Complex Group Procurement Needs the Right Meta-System
Imagine an organization with a troubled history of procurement. Let’s think of it as a bank, but it could be anything large and complicated. In this story, there are many different players. First, there is the business. There are various trading desks focused on derivatives in different asset classes including asset-backed securitization, equity derivatives, mortgage-backed […]
How Can We Maximize the Productivity of Procurement Committees?
We’ve written recently about a core problem with Requests for Proposals: poor internal stakeholder coordination. It creates a number of derivative issues: Poor specification of requirements: the organization fails to exploit its internal knowledge and connections Lengthy procurement cycles: decision makers struggle to obtain consensus Poor visibility into the value chain: without knowledge of or […]
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 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 […]
Everything Is Sourcing
Sourcing is matching: finding the best solution to a problem.
Why Choose a Best-of-Breed Sourcing Vendor?
The defining aspect of the 21st century supply chain will be the need to connect people, data, and processes.
How Do You Educate Your Customers?
Perhaps the most interesting scenario would be if the buyer invited several suppliers to send her their individual Model RFPs. Instead of having a single, common RFP document to which every supplier responded, each vendor could simply send their Model RFP and their related answers. In reading multiple Model RFPs, the buyer would garner a tremendous amount of market intelligence from the questions that different suppliers included.
How Should You Measure Procurement Performance?
Perhaps the best way to measure procurement’s strategic performance is to do so qualitatively.
Why Use Templates in Procurement?
The best way to improve acquisition performance is to make it easier for suppliers to give buyers what they want.