Buyers Meeting Point attends many sales AND procurement webinars/webcasts. One of the interesting things about consistently reading content from quality sources is that you start to notice trends. It is amazing how often the same topics arise at the same time in different places. We use this blog as a way to help you stay on top of the major themes in procurement and supply chain management.
This week’s featured event was hosted by the Next Level Purchasing Association and was presented by Tim Reis, a procurement manager with 10 years of experience, a regular columnist for Next Level Purchasing’s online magazine and a holder of the SPSM certification. Most importantly, he is an active practitioner.
Many cultures celebrate the harvest and offer thanks for a bountiful season. As the United States enjoys their Thanksgiving, we felt it was appropriate to thank those who walked along with us this year on our journey. No one succeeds alone and we are certainly aware of that!
This week’s Wiki-Wednesday article is part of the series on Next Generation Sourcing: Empowerment. As a strategy in procurement, empowerment has the potential to change the course of a project at many points:
Which suppliers are invited?
How will we structure the RFP or RFQ?
What negotiation strategy will be the most effective?
But no other decision in a project has more of an impact than the supplier award. Which suppliers will be awarded contracts, for how much, and what will the terms be?
Depending upon the organizational structure in place, and the model of the procurement organization, their role in that decision can vary from decision maker to observer. The model may also vary from project to project, and between direct and indirect spend.
In categories where cost is the primary factor affecting a decision, the project is to get a specified good or service for the total lowest cost, procurement will work the sourcing process and notify the business which supplier(s) offered the lowest pricing. Procurement is positioned to suppliers as the process owner and the ultimate authority for the category. If there is an executive approval process for this award, it is usually an administrative sign off on the decision before a contract is signed.
In direct categories where there is an active business owner, procurement manages the sourcing process (with frequent involvement of the business owner) and then presents all qualified options so the owner can make an award decision. Procurement can present themselves to suppliers as an objective party, open to their ideas, taking care not to appear as though they have no influence and allow suppliers to bypass them. Executive approval for the award will ensure that the business owner does not give inappropriate advantage to the incumbent or miss out on opportunities to innovate based on aversion to change.
In strategic categories of spend, procurement and business owners may take equal roles in the sourcing process. Procurement owns the sourcing process and technology use in the project and the business owner is responsible for category knowledge. Each party is able to leverage their strengths, collaborating on the structure of the RFP, negotiation strategy, and execution. Both will have input on the award decision, with executive approval of the recommended award made by the combined team.
If you are interested in reading more about decision making in procurement, Charles Dominick of the Next Level Purchasing Association published a three part blog series on the topic on the eSourcing Forum in 2008 that still holds true. In these three posts, he looks at basic, advanced, and expert decision making capabilities across cost, support performance, and innovation.
I sometimes ask people how they ended up where they are in their profession. Usually it is a random series of events and not often actually planned. But the really interesting question is how did they get in the door to begin with?
“The skills for becoming a champion caliber negotiator are acquired skills. Nobody is born with great negotiating skills. You are born with the skills of crying and breathing, all other skills you acquire throughout your life.” – Soheila Lunney
“The skills for becoming a champion caliber negotiator are acquired skills. Nobody is born with great negotiating skills. You are born with the skills of crying and breathing, all other skills you acquire throughout your life.” – Soheila Lunney
Processes will always have some variations in output despite the best controls. Constant measurement is the best approach, tracking variations on a sampling of product. The key measurement technique is sigma, a measurement of standard deviation. A small sigma (or deviation) is most desirable, with the expectation that supplier quality will be within six sigmas (or 2 parts per billion) of the center.
This week’s featured webinar was presented by the Next Level Purchasing Association and featured Joe Payne and Bill Dorn from Source One Management Services as the main speakers. You may also know them as the co-authors of ‘Managing Indirect Spend’, a relatively new publication that walks through the challenges and opportunities associated with indirect spend as well as a few category-based case studies.
Like their book, the guys from Source One kept their speaking points to the practical learnings from their extensive combined procurement consulting experience.
The preface to The Procurement Game Plan by Charles Dominick and Soheila Lunney starts with the question, “Why another procurement/supply management book?”
Good question.
