The Point

Eighty percent of your business is done with twenty percent of your suppliers. Pareto's rule in action.

The world is changing.

Today’s eSourcing Wiki-Wednesday topic is Aligning SPM to your Firm's Goals.

The esourcing wiki articles are focusing on Supplier Management. With good reason – it is becoming more and more important to make sure this activity is part of the process with your procurement team.

This article from HRteam.com makes the point of how things have changed. Individuals are no longer just managing an internal team but often very complex external team members as well. They could be suppliers or outsourced functions being performed by service providers.

This discussion focuses on FAQ’s but more importantly what skills do your associates need in order to perform this function well. Do they need training and how do they get that? Here are some common concerns for your team:

• How do I get share of mind? We are not their only customers.
• How do I make sure that they deliver against the standards that are agreed?
• What happens if they do not perform against the KPIs? How do I escalate the issue?
• We do not want to get to the point of waving a piece of paper, shouting "breach of contract"
• How much time do I need to spend measuring their performance?
• How do I make supplier reviews an effective forum?
• How much time do I invest in developing the relationship?
• Do I want a supplier or a partner relationship?
• They are critical to our business, who has got the greatest leverage?

The message here is to make sure your staff has the proper tools in the toolkit to build the relationship to become a true collaborative partnership.

Have you found any training materials that are helpful for Supplier Management? What was the most useful tool and what would you recommend?  

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.   Lao-tzu

The reality of today’s 24/7 highly interconnected professional environment is that work follows us home whether we like it or not. We get emails during dinner, invites at the grocery store, phone calls during our kids’ hockey practice and text messages while we’re trying to get from one place to the next. Even when we are successful in the effort to have some kind of personal life away from the pressures of the office, we know they are waiting for us, just across the room, on that addictive little device.

Why should you do supplier performance management? Isn't just scorecards?

A fable is not the same as a myth. A fable has a moral about ethics or behavior and a myth does not.

In this week’s Procurement on YouTube post, we are going to look at one source of supply risk and that is resource scarcity. As procurement professionals, we pride ourselves for our ability to buy quality goods and services at an efficient price. But what if the materials we need to buy are not available? In this video, Edmond Cunningham, a member of PA Consulting Group, gives a brief overview of the approaches companies make take when faced with resource scarcity.

Deciding to work collaboratively with your suppliers is one thing. Implementing it is something else all together.

Teamwork is something we are all familiar with. Your team can be your customers, your fellow associates and even your suppliers.

Surviving in the wilderness is something many of us will never have to experience. Unless you use it as an analogy in our professions which can sometimes fell like we are lost in the forest.

We have some active discussions in the Buyers Meeting Point Group on LinkedIn, most recently, an exchange about what makes a good buyer. Ironically, it was asked by someone who is not a buyer themselves.

Our daughter is working on perfecting the recipe for cranberry jam. Some have walnuts, some with various spices and some just the original mixture of sweet and tart. In that quest, she is following the DMIAC problem solving methodology without realizing it.

In this week’s Procurement on YouTube post, we are going to continue down a path we started with the March 9^th Buyers Meeting Point blog pick of the week. Each week, my partner Cindy Allen Murphy selects a single blog post to focus on. Sometimes they are direct from one of the well-known supply management thought leaders, but other weeks she pulls interesting topics from a wide range of general business, industry, and professional development sources. Last week she chose to highlight a post by customer service author and speaker Shep Hyken.

Julia Childs was not always a good cook. It took a long time, a lot of training, trial and error and practice. Once she got there, she was a fanatic about quality.

In this week’s Procurement on YouTube post, we’re going to hear from GreenBiz and Trucost on sustainable supply chains. The conversation takes place between Joel Makower, Executive Editor of GreenBiz Group and Richard Mattison, CEO of Trucost. Trucost insn’t new to the supply management space. In 2011, Trucost and Rosslyn Analytics worked together to launch the first sustainable procurement app, and their partnership continues to this day. 

I am not sure Six Sigma and simple have ever been used in the same phrase. Those that have implemented this process would probably agree.

In this week’s Procurement on YouTube post, we will see a clip on preparing for negotiation from Positive Purchasing, a firm that specializes in providing education & training, consultancy support, a best practice purchasing toolkit, and online learning resources.

Goldilocks came into the Three Bear's cabin while they were away looking for the perfect porridge, chair and bed. She was trying to find the one that was 'just right'. It had to taste good, be warm and fit.

The ISM-New York Report on Business is released on the second business day of each month at 9:45 AM Eastern. Buyers Meeting Point has been following the ISM reports on business for two years, helping you apply information from the indexes (which is collected from procurement professionals) to your own work. The most important thing to keep in mind when reading this report is that no one number represents the findings of the report; each piece of data only has value when considered as part of a trend - relative to the month(s) or year before.

The motto of the Three Musketeers was "All for One and One for All". What was good for one of them had to be good for all and vice versa. Successful buying groups act in the same fashion - the majority of the time. Not everyone every time but most of the time.

I’ve reviewed quite a few books – most of which are on spend management or negotiation. Some have made me laugh, like Negotiation Mastery and Profitable Buying Strategies. A few have made me cry, and those will remain unnamed here. But I don’t think I’ve ever felt compelled to review a single chapter from a book until now.

When you walk into a place - school, restaurant, office - there is a certain 'vibe' that you can pick up on instantly. It is a product of the culture and the management that is there. 

Two years ago, we posted our review of ‘Common Sense Purchasing’ by Dr. Tom DePaoli. In September 2012 he published a new book that reflects a broader perspective on his experience and our profession. By taking a step up – or back – however you chose to see the difference between purchasing and supply management, Dr. Tom takes a new look at the challenges and opportunities in supply management and presents them by sharing many of his own experiences as an independent management consultant in 'Common Sense Supply Management'.

Earlier this year, we reviewed ‘Vested Outsourcing’, the first book in what has become a series of publications by Kate Vitasek and her colleagues on the evolving potential of mutually beneficial relationships between companies and their suppliers. ‘Vested Outsourcing’ was followed by ‘The Vested Way’, and ‘The Vested Outsourcing Manual’. Kate’s latest publication is ‘Vested: How P&G, McDonald's, and Microsoft are Redefining Winning in Business Relationships.’ I’ll include some background as well as an overview of the Vested philosophy at the end of this review. I encourage you to read my review of ‘Vested Outsourcing’ and to purchase one or all of the books in the series.

