How to Decide on Organizational Sourcing Structures, Supply Market Intelligence Sources (ICYMI)

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Last week, we ran two stories that have come out of our new feature, Ask Spend Matters.

The feature asks readers to tell us what they’ve always wondered about procurement and supply chain, and our editors then select questions to pursue and investigate.

The first story came out of the following question:

• “Centralized, decentralized or hybrid sourcing structure? How do we decide?”

Editor at Large Sydney Lazarus tackled Piyush Shah’s question with aplomb.

Shah, a PhD student of supply chain management at Arizona State University, was trying to figure out why so many companies have seemingly been reconfiguring their purchasing structures of late. He had heard “gripes that country heads are bypassed in favor of reporting directly to the global head of purchasing.”

So how to decide?

The answer, as you’ll read in the full story, is a bit more complex than simply, “It depends,” or “A hybrid of the two.” (Special bonus: Colorful anecdotes from Spend Matters UK/Europe’s Peter Smith.)

The second question resurrected another perennial issue:

• “Supply market intelligence is highly relevant for procurement professionals. What data sources do you recommend?”

Since our anonymous question asker briefly shared details on his background as a seasoned professional in a senior role within a large manufacturing firm, I took a broader approach with this piece.

The primary intent: to arrive at an answer that would ideally help our asker do his job better.

The secondary one: to give other procurement practitioners, at perhaps earlier stages in their careers or across diverse industries, a basic understanding of how to approach supply market intelligence — from gathering it to turning it into actionable results.

See how we did by reading the full story.

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