Makeup for tweens is controversial enough on its own, but when asbestos is involved, national news headlines follow. ABC11 reported this week that asbestos was found to be present in the “Just Shine Shimmer Powder” sold at Justice, a national retailer of girls’ apparel. Asbestos fibers, once inhaled, remain in the lungs permanently. As Sean Fitzgerald, the director of research at the lab where the investigation was conducted, told ABC11, children “could die an untimely death in their thirties or forties because of the exposure to asbestos in this product.”
If ever a layman’s view of the holy war over healthcare reform had a chance to be heard, well, as a guy who’s covered the space for the better part of a decade, here goes nothing. (My disclaimer: I hold both political parties in equal contempt.) From a supply chain management perspective, there’s more fat on the healthcare bone than Arby’s latest pork belly sandwich. Origins of that old adage “doctors don’t make good businessmen” have roots in many places. But their collective decision to fully outsource their procurement and supply chain management needs (in fact, to establish healthcare’s group purchasing organization oligarchy) may be the quintessential example.
Traditional distributors still command the biggest percentage of industrial buyer spending, but competition is firing up, according to a recent UPS study of industrial products buyers and their behaviors and preferences. The study found more that industrial buyers than before are spending their money with non-traditional suppliers by buying through an e-marketplace or straight from the manufacturer.
Depending on whom you ask, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his administration may not have the best track record for providing transparency to the public, even though his official communications channels — and even the Mayor himself — like talking it up. The latest stop on the Transparency Train, as it happens, is right up Spend Matters’ alley: an announcement that the City of Chicago’s Department of Procurement Services (DPS) will adopt a new e-procurement approach to do better business with its myriad vendors and suppliers.
In the past month or so, Spend Matters has featured a number of articles about the fast-growing cannabis industry and supply chain. It’s complex, but the cannabis industry is not what it used to be. While the earlier articles have focused on procurement and supply chain processes and technology, there is another area of the business that was not covered: on-demand home delivery. Over the past two years, a number of startups have emerged to provide the platform/app-based service — think of it as a Grubhub or DoorDash for pot, instead of food. The list includes companies like Nugg, Speed Weed and grasp.it, but perhaps the most recognized — and most well funded — is Eaze.
Spend Matters welcomes this guest post from Diarmuid O’ Donoghue and Khusboo Kadmawala, of GEP.
Do you really think that you make your own buying decisions? I urge you, think again. As several recent experiments from the field of neuromarketing illustrate, your own subconscious thoughts and desires may actually speak louder than your rational thoughts.
Proactis and Perfect Commerce share a number of commonalities, perhaps the three most important being that they have built out similar product footprints, have been able to grow “under the radar” in recent years and have leveraged M&A as a core growth strategy. We covered the news of the announced merger between the two firms last Friday on Spend Matters, and Proactis shareholders initially responded positively to the news.
As background, Proactis’ core source-to-pay (S2P) business has centered primarily on serving U.K. customers, with a concentration in public sector. In the U.K. market, Proactis has made a number of acquisitions in recent years to round out its suite and to acquire market share. These transactions include EGS (2014), Due North (2016) and Millstream (2016). Within the U.S., it acquired Intesource (2014), to strengthen its e-sourcing and related managed services capability, and Intelligent Capture (also 2014), a provider of electronic invoicing and scan/capture services.
Perfect has served customers in the S2P area on a global basis since its founding, in 1994, but with a greater emphasis, until recently, on North America. It has made a number of smaller acquisitions over the years, in addition to its foundational acquisition of Commerce One (2006), including those that leveraged IP enforcement of Commerce One code as a bargaining chip in various transactions. But more recently, Perfect made its largest acquisition to date purchasing supplier network and P2P provider Hubwoo, to help expand its market presence and enhance its capabilities in the catalog management, marketplace and supplier network areas.
This Spend Matters PRO research brief provides an introduction and an overview to both providers, exploring the value proposition and strengths each vendor brings to the combination, including overlap and potential synergies from a customer perspective. It also touches on the subject of integration, as well as the approach we would encourage customers to look for when determining whether the acquisition will primarily benefit them or investors.
What have you always wondered about procurement — but were afraid to ask? The editors at Spend Matters have never stopped wondering about what procurement means for all of us and how it is defined as a profession — but going down rabbit holes is only fun until you run out of air. Enter Ask Spend Matters, a new series where you, the reader, tell us what to investigate and report about procurement. How do you submit your question? The process is simple.
U.K.-based spend management and e-procurement solution provider Proactis announced Friday it’s snapping up Perfect Commerce, a U.S.-based source-to-pay (S2P) provider. Assuming shareholder approval, the new company, which will be called Proactis, will be one of the largest global cloud-based spend management companies, according to the announcement. The $132.5 million deal (in aggregate consideration) roughly doubles Proactis’ revenue.
Private equity firm Sycamore Partners announced Wednesday that it would acquire office supply company Staples for $6.9 billion, though rumors of the deal had been swirling for a week. The acquisition comes after the Federal Trade Commission quashed a Staples-Office Depot merger on antitrust grounds a year ago, which Spend Matters covered extensively.
As a function, we’ve discussed at great lengths over the past couple of years how procurement has climbed up the corporate ladder to take on a more strategic role in many businesses. Although technology and a changing business landscape have undoubtedly increased the pace of this subtle shift, talented professionals have been the driving force behind it. Also well documented are the difficulties in locating and enticing these gifted individuals. While most companies still find themselves struggling to find the right talent, a select few have sourcing leaders lining up to work for them.
We, like a lot of folks, said “whoa” this morning when reading about Amazon’s announcement that it was buying Whole Foods. It stopped us in our tracks, which is not a surprise. For if we were to dissect our personal household spending, Whole Foods would certainly top our lists, like many other families who can afford it, no doubt. But what’s curious from our vantage point is not what Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods — if approved by shareholders and if it passes regulatory hurdles — means for our own credit card bills. Rather, we’re keen to see what it means for Amazon Business and the intersection of business and consumer buying.
