Should Supplier Networks Be One-to-Many or Many-to-Many?
Buyers get the most out of suppliers when they make it easy for suppliers to give them what they want. Suppliers want the ability to sell with a fast cycle and low transactions costs to as many potential customers who are a good fit and with whom they can develop deep, long-lasting, collaborative relationships.
Procurement Needs to Have Skin in the Game
Buyers who treated their suppliers as vassals who would (and presumably should) do anything for “the business” suffered disproportionately during the Covid supply chain shock of 2020.
How Do Buyers Know They Obtained Value for Money?
We purchase goods and services to solve problems. The right solution is the one that solves the problem most completely. With complicated problems or ones that have complex implications for other systems, this can be very difficult to ascertain. Often a good or service may appear to be the right solution, only for this calculus to turn out to be incorrect because of a failure to acknowledge the full extent (or even the existence of) complex interactions with other aspects of the firm.
How Should Boards Think About Procurement?
In a pre-Pandemic world, if I were to have asked a procurement officer or a chief financial officer, “what do you hope to accomplish with procurement?” the answer would have been straightforward: cost savings. In a post-Pandemic world with an elevated and persistent interest in social justice, the response is likely to be fundamentally different.
How Should Buyers Engage with Small Suppliers?
To win contracts with large government buyers and private sector purchasers, big suppliers need to demonstrate how they engage with smaller suppliers as subcontractors. Initially, this ability will be a competitive advantage, but over time it will devolve into necessary table stakes. BDC defines small and medium-sized enterprises (“SMEs”) as those with fewer than one […]
When Will Companies See Procurement as Strategic?
“Organizations should build financial models that size the impact of various shock scenarios and decide how much ‘insurance’ to buy through the mitigation of specific gaps, such as by establishing dual supply sources or relocating production. The analytical underpinnings of this risk analysis are well understood in other domains, such as the financial sector – now is the time to apply them to supply chains.” [emphasis added]
Spend Analysis vs. Spend Risk Management
Procurement departments should focus on value and risk, but instead they prioritize cost. Value-for-money means buying the right solution from the right supplier at the right price.
The Best Way to Purchase Contingent Workforce Services
Contingent workforce services, also known as extended workforce, refers to the use of third-party labor to supplement the firm’s base of employees. Typically, hiring managers will obtain these services from one of several channels: staffing companies who supply labor on a time-and-materials basis; large IT services firms who offer consultants based upon a Statement of […]
Corporate Social Responsibility Procurement
In the plans for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, Bayard Rustin wrote of “the twin evils of racism and economic deprivation.” This remains true today as Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic argued recently that “Systemic racism is a yoke that drags on the American economy.” Reducing racism […]
What Can Big Business Do to Help Smaller Firms?
Small and medium-sized businesses are critical players in corporate supply chains. Sometimes their participation is opaque in that they exist as undisclosed sub-contractors. The policy response to the current crisis has been to treat it as a liquidity crisis. Specifically, the shock of the Covid lockdown and its disruption to business was seen as a […]