One idea plus one idea equals three ideas or more. You have a cow, I have a bull, together we have a business. When the output is greater than the sum of the inputs, this is value creation and it is this that has driven the whole progress of the human species.

-- Simon Horton, Negotiation Mastery

Negotiation Mastery by Simon Horton, an experienced negotiation teacher and consultant, is a practical and highly entertaining read whether you are a career negotiator or just wish your skills were a little stronger. In his decade-long career, he has helped hostage negotiators, law firms, financial institutions, and students from the graduate level through the boardroom improve their confidence and outcomes as they enter negotiations.

A cardinal principle of Total Quality escapes too many managers: you cannot continuously improve interdependent systems and processes until you progressively perfect interdependent, interpersonal relationships.

– Stephen Covey (1932 – 2012)

On July 16^th, the world lost one of its most recognized self-improvement writers and speakers in Stephen Covey. His books, speeches and projects were aimed at improving and empowering individuals and the organizations and networks they belong to. His most well-known publication is ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’, written in 1989, which has sold 15 million copies and been translated into 32 languages[1].

I can tell you that windsurfing is very easy – except for the wind. The wind makes it tricky, of course. It’s not particularly difficult to find and rent great equipment, and the techniques are fairly straightforward. What messes the whole plan up is that the wind is unpredictable. It’ll change exactly when you don’t want it to. The same thing is true about customer service (it would be a lot easier if it weren’t for the customers). In fact, every single function of an organization has a wind problem.

– Seth Godin, The Dip

We often talk about how procurement and supply management professionals need to focus less on negotiating savings and more on creating value. But the actually process we are supposed to follow to accomplish that can be unclear. The first challenge is how to go about creating value, and the second is how to make sure the value created is recognized by other departments in the organization – like finance or operations. ‘Lean TCO’, written by Tim O’Meara, presents an approach to facing both.

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.

Written by the co-chairmen of the Deloitte Center for the Edge, an organization that helps senior executives make sense of and profit from emerging opportunities on the edge of business and technology.  John Hagel the third, John Seely Brown, and Lang Davison authored ‘The Power of Pull’ to talk about a shift in dynamics based on accurate forecasting and predictable market dynamics to transforming corporations from a leadership position on the edge.

At Buyers Meeting Point, we often have opportunities to recommend the publications we have read, reviewed and endorsed to our supply management colleagues. Vested Outsourcing by Kate Vitasek is one of the easiest books to recommend, not because it is excellently written – although it is, but because questions constantly arise in discussion groups and forums around strategic outsourcing relationships with suppliers and how to make them work.

When I am reading the books that may end up on the Buyers Meeting Point Endorsed Publications list (in the Procurement Library), I often find that they are missing a certain… something? Now I know what it is – cartoon illustrations! All joking aside, I am now in a position to recommend a book that contains solid procurement advice and pictures. Read all the way to the end of this interview to see my favorite from the book.

Recent disasters, whether earthquakes, tsunamis, or tornadoes, have threatened business continuity for many industries. As has been pointed out in many recent procurement webinars, this presents an opportunity for us to step up and prove our strategic value to the organization. We cannot, however, rely solely upon the stories in the news.  We need to educate ourselves and be prepared with suggestions.

I spent the last couple of weeks reading The Contract Negotiation Handbook by Stephen R. Guth Esq., and despite how it may initially sound, I came away with one critical realization: I am a pop tart.

“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”  – Seneca (Roman Philosopher, 5 B.C.)

Mike Buchanan, author of Profitable Buying Strategies (as well as Two Men in a Car, Guitar Gods in Bed, and The Marriage Delusion), agreed to participate in a Q&A session with Buyers Meeting Point about his book. Profitable Buying Strategies is an excellent resource for any procurement professional.  Those new to the discipline will benefit from a clear outline of key concepts, strategies, and tactics.  More experienced buyers will appreciate the case studies and a thorough review of how to take their current approach to the next level.

Any BMP member involved with an outsourcing initiative, whether it involves offshoring or not, will find this book an indispensable resource. Authors Brown and Wilson include a multitude of quotable statistics that can be used in executive presentations as well as practical tools for completing the day to day work in outsourcing projects.

“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

Good old Kenny Rogers, he gave us some great advice through the lyrics of the ‘The Gambler’: advice that stands true beyond the gaming table. Sometimes the best advice comes from the least expected place, and I have some advice for procurement professionals – from sales(*).

Every week, I take a break from supply management topics to learn about sales through webinars, white papers and blogs. Officially, I do it for ‘The Flip Side’, a Buyers Meeting Point resource that helps procurement professionals better understand their sales counterparts. Unofficially, I do it because creativity and objectivity can be elusive, and listening to sales’ perspective helps.

This perspective has changed the way I see the role of the individual procurement professional, the role of the department, and how we should leverage non-traditional approaches in search of better than usual results.

We are all in sales.

I used to see sales people as professionals compensated for closing deals. But contracts are a side effect of an effective sales process. The core of the sales process is quickly and accurately diagnosing opportunities for improvement and then winning over prospects to the recommended solution.

Procurement does this all the time – or at least we should. We ‘sell’ finance on a new opportunity to drive efficiency. We ‘sell’ the executive team on the strategic advantage we represent as an in-house dedicated function. We ‘sell’ internal stakeholders on the merits of a new supplier or a standardized specification that will save money.

The key is to be a quick study, sometimes adapting mid-meeting, in response to organizational requirements. We must prove we understand the challenges at hand, sometimes to colleagues that don’t have a clear perspective themselves. Once you accurately articulate a problem, brainstorming can begin on solutions to be ‘sold’ to internal customers.

Sales people believe buyers have the advantage.

I benefit the most from the Q&A that takes place during sales webinars. What do sales people really think of procurement? What kind of advice do they get from their mentors?

I’ll over-generalize to make a point: sales people see procurement professionals as a steely cold bunch. (One webinar participant commented that procurement conference rooms and offices are the coldest places on earth…) Our poker faces have apparently done the trick, because many sales people would like to check our backs for control panels to make sure we are human.

Sales believes procurement holds all the cards in the negotiation process. I have heard our advantages repeated multiple times from different sources: “Procurement already has access to so much information that we struggle to appear well-informed about our own market.” “We can’t enter the sales/buying process until they decide it is time for us to start participating.” “Procurement is so active in their use of social networking during the purchasing process that we are outpaced by our customers.”

