What Is Hybrid Procurement?
What is hybrid procurement? It is an extension of elastic procurement™. We’ve written about elastic procurement™ here: Elastic procurement™ is a delivery model that is to Big Procurement technology systems what cloud computing was to the corporate data center. It lowers costs, eliminates complexity, and empowers staff. What does this mean? Most companies don’t […]
Who Should Pay for Procurement Events?
When it comes to the technology and the labor necessary to purchase something (either from a catalog or with a reverse auction), who should pay for procurement events? Should it be the buyer or should it be the supplier? Logically, we know that the buyer is going to pay one way or the other. Either […]
Why Do We Have a Procurement Department?
It’s an interesting question that we don’t ask often enough: why do organizations have a procurement department? Speaking with a supplier recently, he told me that his company refuses to participate in RFPs. This isn’t because he is afraid of competing. He has a compelling solution that creates real value for his clients, priced fairly. […]
What Is Elastic Procurement™?
What is elastic procurement™ and who should care? CIOs will recognize the word “elastic” from cloud computing. Elastic procurement™ is a delivery model that is to Big Procurement technology systems what cloud computing was to the corporate data center. It lowers costs, eliminates complexity, and empowers staff. Before Amazon Web Services or Microsoft […]
What Are the Biggest Problems in Procurement?
What are the biggest problems in procurement? There are no shortage of them when you speak with people in different business lines within the organization. Suppliers aren’t enamored with the process, so much as resigned to it. Even procurement staff see it as the “Devil we know.” Here’s a list of some of the key […]
What Is the ROI of a Procurement System?
When making any kind of a decision about digital transformation, people like to talk about the Return on Investment (ROI). What is the ROI of a procurement system? How can we think quantitatively and qualitatively about the costs and benefits? Imagine Betty Buyer. Her CFO tasked her with finding a new procurement system to replace […]
How Can We Improve the Performance of Procurement?
Historically, there has been a tradeoff between the strategic, internal connectivity of the generalist and the tactical, external expertise of the specialist. Generalists ended up running the show, while accomplished specialists remained in place. What if technology could resolve this tradeoff? How can we improve the performance of procurement generalists and buying specialists to make […]
What Is the Buyer’s Journey?
The right platform can accelerate sourcing, lower transaction costs, and lower opportunity costs. We wrote this post originally as a White Paper for the National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO). The Buyer’s Journey Is Evolving Buying goods and services for public sector organizations is difficult. As this article in Forbes puts it, “Due to an abundance […]
How Can B2B Buyers Collaborate Across Organizations?
When multiple buyers collaborate to issue an RFP or RFQ jointly, it converts a one-to-many process into a many-to-many process with the attendant increase in benefits, offset by higher complexity. What if we could reduce the complexity to that of a regular RFP or RFQ? How Can B2B Buyers Collaborate Across Organizations? How can B2B […]
How Many Sourcing Systems Should a Buyer Have?
“Nearly half (49%) of agency respondents indicate that they are failing to attract enough interest among vendors and contractors to their competitive solicitations.”