going out of your company’s treasury, analysing these expenses through spend analytics becomes essential.
Continue reading “How Can Businesses Benefit from Spend Analytics?”Regardless of what industry your company is in you are dependent on suppliers to operate your company. Thus it makes sense to have a Supplier Relationship Management program.
Suppliers provide components for products you manufacture and sell. Suppliers provide services for products or services you take to market. Suppliers move your goods from one point to another. And suppliers provide the goods, supplies, software and other items required by every function in your company to conduct day to day business.
Without suppliers no company could survive, let alone thrive.
Yet historically too many people have treated suppliers transactionally with no to little regard for fostering mutually beneficial relationships.
Going forward it will no longer be sufficient to just have passive supplier relationships. Companies must have a formal, strategic Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) program!
Continue reading “What is Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)?”
EBOOKS HERE