Earlier this week, we discussed the Many Hats a procurement professional wears. With that comes the many skills that are needed. I know the breadth of it can seem daunting. You need to be a good analyst, negotiator, influencer, presenter, and communicator. How does anyone fit all those talents into the same resource? And how do you begin to try to train existing staff as they want to develop in their career?
Everyone loves the path of least resistance. How can we get to that restaurant easier, without crowds or lines? Is it possible to get my 2-year old to bed at a reasonable hour with or without a bath? Can I publish this RFP today - but it is Friday and I want to start my weekend.
If any of these are too difficult, we will avoid them all together. Stay home, order pizza to be delivered, delay the baby's bedtime routine and wait until Monday for the RFP. So why does this week's blog pick help you out?
This week’s eSourcing Wiki-Wednesday topic is barriers to success – and those barriers are specific to strategic sourcing organizations. Broken down into the main categories of leadership, team and project issues, these nine barriers are a who’s-who list of worst case scenarios that should help you diagnose the root cause of the challenges you are facing in your organization.
There are (at most) twelve business days left in 2011. If you have a generous employer or some vacation time left, there are a lot less. There isn’t any time to waste if you want to make 2012 your year - professionally that is. January 1st is just a heartbeat away, and if you haven’t given thought to your goals for the year yet, now is the time. Below is a quote from a Next Level Purchasing Association white paper, titled "The Evolution & Future of Procurement & Procurement Skills" to give you something to think about. I'll also include Rosslyn Analytics' Five Predictions for Procurement and Supply Chain Executives in 2012.
If you’ve spent any time on our site this week, you’ll see that we are having a customer-service centric week. It all started when I attended last week’s Next Level Purchasing Association webinar where Peter Nero of Denali Group shared his thoughts on what is next for procurement. The answer was better customer service.
As a follow up, we spoke with The Sales Guy about the kinds of internal customer service he thinks procurement can provide, and this morning we read the Wikipedia article on customer service. We’re not looking to turn procurement into a transactional call center, but some of the traditional wisdom about how to keep your customers happy applies to the relationship between us and our internal stakeholders.
This week, our webinar notes are on ‘What’s Next for Procurement”, the monthly Next Level Purchasing Association member call featuring Peter Nero from Denali Group. If you are not a member of the NLPA, I encourage you to join – it is easy and free. Click here for more information.
While this presentation is not available as a recording, you can read a whitepaper by Denali Group on their Procurement Innovation Research for 2011.
Last week I attended an excellent supply chain risk management webinar sponsored by the Next Level Purchasing Association and featuring a global supply chain manager from a Fortune 500 company. The event followed the story of this particular corporate supply chain through the 2010 tsunami in Japan (you can click here for my notes).
One of the lessons this particular company learned was about finding the right place for addressing the human side of a very complicated business issue. I was impressed with the efforts they had made, particularly for such a large company. A thought started to form in my mind: what contract clauses were put aside in order to have an appropriate response to the devastation while not creating serious business continuity issues?
Before I even begin my notes, let me just point out that if you are not a member of the Next Level Purchasing Association, you are missing out. Next Level Purchasing offers the SPSM (Senior Professional in Supply Management) certification program. Joining the association is absolutely free and comes with a number of benefits, such as members-only webinars, newsletters, and networking opportunities. If you want to get your feet wet with the kind of programs they offer, there are several mini-courses they offer, completely online and for less than $20! Interested? Good for you! Click here to learn more by clicking on the NLP logo on our partner page. That way Buyers Meeting Point gets credit for your purchase and a portion of the proceeds go to charity.
Has anyone found a blog they found worth sharing with others this week? Let us know so we can review and highlight it as well. I was reviewing several blogs and found that I could not just pick one and call it the blog of the week...
It is impossible to turn on the tv, check a news site or pick up a newspaper this week without being confronted by a wave of bad economic news. Here are just a few example headlines from August 10th:
"Stocks Dive on Europe, Economy Fears" - WSJ.com
"Shares Plunge as Eurozone Woes Return" - FT.com
"Discovering the Real reasons for the Market Plunge May Take Time" - TheEconomist.com
So despite the fact that you feel a little queasy each time you check in on your 401K, what reaction are you supposed to have - specifically in your role as a procurement or supply chain professional?
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