Tag: Procurement

Posted on

News You Can Use: 8/5/2015

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  • Gartner Announces Rankings of Its 2015 Supply Chain Top 25
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    http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3053118
  • Detroit Is Cultivating Local Entrepreneurship to Secure It’s Future

    What have I been saying about Detroit and Camden?  It is going to happen…Detroit is also a city that is made of 82 percent African-American residents and 52 percent women residents, with an annual median household income of $26,000. When witnessing this new business growth we must ask ourselves, is everyone able to participate? Can all have the opportunity to start a business and grow? Nationally, according to our database, minority entrepreneurs make up 15 percent of businesses and contribute $591 billion in revenue to the economy. Will Detroit capture and foster this growth?

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/248844?ctp=BizDev&src=Syndication&msc=Feedly

  • Big Data and Risk are a Match Made in Heaven

    Tier one automotive supplier Borg Warner, for instance has developed a Supplier Performance Monitor using huge amounts of readily available data from its own SAP system plus third party data all fed through an artificial intelligence algorithm similar to Google’s search engine to stay ahead of problems.  Rather than periodically assessing risk and paying for protection with working capital, Borg Warner constantly listens for tremors and responds before the problem gets out of hand.

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    http://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinomarah/2015/07/30/big-data-and-risk-are-a-match-made-in-heaven/

  • Amazon CTO: ‘We Still Consider Ourselves a Startup’

    It’s very important to realize today that with minimal investment you can start building applications. Five, ten years ago you would need millions [of dollars] in investment. It allows entrepreneurs to truly focus on new products without having to worry about the infrastructure, without having to get additional investment to buy hardware. And if you look at the big household names these days, Airbnb, Spotify, Instagram, Pinterest – all of these are born in the cloud. Without cloud, if you asked them, they would probably say they would not have been able to reach this scale at the speed they did, without it.

    http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/248884?ctp=BizDev&src=Syndication&msc=Feedly

  • Summer Break: Procurement’s Day in the Sun

    Added Miller, “the demand for supplier transparency and high-quality, responsibly-sourced offerings has never been higher. Cost containment will always remain a key sourcing objective, but today, it’s equally important that a company can find and retain reliable and reputable sources of supply.  How and where a product gets made can have far-reaching implications on an organization’s sales effectiveness and brand reputation.”

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulmartyn/2015/07/28/summer-break-procurements-day-in-the-sun/

  • Exploring Investment Drivers for Global Supply Chain Risk Management

    a new concept is emerging: global supply chain risk management (SCRM).
 Quite often, the decisions to invest in SCRM are often driven more by the fear of negative press – and of course regulatory penalties – than the opportunity to make the supply chain more resilient and maintain top-line revenue and market share, even in the case of a supply chain upset.

    http://spendmatters.com/2015/07/31/global-supply-chain-risk-management-investment-drivers/

Photo: Christian Joudrey

Posted on

The Supply Chain: 3/4/2015

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  • The Western procurement issue in China (Yes, the US did have some kind of back-door spying equipment installed in American-branded equipment but China isn’t an innocent party – they have been ripping off US patents and designs for years to get their manufacturers competitive.  )

    Yes, the US did have some kind of back-door spying equipment installed in American-branded equipment but China isn’t an innocent party – they have been ripping off US patents and designs for years to get their manufacturers competitive.

    http://www.techworm.net/2015/02/leading-western-technology-brands-like-apple-intelmcafee-shunned-from-chinas-approved-tech-listing.html

  • SAP: Welcome to the new era of procurement:

    Procurement can and will play an increasingly strategic role in managing this virtual enterprise, leveraging technology to simplify the way complex business gets done and manage their operations in a new and dynamic way that keeps their companies ahead of the competition. Procurement is evolving from service to a function. And with increasing frequency, it is focused on business value and enabling supplier innovations as opposed to just driving procurement savings through cost reductions.

    http://www.news-sap.com/procurement-2015-evolution-continues/

  • Four ways to access the strength of suppliers:

    A company with a high proportion of long-term contract agreements in its order book is likely to be more secure than a firm completing work on a shorter term basis. However, a retained contract should not prompt reckless overconfidence; it is often a good idea to look over notice periods and analyse the probability of changes in market conditions or demand which could reduce a client’s requirement for the business’ goods or services.

    http://www.supplymanagement.com/blog/2015/02/four-ways-to-assess-the-strength-of-suppliers

  • Failure to Work With Minority Owned Businesses a Challenge in the Private and Public Sector

    Last month, the NAACP Florida State Conference led by President Adora Obi Nweze released an Economic Development Report Card on the records of targeted cities, counties, school districts and private corporations in the State of Florida. What stood out amidst all of the findings were the poor minority procurement practices that were consistent through the public and private sector. In summary, most local governments spent less than two percent with veteran, minority and women -owned businesses.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dedrick-muhammad/failure-to-work-with-mino_b_6736984.html

Posted on

The Supply Chain: 2/4/2015

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  • Time for CPOs to Focus More on Organizational Costs and Efficiencies Rather than Just Contracted Costs

    He adds that “If we can start eliminating work – by eliminating sacred documents such as the purchase order – as procurement leaders we can move to the forefront of innovation. By cutting costs in administration we can shift our time and talents toward strategic matters, which drive our companies forward.”

    http://www.scdigest.com/ontarget/15-01-27-3.php?cid=8924

  • Story about a retail company deploying DiCentral’s EDI procurement solution:
    Just interesting to read about alternative deployments
    http://www.just-style.com/news/genesco-to-streamline-supply-chain-with-edi_id124219.aspx
  • Procurement increasingly takes a back seat in BCO-carrier negotiations

    Major companies are realizing that their logistics teams bring in-depth transportation knowledge and long-term ocean carrier relationships, across a multitude of cultures, to the negotiating table. Those relationships can have an almost magical effect on the final freight dollar amount and resultant service level,” said Chas Deller, who retired in September as head of global ocean freight procurement for UTi Worldwide and is now a partner in 10XOCEANSOLUTIONS Inc. which advises shippers in contract negotiations.

    http://www.joc.com/maritime-news/container-lines/procurement-increasingly-takes-back-seat-bco-carrier-negotiations_20150126.html

  • Three tips for better IT Procurement

    1) Learn to navigate a three-tiered global supply chain
    2) Keep up with advances in technology
    3) Use impartial and reliable information to beat a volatile market

    http://www.supplymanagement.com/blog/2015/01/three-tips-to-better-it-procurement

  • The best supply chain CEOS
    I am not picking #1 (so you read the article) – here is #3:

    Frederick Smith
    Modern-day legend and proof of the American dream, Smith is the founder of one of the biggest companies in the world. Now a $45 billion interest, the idea for it began during Smith’s three-year stint, 1966-69, as a US Marine, where he observed closely the logistics and procurement of the armed forces and was inspired to start up an overnight delivery service for civilians. He founded Federal Express with his $4 million inheritance (modern equivalent $23 million) and raised $91 million ($525 million) in venture capital in 1970.

    http://www.supplychaindigital.com/top10/3800/TOP-10-SUPPLY-CHAIN-CEOs-2015