Sales can compete on value creation.

We know that negotiating cost savings is no longer enough. We need to create value for the organization. We hear it from executives, associations, publications, and thought-leaders. Knowing how to get started is a challenge because every situation and opportunity is different.

Successful sales organizations evolved in response to the need for value creation a long time ago. With strategic sourcing came apples to apples comparisons on price alone. Suppliers couldn’t refuse to provide pricing, so they tried to influence the decision-making process by proving themselves of such value that they broke the mold.

The time has come to recognize supplier innovation. The increased focus on value by our corporate leadership, and the ability of sales to speak their language, will either open a door for procurement or clear a path right past us. If a sales person sees an opportunity to bypass procurement and reach the right execs, they will take it. Capturing value does not mean surrendering in the battle over price, just balancing costs and benefits. In that scenario, I want to be the one holding the scale.

Looking back and ahead.

The big-picture realization from my year of visits to The Flip Side is that the procurement/sales relationship is not about us v. them but about all of us. They feel the same stresses we do, and often see us in the driver’s seat when we think they are driving. They aren’t terrible people (mostly) any more than we are bloodless cost reduction zombies.

We can’t fully collaborate with sales in every category, but when the conditions are right, partnering with a supplier is the only way to a better solution. It goes against most of what we know about creating competition and harnessing the forces of the market, but recognizing opportunities for collaboration can be the difference between tactical and strategic category management. After all, ‘Every hand’s a winner, and every hand’s a loser … the secret to surviving is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep.’

(*) Note: This post originally appeared as a guest post by Kelly Barner on Procurement Inisghts.

If you watched Peter Faulk play the character Lieutenant Columbo in the thirty years ‘Columbo’ was on television, you undoubtedly saw him break a case by turning back at the last moment and asking, “Just one more thing…”, a question which always ended up breaking the case.

Maybe procurement need to stop and ask another question or two as well. In a recent blog post, ‘What Questions Should Your Clients be Asking’, sales blogger S. Anthony Iannarino talked about the challenges sales people face when they are not able to communicate the value of their solution because the buyers they work with are not asking the right questions. His advice provides some techniques for redirecting the conversation or asking the missing questions so that the necessary information gets across.

While we want to have a complete picture of each solution so that we can accurately compare our options, we’ve all made the mistake of asking questions that are so open ended that sales people talk ad nauseam about something we can't compare across the suppliers in contention. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t pieces of information we are missing out on.

Buyers Meeting Point’s long time advisor The Sales Guy has always advocated asking sales people something about their compensation package or their company's business development priorities so those factors can be brought into a thorough evaluation. What else should we ask?

Here are a few questions that The Sales Guy suggests working into your face-to face supplier meetings. Some are relevant for incumbents and some for new companies you are evaluating, but all of them will allow you to put together a better category management strategy and contract.

1. “If you are selling to my competitors what products and services are they buying more of and what is the value provided?”  “What are they buying less of?”
2. “We are spending $XXXK dollars with your company on an annual basis.  If I was to spend that same amount differently what changes would you recommend and why?” 
3. “What can our companies collaborate on that would help your company bring new products to market and provide competitive advantages for my company?”
4. “What business model changes is your company introducing and how might they be advantageous to my company?”

If you have a question for The Sales Guy, click here to submit it and we will get you an answer!

“Reverse auctions are loved by corporate purchasing managers, loathed by suppliers, and rarely discussed publicly by anyone involved.”

– Max Chafkin, Inc. Magazine

Sometimes the most interesting part of a blog post is the comment thread that follows it. Such was the case with a recent blog post on the Harvard Business Review Blog Network.

This week’s trip to The Flip Side is based on a post written by Reed Holden on his blog Pricing With Confidence: ‘Procurement: Kings or Jokers’. Holden has written a number of books on pricing and negotiation. His primary focus is helping Fortune 1000 B2B companies in a number of industries maximize their growth through setting optimal go-to-market strategies.

This week’s Flip Side coverage comes from last week’s webinar on negotiation hosted by Think! Inc. The primary speaker was Brian Dietmeyer, CEO and President of Think! Inc and author of several books on negotiation including Strategic Negotiation. Although this event was predominantly geared to a sales audience, negotiation is negotiation. If you aren’t sold on the connection to procurement performance, read on to learn more about the ‘moment of truth’: when a sales person is facing their procurement counterpart across the negotiating table. 

On July 10^th, Value Selling Associates hosted their monthly sales training webinar on Deliberately asking good questions. If you are interested, you can listen to the event on demand (without registration) on their site. VSA President and CEO Julie Thomas opened the event by describing the Socratic method, a problem solving approach that involves asking a series of questions to arrive at an answer.

The connection between the Socrates’ philosophy and the modern sales process is the idea that it is possible to be regarded as wise without having all the answers. In other words, you can ask a lot of questions and still be perceived as knowledgeable.

There are obvious benefits to the approach known as ‘Socratic Selling’. The more questions they ask, the more talking we do, the more information they collect – allowing the supplier to craft a proposal that more closely meets the goals and objectives of the buying organization. On the other hand, not all products and services lend themselves to this method. Transactional, price-driven category decisions don’t require a supplier to impress us with their deep thoughts – just to have the information we need to compare options and make an informed choice.

Tim J. Smith, Ph.D., and Chief Editor of the Wigleaf Journal (dedicated to Sales, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship), wrote a piece on this topic called ‘Pedantic or Socratic?’ where he compares two approaches to demonstrating wisdom in sales: one where the sales person effectively ‘tells’ the buyer what they need, and one where the sales person leads the buyer to a desired conclusion with a carefully crafted set of questions. Both can be effective in the right circumstances. 

Pedantic Selling

Pedantic selling approaches are easy to recognize: presentations full of details about features and functionality that clearly communicate availability, pricing and benefits.

This approach works perfectly well with traditionally purchased indirect categories like office supplies or janitorial services. There are no deep dynamics to uncover, just an office full of professionals that want to have pens on hand and clean workspaces.

Socratic Selling

Socratic selling, also called consultative selling, are focused on uncovering information about the buyers motivations and needs, both to inform the sales team and to help the buyer better understand their own position.

When a category is associated with a change in strategy or will enable operational change, deeper probing is in order for both sales and procurement.

