Strategy . Influence . Innovation . Process

As a follow up to my previous posting ‘the greatest challenge is internal’ it is clear that many supply management practitioners still battle against lack of acceptance and involvement in their own enterprise. A recent global study conducted by the Supply Chain Management Institute (SMI), at the European Business School (EBS) and the consulting firm [...]

Start a strategic sourcing program to capitalize on a buyer’s market If you don’t have an effective supply chain risk management program, start one now. There is going to be a lot of business failures. Start managing your suppliers. With business failures rising do you know enough about your suppliers supply chains? Use the downturn [...]

The drive to develop leaner supply chains and introduce global sourcing has resulted in extended, more complex and vulnerable supply chains. The same pressures have also seen an increasing trend for many companies to adopt single sourcing to maximize their pricing leverage. Such practices have placed significantly more risk in company supply chains, which is [...]

Whilst it is critical for all companies to reduce their net working capital requirements to ensure sufficient liquidity in their business, it is also critical that they do so in a joined up way and not in isolated actions that put their supply chain at risk. Unfortunately, too many companies still fall into the trap [...]

For the last year’s, growth and not cost savings has been on top of most CEO’s agendas. Yet at the same time they associate procurements contribution to the organization as delivering cost savings. This perception is clearly very damaging to procurements claim to play a strategic role in their organization and take a seat on [...]

The “chumpion” is a name give by sales people to the person(s) on the inside of the buyers organization that sales people befriend in order to reach out to his or her peers, dependents and superiors, to secure allies that have the ability to influence, move and marginalize procurement. The “chumpion” therefore, is at the [...]

In an earlier posting I talked about the need for procurement leaders to move beyond cost savings. Well it seems on my travels that many procurement leaders are still struggling to get their message across. So, if procurement cannot define its own value then why should it be taken seriously by anyone else? The gap [...]

Most companies still focus primarily on financial metrics such as lowest price to determine whether the negotiation was successful. While financial terms are clearly a key success factor, there are other types of value at stake in negotiations and without a mechanism for giving weight to these other kinds of value, they are likely to [...]

Having the right people in Purchasing is a must to delivering procurements promised strategic contribution. So try to answer the following questions for your organization: 1. Have you developed a Culture where people are deeply aware of and have internalized the Mission, Vision and Core Values needed to execute the Purchasing and Business Strategy? 2. [...]

Procurement is often perceived as an EXTERNAL facing function. After all procurement negotiates with suppliers and works with them to reduce cost and improve efficiencies doesn’t it? Well this may be true in part but procurements ability to achieve its objectives is strongly impacted by the strength and quality of its INTERNAL relationships with its [...]