15 hours agoMember-onlySuppliers Don’t Respond to RFPs Because They Think They’re RiggedA Request for Proposal (RFP) is a reverse auction. Unlike a regular auction in which there is a single seller and an audience of buyers bidding up the price of the item, in a reverse auction there is a single buyer facing a crowd of suppliers bidding down the price…Rfp4 min readRfp4 min read
Aug 29In Procurement, Value Isn’t Price and Price Isn’t ValueImagine a new procurement officer named Jill who joined an established manufacturing company recently. She has been put in charge of her first project. She needs to purchase 1,000 pounds of Grade C Copper. It’s a commodity. …Procurement4 min readProcurement4 min read
Aug 8Joint Procurement Does Not Have to Be SlowEvery large sourcing event is now a team event, as we wrote about previously in “Procurement Is a Team Sport,” quoting Gartner: “The typical buying group for a complex B2B solution involves six to 10 decision makers, each armed with four or five pieces of information they’ve gathered independently and…Procurement4 min readProcurement4 min read
Aug 5In Procurement, Margins Are More Important than Cost SavingsThe conventional wisdom about procurement is that cost savings are the fundamental priority. One sees this emphasis all the time. Here is Procurement Magazine referring to the 2023 Hackett Group survey: “Procurement’s main priorities for the year include ensuring supply continuity, combatting inflationary pressures and reducing spend cost.” Who could…Procurement4 min readProcurement4 min read
Jul 20Competitive Sourcing Leads to Diverse SourcingDeloitte found in its 2023 Chief Procurement Officer survey that the top three priorities were: driving operational efficiency, enhancing ESG/CSR, and digital transformation.Esg5 min readEsg5 min read
Jun 26Procurement Is a Team SportProcurement, especially for complex purchases, involves groups of people from different functional areas within the buying enterprise. Here is Gartner: “The typical buying group for a complex B2B solution involves six to 10 decision makers, each armed with four or five pieces of information they’ve gathered independently and must deconflict…Procurement5 min readProcurement5 min read
Jun 20Interoperability Is a Force Multiplier for ProcurementIn science fiction movies and television everyone speaks English. Often, there is a convenient poetic device called something like the “Universal Translator” that enables beings from wildly different backgrounds to communicate. Human Being H can speak to Vulcan V. Through some magic, H hears English and V hears Vulcan. How…Interoperability9 min readInteroperability9 min read
Apr 24How to Rescue a Failed Digital Procurement TransformationDigital transformations of procurement fail just like any other digital transformation: frequently. There is a way to turn these situations around, though. What Is Digital Transformation? Here is CIO: “Additionally, companies often forget that a digital transformation is doing two things at once: digitizing your backbone as well as automating…Procurement7 min readProcurement7 min read
Apr 10What Do People Want from Procurement Technology?“Good marketing is the craft of understanding what people want and need and helping them achieve it.” — Seth Godin What do people want from procurement technology? They want it all. Outcomes If we start with outcomes, they want to make sure that they are buying the right solution for…Supplychainvisibility4 min readSupplychainvisibility4 min read
Mar 4Generative Text is the Procurement Junior Staffer You Didn’t Know You NeededProcurement is the first mile of the supply chain. Already, before the Pandemic, procurement teams were spread too thin. When Covid hit with its full force, these employees faced tremendous additional stressors, challenges that persist in many ways. It’s no wonder that there is burnout. …Procurement13 min readProcurement13 min read