Knowing the Difference

Many sales organizations are trying to move to more Socratic or consultative models, because they believe that such an approach will result in increased trust, longer contracts and larger deals. Regardless of the prospective size of your purchase, you are likely to encounter some open-ended questions early in the sales/buying process as the supplier rep works to ‘qualify’ the deal: to figure out if and when it may happen, and how large the opportunity is.

As you get further through the process, however, a Socratic sales approach can actually be a red flag. Is the sales person trying to build a foundation on which they can either up sell you or secure a longer contract? If the questions being asked seem to repeatedly lead you from the product or service you are focused on to a complimentary offering, beware of how it affects your buying intentions. Determine up front whether your category is likely to be relationship-based and don’t let anything short of a full internal team meeting change your course.

But if your purchase is strategic in nature, and if it will require the long-term cooperation of the solution partner you select, learn to appreciate and benefit from a Socratic sales person. Take the opportunity to learn as much as you can about what your organization really needs and what will ultimately motivate an award decision and a solution choice. Just remember that you don’t have to answer all of the questions out loud to benefit from them being asked…

Last week’s webinar on reading income statements, hosted by The Executive Conversation, provided a great overview of one of the most common financial statements. You can watch an on-demand version of the audio and video without registering by clicking here.

Of the many causes of communication breakdown between procurement and suppliers, one of the most contentious is the statement of requirements. Before an RFP or RFQ is issued, procurement spends considerable time with internal stakeholders understanding category requirements as they stand and then probing deeper to determine what are really requirements and what the stakeholder just wants.

Last week I attended a webinar run by the Sales Management Association on the topic of social media and sales operations. This event gives us a second look at the topic we first considered last week with the TAS Group’s ‘Enabling Social Enterprise through Sales’.

Last week I attended a webinar run by the TAS Group called ‘Enabling Social Enterprise Through Sales’. The focus of the event was to look at how much time sales professionals are spending on various social media sites and what kinds of activities they are engaged in.  If you are interested in experiencing the content for yourself, you can view the webinar on demand (registration required) or view the slides on slideshare (no registration).

One of my favorite sales blogs is, ‘The Sales Blog’ written by S. Anthony Iannarino. He is a sales executive and coach that believes in the value sales people can add during the buying process.  Since we are mentioning him this week on the Flip Side, I’d also like to extend our congratulations to him on recently hitting a milestone 1,000 posts.

As a buyer, have you ever noticed how much effort sales teams put into the training, strategy, and education of their people? If you type "sales training" into Google, you get well over FOUR MILLION hits. In order to put that figure into perspective, typing "procurement training" into the same search engine pulls only 235,000 results.

This week’s Flip Side post takes us to a sales article on ‘Selling to the Four Temperament Styles’ by John Boe.

This week on The Flip Side, we look at a blog post from SalesTrainingAdvice.com on The Most Underutilized Strategic Advantage. With such a promising title, the answer to the question must be something big – huge even to be THE MOST underutilized strategic advantage.

As the economy starts to rebound and leverage positions change, becoming a ‘customer of choice’ is being discussed in many procurement conference rooms. You would think that us sitting around discussing how to be the most fabulous customers possible would be music to a sales person’s ears!

Last week, I attended a ValueSelling Associates webinar called ‘Closing the Gap: Your Sales Process and their Buying Process.” In this event, VSA looked at the differences in timing and expectations between the supplier and buyer sides of the procurement process. Two types of value come from this kind of event.

• We get a window into Sales’ perception of procurement professionals and our process, and
• We learn how to improve our performance by hearing which parts of our process may be preventing us from accessing potential value or innovation.

In this week’s Flip Side coverage, I want to take you through a sales-oriented post from a blog called The Pipeline on ‘Selling to Procurement’. The Pipeline is written by Tibor Shanto, Founder and President of Renbor Sales Solutions Inc., and creator of Objective Based Selling.

Last Saturday, Cindy highlighted a blog post by John Maxwell, a leadership coach, on how to fail successfully. There is much to be learned from our failures, and in many cases they are the price of admission to the victory celebration at the end of the journey. Thomas Edison is a fantastic, if complicated, example of success despite setbacks. We all know how many tries to took to make the light bulb a reality, especially because of the quote Cindy used to open her post:

In order to help procurement better position ourselves and communicate through all of the channels available to us, Buyers Meeting Point reached out to a colleague with a background in marketing and experience in the procurement space. Sheryl Johnson is the founder of BD-PRo Marketing Solutions and focuses on implementing creative marketing and business networking strategies for small and medium sized businesses, as well as a professor of marketing at the Community College of Allegheny County in Pennsylvania.

Click here to read more about the 'Marketing of Procurement' series of posts on Buyers Meeting Point.

Click here to read our last post in the series, Why Having a LinkedIn Account is Critical in Today's Business Environment.

In order to help procurement better position ourselves and communicate through all of the channels available to us, Buyers Meeting Point reached out to a colleague with a background in marketing and experience in the procurement space. Sheryl Johnson is the founder of BD-PRo Marketing Solutions and focuses on implementing creative marketing and business networking strategies for small and medium sized businesses, as well as a professor of marketing at the Community College of Allegheny County in Pennsylvania.

Click here to read more about the 'Marketing of Procurement' series of posts on Buyers Meeting Point.

Today’s eSourcing Wiki-Wednesday topic is How to Find a Good PSP.

When we have had to hire someone to do work on our house, we got references, interviewed multiple contractors and of course reviewed their proposals. While it is not just about the money, that is clearly a key factor. I am sure that drill sounds familiar to many of you.

Today’s eSourcing Wiki-Wednesday topic is Managed Services is not Tradtional Outsourcing.

Managed Services works with the client on strategic areas that the client can not do for themselves either from an expertise or resource perspective. There are also areas that are high volume and transactional in nature which is another strong candidate for Managed Services.

I came across this article from a few years ago but it does still hold true today. ISM has published a short article, When Procurement Outsourcing Fails: How to Sidestep Easily Avoidable Blunders.   

