Spend Matters

Private Equity and Procurement: Context and Introduction

Jason Busch — Fri, 24 May 2013 21:09:17 +0000

At Sourcing Interest Group’s Spring Summit, Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe’s (WCAS) Jeff Gallant gave a fact-packed, fast-paced hour-long introduction to the world of private equity and procurement in a talk titled Procurement as critical resource: creating value through private equity portfolio management. I came away from the presentation with a strong appreciation for the opportunities of a relatively new position that is emerging for former CPOs and procurement leaders: serving as operating partners within the private equity world. However, the lessons that Jeff shared are not just relevant to those transitioning into the world of leveraged buyouts – they are [...]

Leveraging Memorial Day: How We Spend Our Precious Time

William Busch — Fri, 24 May 2013 19:24:45 +0000

As we enter an extended U.S. holiday weekend to honor those whose lives were cut short in defense of their nation, we needn’t dwell upon the politics of war, but rather the value of life. Let’s also set aside the metaphysical and spiritual components and take a more strategic and quantitative approach to our life ROI – one that fits neatly with our daily business practice. One of my very close friends, Harry, and I get together about two times a month without a specific agenda over coffee, wine or a light meal. Our conversation typically segues from work and family [...]

Rubbing Alcohol Scotch, Venezuela Toilet Paper Shortage, Knives on Planes

Sheena Moore — Fri, 24 May 2013 17:24:01 +0000

Not the best happy hour: TGI Fridays in New Jersey are busted for selling caramel-colored rubbing alcohol as “top-shelf” scotch. Confederate money for book nerds: A judge has ruled that $210.5 million worth of unredeemed gift cards from Borders are “worthless.” Sharpen your swiss army knife and your Leatherman: Soon you’ll be allowed to take them on planes again. Venezuela is importing 50 million rolls…of toilet paper.

The Start of Summer: Soldier Field 10, G&Ts and Reverse Auctions

Jason Busch — Fri, 24 May 2013 14:29:11 +0000

I’m running a 10-mile race tomorrow, hoping to dash to a personal best (“PR” among the racing obsessed) during the Soldier Field 10. For those in Chicago, this race is truly awesome. Not only is it not over-crowded (a field of just over 10,000 or so, and you pick up your race packet at a running store, not the massive McCormick conference center) you start next to Soldier Field, and you actually finish on the fifty yard line. And you honor the memory of those who served (and for which the stadium is named after) before the starting gun goes [...]

When You Find Yourself In a Software Hole, Stop Digging!

Thomas Kase — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:47:10 +0000

Bad software is rolled out all the time, perhaps because business clients have poorly defined use cases, ad hoc processes – or because software firms cut corners and let programmers take off without proper supervision. Then there’s also good ol’ incompetence (of course). Executive ego around how customers “should” go about their business in the solution is sometimes an issue as well – even though “educating” the marketplace to correct the errors of their ways is usually a horrible foundation for a business plan. Many software firms learned this the hard way during the dot.com days. Instead of hanging out [...]

E-Sourcing: What’s Changed in the Past Five Years (Part 2)

Thomas Kase — Thu, 23 May 2013 21:08:12 +0000

In the first installment in this series, we talked a lot about the changing e-sourcing landscape based on observations from a deep dive sourcing analysis we’re currently working on. Today we’ll share some of the remaining “gotchas” to bring our subscribers up to speed on what’s changed in the past five years. But first, here’s a summary of our initial points: Non-western expertise and sourcing suites gain stature The rise of truly integrated end-to-end solutions is finally here (in certain cases) Optimization (i.e., flexible and alternative bidding submissions, application of buyer constraints, scenario analysis) has finally gotten easy to use Larger [...]

P2P Channel Strategy Spaghetti: Pasta that Will Keep Your Company Lean!

Guest Post — Thu, 23 May 2013 19:26:07 +0000

Spend Matters welcomes a guest post from Michael Eckstut and Len Prokopets of Archstone Consulting. A commonly held view by most top managers today is that simplifying processes and taking a “lean” approach to all business operations is the golden path to business success. We have seen over and over again companies successfully re-engineering their business processes to take out complexity and become more effective and efficient, better able to compete in the marketplace by meeting customer service and quality goals while driving down costs. However, there are times when simplifying processes can go too far and little “messiness” is [...]

Gartner’s Supply Chain Top 25, Big Gas Savings, Pet Spending

Sheena Moore — Thu, 23 May 2013 17:36:45 +0000

US retailers are reluctant to join in on international plans to improve safety and working conditions in factories abroad due to legal liability concerns. Draft FCB does it again with a great K-Mart ad. Today in perspectives: the average U.S. household spends more on pets than the poverty line for humans in the developing world. Gartner has released its ninth annual Supply Chain Top 25.

BravoSolution’s Customer Event: Procurement Health and the Dangers of WebMD!

Jason Busch — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:43:04 +0000

Bravo’s Mickey North Rizza facilitated a great discussion yesterday with the metaphor of “health” as a means for diagnosing the state of today’s procurement patient. The entire discussion was a backdrop for introducing Bravo’s new procurement benchmark, diagnosis, and improvement program (more on this later). In the meantime, her points that compare patient health to procurement organizational health are worth sharing – and spot on. Live at the BravoSolution Event Mickey began by questioning how we know whether procurement is healthy or unhealthy in our companies: sourcing, procurement, supplier relationship management, risk, quality, transactional/compliance activities, etc. Some audience members suggested [...]

BravoSolution’s Customer Event – Learning To Drive Fast

Jason Busch — Thu, 23 May 2013 15:01:34 +0000

When people purchase anything but a boring econobox of a car – or the Prius, which is really just Toyota’s excuse to find a way to charge close to $30K for something that without the eco-weenie component should cost half, judged on performance – it’s unlikely that they’ll ever drive the thing near the limits. Yet even my trusty Honda Odyssey is capable of doing some pretty spectacular things if you know how to push it. This is true of so many procurement tools as well, especially on the sourcing side. One common theme at Bravo’s customer event so far is that a number of the [...]