25 Procurement Productivity Improvements You Can Make Right Now (Part 1)

Pierre Mitchell - May 22, 2013 2:49 PM | Categories: Industry News

In April 2013, Spend Matters conducted a research study (sponsored by Hubwoo) with ISM (The Institute for Supply Management) to focus on how to improve procurement productivity. Even though procurement has a >10X ROI as a function, it is still under the same pressure as other functions to improve productivity, especially since they’re typically asked to do even more (beyond spend savings) with less. So, we came up with a punch list of 25 things that procurement organizations could do to free themselves up from the tactical and focus on the strategic. We used a web-based survey for the study. [...]

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Sourcing Validation as a Best Practice

Guest Post - May 22, 2013 1:14 PM | Categories: Commentary

Spend Matters welcomes another guest post from Jeff Muscarella of NPI, a spend management consultancy focused on eliminating overspending on IT, telecom and shipping. In the last decade, enterprises have been subjected to a long list of financial regulations and compliance mandates that aim to create transparency and eliminate corruptive business practices (e.g. Sarbanes-Oxley). Along the way, these mandates have had an impact on public companies’ sourcing practices. As part of organizations’ path to compliance, they must maintain visibility into significant areas of spend in order to make verifiable determinations about future financial commitments. This requires having visibility into supplier/vendor [...]

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H7N9 Under Control, Apple to Build Factory in Texas, Best Buy Cuts Costs, Google’s Conversational Search

Sydney Lazarus - May 22, 2013 11:23 AM

The H7N9 virus appears to be under control, according to UN experts. The epidemic has led to roughly...

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Transactional Data Interchange: The Large/Small Company Disconnect

Jason Busch - May 22, 2013 10:01 AM

KPMG’s 2013 Global Manufacturing Outlook features a diagram that immediately caught my attention w...

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Supplier Network Fee Modeler: A Q-and-A With the Inventor (Part 2)

Jason Busch - May 22, 2013 8:09 AM

Please click here for the first part of this interview. Spend Matters:  Ariba’s fees look ine...

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Hackett’s P2P Performance Study: The Best Freemium P2P Benchmark in the World

Pierre Mitchell - May 22, 2013 6:04 AM

My alma mater, The Hackett Group, has launched their bi-annual Purchase-to-Pay benchmark study. Unli...

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E-Sourcing: What’s Changed in the Past Five Years?

Jason Busch - May 21, 2013 3:14 PM

This post discusses the capabilities and mentions vendors like MyBiz, Ivalua, Pool4Tool, Zycus, Full...

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Supercharging Procurement’s Buying Leverage

Guest Post - May 21, 2013 1:09 PM

Spend Matters welcomes a guest post from Jim Kiser of GEP. In today’s competitive business environ...

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Apple the “Tax Dodger,” Your Donated Clothes, Global Brand Supply Chain Woes

Sheena Moore - May 21, 2013 11:44 AM

Tim Cook was questioned by a US Senate subcommittee about Apple’s offshore cash, after being accus...

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Kimberley-Clark on Metrics and Adoption with Ariba

Jason Busch - May 21, 2013 8:18 AM

Earlier this month at Ariba Live, Kimberly-Clark’s Richard Roe (Project Lead for e-Invoicing and O...

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Technology Gives Fresh Take on Supplier Performance Management

Thomas Kase - May 21, 2013 7:35 AM

Join us for Good Data: Spend Analysis Tactics to Attack Supplier Performance Management on Thursday,...

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Invoiceware and Tradeshift Partner: E-Invoicing Goes Global

Jason Busch - May 21, 2013 6:12 AM

Last week, Invoiceware and Tradeshift announced a partnership agreement to cross-sell and integrate ...

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Sourcing Managed Services: Not Consulting – Not Outsourcing

Jason Busch - May 20, 2013 2:44 PM

I recently connected with an old FreeMarkets colleague who is running a managed services business in...

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Australian Wool Prices Decline Due to Weak Demand

Guest Post - May 20, 2013 1:27 PM

Spend Matters welcomes another guest post from Nick Smith of Mintec. Australian wool prices have fal...

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H&M to Diversify Supply Chain, Yahoo Acquires Tumblr, Google Glass Privacy Concerns, Dreamliner Resumes Flight

Sydney Lazarus - May 20, 2013 11:22 AM

Following the Bangladesh factory collapse that killed more than 1,200 people, H&M is looking int...

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Tackling Tail Spend and Spot Buys (Part 3)

Jason Busch - May 20, 2013 10:07 AM

In an analysis of technology for supporting tactical buying requirements, Hackett suggests the follo...

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