Authored by J. V. Kelly, he spends some time looking at the evolution of the procurement role and how that has played into the outsourcing trend. In most organizations, purchasing is no longer just a transactional function but takes a more strategic approach to the process and the results. Like any other relationship, setting the appropriate expectations is key. Here are some unrealistic ones that Kelly mentions:

Unrealistic Expectations

• 50% cost savings in the first year? Highly unlikely.
• Reduction in cycle time to 1 month on all sourcing engagements? Not realistic.
• Expertise in every category of spend? Many outsourcing firms do not offer this.
• Complete demand management with no maverick spend? Mandates don’t work, buy-in is more effective.

They article warns against outsourcing all procurement functions. They recommend keeping the strategic areas internal.

What has your organization done in this area? What expectations were set and how much of your sourcing is done internally versus externally?

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, first published in 1989, is a self-help book written by Stephen R. Covey. It has sold more than 25 million copies in 38 languages worldwide, and the audio version has sold 1.5 million copies, and remains one of the best selling nonfiction business books.

The approach continues to be pertinent in every day life at work and at home. Buyers Meeting Point will be reviewing each of the Seven Habits over the next few months.

Today’s eSourcing Wiki-Wednesday topic is The Basics and Advantages of Procurement Outsourcing. This is something that has been reviewed and utilized for several decades at this point.

Many organizations realized they should outsource administrative functions such as payroll and accounting and IT/Telecom. This allows the key resources to focus on the core business strategy and really drive them to the next level. The same can be said of the procurement function, either in part or as a whole.

If a company is going to do that, they must be careful to arrange it properly to truly take advantage of the benefits and not to get bogged down with inefficiencies. this article offers Six Top Tips and is focusing on IT outsourcing. However, I feel it can be utilized for any business function.

When done correctly, the various individuals truly work as a team. If you look at the picture above, you can not tell who is an internal associate and who is an 'outsourced' resource.

Top tip #1: Define SLAs and OLAs

A service level agreement (SLA) is the foundation of any outsource contract and provides the standard for expected service levels. This must be agreed on between both the outsourcer and client, and once established, will outline the requirements such as time-to-respond and mean-time-to-repair.

Top tip #2: Communication – a two-way street

Communication is an important component of a successful outsource contract and should be a ‘two-way street’ whereby feedback is given from both the outsource provider and the client. If communication is not clear and well-structured from all sides, issues and problems may ‘slip through the cracks’ and impact the business. This in turn will impact service delivery, which may fall below expected levels, resulting in poor outcomes.

Top tip #3: Appropriate skills levels

It is vital for the outsource consultant to have the appropriate skills when engaging with a client. If consultants are not equipped with the required skills to match the needs of the client, they will not deliver the required services efficiently or effectively.

Top tip #4: Culture fit

If the culture fit between the client and outsource provider is not aligned, it can lead to poor service delivery. Outsource providers should also be flexible and sensitive around the issue of culture fit, and if there is a potential problem, to proactively remedy.

Top tip #5: Measurement of service

All aspects of the contract, including the SLA and OLA, should be monitored on a regular basis to ensure the highest levels of overall satisfaction.

Top tip #6: Maintain the management of the contract

Customers who maintain control and incorporate regular communication around this will typically receive higher levels of service and greater value than organisations that don’t.

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!

Today’s eSourcing Wiki-Wednesday topic is Harnessing the Power of Community. This is the last of 21 strategies for innovation in procurement through next generation sourcing. If you are interested in the rest of the series, you can read them on our Wiki-Wednesday news page.

This topic is well timed, as the United States plans to take a short break for the Thanksgiving holiday – we stop and take a moment to realize just how many people are critical to our successes. While it has always ‘taken a village’ and there has never been an ‘I in team’ these days our communities are increasingly virtual. Associations that were previously regular meeting spots have moved online. Our personal and professional networks are larger, but we bear responsibility for making sure they run just as deep. It means very little to have 500+ connections if you don’t know who any of them are well enough to leverage their knowledge and experience.

Since Buyers Meeting Point is a virtual entity, we’ve gotten pretty good at building and maintaining productive relationships with people we will probably never meet. Here are a few of our tips for virtual collaboration:

• Book time on your calendar to join discussions on LinkedIn. This doesn’t have to mean a daily or weekly time commitment. Once a month, allow yourself an hour to browse a few of the groups that are large enough to be interesting but not so big that they aren’t being moderated effectively.
• If you have a good exchange with someone via email (or other social media channel) find an opportunity to jump on the phone. It may only take 15 or 20 minutes, but making the effort to introduce yourself ‘the old fashioned way’ will not only make an impression on the person you’ve connected with but will pay dividends in terms of what you can accomplish in email moving forward.
• Do a favor for someone. This can be as simple as retweeting something of interest or giving a #FF (FollowFriday) where you think your followers will be interested. Take the simple step of “Liking” a post or a discussion with your Facebook account. People who make an effort to put good work forward will appreciate the simple gesture and you may be able to open a door to a better connection.
• Remember to ask for help when you need it. If you find yourself stuck, look through your network to see who might be able to help you out. People love to be regarded as knowledgeable, and the fact that you respect their experience enough to ask for their opinion will make them regard you positively in return.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, first published in 1989, is a self-help book written by Stephen R. Covey. It has sold more than 25 million copies in 38 languages worldwide, and the audio version has sold 1.5 million copies, and remains one of the best selling nonfiction business books.

The approach continues to be pertinent in every day life at work and at home. Buyers Meeting Point will be reviewing each of the Seven Habits over the next few months.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, first published in 1989, is a self-help book written by Stephen R. Covey. It has sold more than 25 million copies in 38 languages worldwide, and the audio version has sold 1.5 million copies, and remains one of the best selling nonfiction business books.

The approach continues to be pertinent in every day life at work and at home. Buyers Meeting Point will be reviewing each of the Seven Habits over the next few months.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, first published in 1989, is a self-help book written by Stephen R. Covey. It has sold more than 25 million copies in 38 languages worldwide, and the audio version has sold 1.5 million copies, and remains one of the best selling nonfiction business books.

The approach continues to be pertinent in every day life at work and at home. Buyers Meeting Point will be reviewing each of the Seven Habits over the next few months.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, first published in 1989, is a self-help book written by Stephen R. Covey. It has sold more than 25 million copies in 38 languages worldwide, and the audio version has sold 1.5 million copies, and remains one of the best selling nonfiction business books.

The approach continues to be pertinent in every day life at work and at home. Buyers Meeting Point will be reviewing each of the Seven Habits over the next few months.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, first published in 1989, is a self-help book written by Stephen R. Covey. It has sold more than 25 million copies in 38 languages worldwide, and the audio version has sold 1.5 million copies, and remains one of the best selling nonfiction business books.

The approach continues to be pertinent in every day life at work and at home. Buyers Meeting Point will be reviewing each of the Seven Habits over the next few months.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, first published in 1989, is a self-help book written by Stephen R. Covey. It has sold more than 25 million copies in 38 languages worldwide, and the audio version has sold 1.5 million copies, and remains one of the best selling nonfiction business books.

The approach continues to be pertinent in every day life at work and at home. Buyers Meeting Point will be reviewing each of the Seven Habits over the next few months.

This past week, the world lost one of the inspirational leaders and mentors when Steven Covey passed away. There are quite a few blogs and articles posted that are asking how did Steven Covey’s books and seminars impact you. For me, I was first exposed to his teachings in a course I took called “What Matters Most” It was a phenomenal time management class that helped identify priorities and the way we spend our time in our WHOLE life – both work and personal . I particularly remember the exercise to write the speech that someone would give about you on your 80^th birthday. I was in my 30’s at the time so of course that seemed like so far away. But it certainly made everyone pause to reflect on what was really important.

I was so moved by the tools and the class, I recommended everyone on my staff attend the class over the next year as part of their performance objectives. Pretty soon, it was a class required for all management in our organization.

I then read the “7 Habits” book that of course millions of others have as well. I use his phrasing in my every day speech such as “First things first” and “Sharpen the Saw”. I had the opportunity to hear Steven Covey speak during one of his seminars. He was so approachable and normal. I was impressed that he could be a father of nine and balance that with his speaking schedule and writing books too.

I remember the week after I heard his lecture, I was in a parking lot and witnessed a confrontation between a truck driver and a passenger car. I utilized the "Seek first to understand and then to be understood" approach and it worked like magic. It was beautiful and amazing all at the same time.

What I find most refreshing is that nothing of this is too complicated and very easy for all of us to understand and implement. Of course that is what differentiates one from another. Do they apply these simple principles? Some days yes, and other days not so much.

I have found a great deal of value out of Steven Covey's books and philosophies. It is very fitting that Steven Covey's organization merged with Franklin (of Benjamin Franklin of course!). I am sure if they lived in the same era, they would have had some very interesting conversations.

The "7 Habits" has been out for over 15 years. If for some reason you have not read it or you are new in your professional life, I would highly recommend it. The book is entertaining, thought provoking and easy to read.

Steven Covey will be missed. His legacy will impact many for years to come.

Note: This post by Kelly Barner originally appeared in the March 2012 PSD Group Procurement & Supply Chain Newsletter.

In this week's eSourcing Wiki-Wednesday excerpt on Seven Facets of Cost Reduction and Avoidance, compensation structures are brought into question as they incent procurement professionals to behave a certain way, 'Like all employees, a supply manager will engage in behaviors rewarded by the company. This will create a problem if cost avoidance or cost reduction efforts beyond hard savings do not count toward a supply manager’s compensation and performance.'

As organizational expectations of procurement increase, many practitioners are questioning the structure of their compensation plans. Traditionally, procurement professionals received a straight salary. If there was a bonus structure in place, the bonus was typically based on corporate performance against stated goals and qualitative individual performance rather than savings targets.

Basic Advice for staying healthy - KEEP ON MOVING! Walk, swim, play tennis, golf - whatever! Just keep moving! Certainly nothing fancy about that but not always easy to execute on. There is always something more important or pressing in the schedule.

The same is true for our professional health. KEEP ON MOVING - attending webinars, reading and learning new tools and strategies. 

I was in a presentation last week and they were talking about the advantages of their offering since it was "in the cloud". That is another way of saying Software as a Service (SaaS). It sounded amazing. All upgrades happen at once, there is not version control issues, you are part of a large family of organizations and so on. The virtues kept going such as the price is more reasonable and very little involvement is needed from your IT organization.  

If you’ve read today’s eSourcing Wiki excerpt on Measuring Sourcing Value, then you know the core message is one of expanding scope in capturing the value that strategic sourcing brings to the enterprise.

Spend Radar Introduces Advanced Spend Management Blog, SpendZen

The industry experts at Spend Radar introduce SpendZen: a blog covering all things spend-related.

Since our inception, Buyers Meeting Point has always made Corporate Social Responsibility part of our mission. We have always had a selected charity that we donate to at the end of the year – most recently Plan International and Livestrong.

Last year Western Union celebrated their 160th anniversary. As a celebration, they picked the world's most networked person, a 26 year old from Portugal. It was based on the number of face book friends and their locations across 160 countries.

So how does that relate to procurement professionals? This week's esourcing wiki talks about the next generation sourcing. The matrix organization is becoming more the norm. It is highly recommended to put the procurement role in early with engineering and marketing. Waiting too late to pull in procurement limits flexbility and can result in higher costs into the product line.

I know more organizations are putting more emphasis in the role for procurement. They are expected to be commodity experts but also involved in product development and strategy discussions.

The next generation is also very networked and very comfortable with information and quick exchange of ideas.

What does your procurement organization do? Are you matrixed and networked? Have you found it to be more efficient and effective?

We got feedback through our recent survey that you want more category insight from us. We're working on a way to bring you resources on that front, but in the meantime, Cindy and I have a lot of direct experience that we'd like to share. What are your unique category experiences and what did you learn from them? We'd love to hear about it: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

We are always modifying our site and content in response to your feedback, so keep it coming!

In this week’s featured event, Bryan Ball and Bob Heaney, Abredeen research analysts, recapped the major findings from the 2013 Supply Chain Management Summit in Chicago. The event is available on demand, as are event highlights and approved presentations.

This week’s featured webinar was hosted by ISM, sponsored by Hubwoo and presented by Spend Matters. ‘Doing More with Less in Procurement: a punch list of 25 items to improve your productivity’ was based on a snap poll taken to help participants benchmark themselves relative to their peers in this area. As you might expect, prioritization is key, and we will hear more in the ongoing discussion of tactical versus strategic efforts and how to keep the machine cranking efficiently.

Each week I attend two or three webinars. Usually, I pick the most interesting event to share in this Friday webinar notes post. This week, there were two events on procurement transformation: one from Procurement Leaders/CombineNet/Kellogg and another from Sourcing Interests Group/Zycus/Capgemini. Both were good events in their own right, but combining what I heard in the two events provides a rich look at one of the hottest trends in procurement today.

This week’s featured event was presented by Supply Chain Insights and marks the official launch of the Supply Chain Index. Here is a brief excerpt from their event description:

‘The [Supply Chain] Index is based upon financial performance of companies from 2006 forward. Using market valuations of publically traded companies, we have built a formulaic representation of supply chain excellence using supply chain ratios (E.g. Ratios like Days of Inventory, Operating Margin, Revenue/Employee). … The Supply Chain Index allows companies to better understand the relationship between supply chain ratios and financial performance.”

This week’s featured webinar was hosted by Sourcing Interests Group and presented by Neo Group, a services firm focused on gaining efficiencies through low-cost country providers and outsourcing in general. The focus of the event was global sourcing governance, and how, when leveraged appropriately, it can help companies go ‘from good to great’.

This week’s featured webinar was a Procurement Leaders Thought Leaders event on the topic of supplier relationship management. Innovation with suppliers is a critical component of competitive advantage, but in order to turn potential into performance procurement needs a plan. In this webinar, we heard from Hubwoo, BMO Harris Bankcorp, and P&G about supplier segmentation, key success factors, and achieving innovation.

This week’s featured webinar was presented by Directworks, the new name for Co-eXprise, on the state of direct materials sourcing. If you have questions about the rebrand or the reasons behind it, you can read the press release here.

This week’s featured event was presented by CombineNet and took us ‘Beyond the Merchandise’ for a look at ‘Victories in Retail Indirect Procurement’. Click here to view the event on demand.

In this week’s featured event we heard from the Sourcing Interests Group Thought Leaders Council. They offered their definitions of savings as well as best practices. If you are interested in more about the members of the Council, read the SIG page about them in the Resource Center.

The Thought Leaders Council advises SIG on the build-out of the SIG Resource Center, makes regular contributions, serves as subject matter experts, and conducts working groups. The Council is representative of the SIG Membership, in that the majority of members are sourcing executives from the Buy-side. The Working Groups take suggestions from the SIG community and build guidelines for sourcing initiatives and categories.

The week’s featured events is ‘The New Rules of Supply Management’ hosted by ISM and presented by Ardent Partners and Ariba, with a client case study from SunTrust Bank woven in.

This week’s featured webinar was hosted by Hubwoo and featured Jason Busch of Spend Matters. ‘When Procurement Met Finance - How to Achieve the Hollywood Ending’ evoked the long bumpy road for Harry and Sally (played by Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan) in the 1989 romantic comedy. The connections between the movie and the challenges of the procurement/finance relationship may not obvious, but Jason did a great job keeping the theme going.

This week’s featured event (hosted by ISM and sponsored by Zycus) was primarily presented by Spend Matters’ Jason Busch. The webinar was recorded and will be available on ISM’s webinars page.

This week’s featured webinar was presented by Denali Group and Sourcing Interests Group. Two members of the Denali Group team discussed four challenges procurement organizations face as they attempt to move away from tactical work and retool themselves for strategic category management:

• Strategic partnership
• Resource limitations
• Organizational expectations
• Skills gaps

In this week’s featured webinar, we heard from Ardent Partners Chief Research Officer Andrew Bartolini in an event presented by BravoSolution. Andrew shared a Category Sourcing Scorecard he and his team designed to support sourcing team efforts to build out pipelines that can help allocate team resources and prepare for opportunities.

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.

This week’s featured webinar had an interesting premise – for the first time this year, My Purchasing Center and ProcureCon Indirect have partnered to sponsor the Excellence in Purchasing Indirect Categories (EPIC) Awards competition – EPIC for short. This week’s webinar recognized the finalists for their achievements in indirect spend procurement by having them present.

This week Sourcing Interests Group kicked off their 2013 webinar schedule with a high-level perspective look at procurement goal setting and achievement. The main speaker was Lynne McDonnell, Vice President at A.T. Kearney Procurement and Analytics. The information she shared was based on ATK’s 2011 Procurement Excellence study, which is conducted every three years to track the trends employed by leading professionals and organizations.

In this week's sole event, we started the year with a look back at the last thirty years of supply chain management. It was a panel-format webinar hosted by Supply Chain Insights and moderated by Kelly Keller, Vice President of Marketing from Supply Chain Brain. If you are interested in more on this event, visit the Supply Chain Insights site.

This week’s featured webinar was hosted by CombineNet: ‘2013 E-Sourcing Resolution: Create Win-Win Solutions with Suppliers’. The event is already available on demand on their website.

In this week’s webinar notes we’ll feature two webinars that addressed the idea of empowering CPOs through data or business intelligence: ISM with the Aberdeen Group and IASTA with Forrester Research.

Both events addressed the need for procurement to have sufficient analytical capabilities to support the CPO’s efforts to develop strategies for improvement and risk mitigation, and acknowledge that even the best analytics are not actionable without external benchmarks. As a result, best-in-class companies are making investments in the technology solutions and services needed to improve procurement’s capabilities.

Graduation season is upon us. For our family, we have 3 high school and 3 graduate degree parties to go to this year. Incredible!

Of course the next step after school is finding a job. That is such a challenge and there is a great deal of competition. Some of the search is a numbers game and some of it is timing. I know some recent graduates have applied to over 100 various organizations. Eventually something breaks through.

This article by OnlineMBA.com discusses the increase in hiring for recent MBA graduates.  There are opportunities in supply chain across all types of industries such as manufacturing and health care. Some of the graduates are getting a specialized MBA. They learn general management principles and focus on unique practices for a specific industry.

MBA’s are in demand for manufacturers. As the OnlineMBA article states:

“Hot jobs for manufacturing MBAs are in the fields of project management, business analysis, and supply chain demand in manufacturing.”

In our organization, most of the entry level sourcing positions are MBA graduates. They have developed some skills through their education. While analytical in nature, they also have had opportunity to evaluate the bigger picture.

Do you hire MBA graduates? What did you look for in your most recent hire? What value do you place on that advanced degree?

As we celebrate Mother’s Day this weekend, there are many learnings that are gained in childhood that carry us through to our adult lives – both personal and professional.

This book is Life’s Lessons from Mom by Patrick Flaherty. Looking at this through the eyes of a career for procurement, there are several that hit home for sure.

You’re never too busy or too old to have fun.

• We spend a great deal of time at the office. Are you too busy or do you see humor and laugh? How do you enjoy those you work with?

Never fear your competition.

• Your competition makes you stronger and better. Playing against someone faster or better than you makes you improve your skills too. Also, there will always be someone better, faster, richer than you. The competition is against yourself and to improve YOU.

Take care of your equipment.

• As a child, we were told to put our bikes in the garage at the end of the day. So easy to just leave them out on the grass or in the driveway. Well, we did put them away and they lasted longer and had a better resale value as we outgrew them. Same thing applies with your equipment and tools at the office. It will make a big difference with your effectiveness.

Make your bed and clean your room

• Everyone has heard this one many, many times. Perhaps you have now had the opportunity to use it on YOUR children. It is amazing that we can hear our parent’s words coming out of our mouths about very similar issues. Well, this one is for order and discipline. As you learn those skills, it helps with application in your professional life as well. So much time can be lost looking for the appropriate document or misplacing that phone number. So go ahead and “make your bed and clean your room”!!

There are so many other good reflections. What did you learned that has helped you going forward? Any words of wisdom from Mom to share on this special weekend? If not, how about:

Thanks Mom!

Negotiation is a core skill for procurement professionals. Actually, it is really something everyone does every day. When you really look at it – EVERYTHING IS NEGOTIABLE. Some if it is so minor, you don’t even notice it like where to have dinner tonight.

So you want to run (AKA negotiate) with the big dogs? The ones who have succeeded? What can we learn from them and adopt to our own situations?

This article from CEO.com 9 Negotiation Tactics from Famous CEO’s offers interesting approaches that proved very effective. They may not all fit your style but there are a few here that could be beneficial in your toolbox. Here are a few that were discussed.

Make everyone else look lousy

In other words, make your proposal so compelling, the others fall by the wayside. Steven Jobs bid for the company that was to become iTunes was 8 times more than the next bidder. That got their attention as you can imagine.

If cooperation isn’t on the table, overthrow the whole thing

Teamwork is critical in business today. Individuals have to be bought in to the broader goal, not just their own personal agendas. At Twitter, when the team was not focused, the CEO took action and that behavior changed.

Take a look at the article and see if there is anything that strikes a cord with you. Some of them may not appeal to your style but it is certainly food for thought.

Have you had an opportunity to run with the big dogs? What did you do differently and did you learn how to negotiate in a different manner?

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” - Thomas A. Edison

Notice I did not title this as do you want to SUCCEED like Thomas Edison. Of course we would like to get to the answer on round 1. Most time that does not happen - ever is more like it. If Edison had not taken a chance, and kept at it , would we still be reading by candlelight?

When I read this blog by John Maxwell, Traits of a Successful Failure, I got thinking about procurement applications. How can I take more risks, fail, learn from it and eventually succeed. Perhaps with a different spec, supplier or process.

Maxwell talks about the four traits of a successful failure. I think we can agree that Edison certainly has those characteristics.

1. Optimism. Find the benefit in every bad experience.

2. Responsibility. Change your response to failure by accepting responsibility.

3. Resilience. Say goodbye to yesterday.

4. Initiative. Take action and face your fear.

We do often fall into patterns of work and comfort with various suppliers. However, taking a chance to try something different or offer a new idea is an opportunity to fail like Thomas Edison. And when you succeed, the value and results to you and your organization can be quite significant.

What have you tried differently this month? Did it work? Have you tried a revision and a new approach? Can you describe what your learned?

One or two days a month I have a day that has 9 meetings. Seriously? How am I supposed to be productive on a day like that? Or even if it is just a few meetings a day, when do we get to do REAL work?

If someone told you that Harrison Ford was not hired for a movie role he wanted, you would find it hard to believe. If that is the case, what hope do the rest of us have?

We had a very stormy winter. As a result, there are many, many, many twigs and branches in our yard. This past weekend, five of us worked in the yard for less than an hour and what a difference! It was easier, fun and no one was hurt or tired at the end of it. Then we had a cookout and enjoyed the rest of the day.

I love the days when I work at home. It is peaceful and I get a lot more done – both personally and professionally. Of course that is when all the technology is working correctly. We recently had a blizzard and lost power for 3 days. Then it was cold and we did not have any computers or television. Needless to say, I was not productive at all!

In the Northern Hemisphere, the first day of Spring was 3/21. Sometimes that day feels like everything is waking up and beginning to grow. Other years, there is still snow on the ground and quite chilly.

We are well underway in 2013. Many of those New Year’s Resolutions are long forgotten for most of us. Some may have stuck and are now ingrained as part of your normal routines.

Every interaction with a customer is an opportunity to leave them with an amazing impression.

Leaders from all ages have traits and characteristics that are still pertinent today.

How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?
~ Dr. Seuss

We have all worked with some people and couldn't wait until they retired. It could not come soon enough. They were no longer engaged or capable of fulfilling their role as they should. Of course that is not always the case. There are plenty who will leave a BIG void when they leave.

If you are anything like me, I was nervous about meeting new people or going to conferences where I would have to 'network'. I never knew how to get conversations started or mingle around the receptions. Until I discovered the secret: ASK QUESTIONS!

Growing up, we had limited opportunities for candy or chocolate. We could count on it on special occasions, holidays and vacations.  Every summer my grandparents would visit and take us to the candy aisle in the grocery store. We could buy a WHOLE BAG of candy - not just a single candy bar. Heavenly!! We always has a terrific visit with them - swimming, hiking and playing games. But the visit was ever so much better with the chocolate. A bonus of the whole thing was they often stayed two weeks so we got to repeat that joy in the candy aisle for two weeks!

We have deadlines for all sorts of things. Is it okay to be a little late? Does that only apply to social situations? What about the deadline for bids from your suppliers?

We negotiate every day in so many ways and do not even realize it.

Who will do the dishes? What shall we watch on TV? When does your 16 year old have to be home? Never mind anything that happens at the office for salaries, job assignments or contracts.

A few weeks ago, we talked about the pending Fiscal Cliff issues in the United States. Those have since been partially resolved.

What other issues might impact procurement? Are there any other cliffs out there to disrupt the supply chain or delivery cycles?

Although we planned to wrap up the year’s coverage of purchasing news and events with yesterday’s webinar coverage, we had one last post come to our attention that was too interesting to pass up.