Disruption from the coronavirus outbreak is forcing some tough conversations about payments.
It’s never an easy topic, but asking suppliers for concessions on a call or video chat in an empathetic manner — or even pre-empting the discussions by socializing ideas early — is far more effective and conducive for relationship-building and joint development than sending out emails, letters or other methods.
Click on this post for a partial list of approaches you might take (and questions to pose), ideally in conversation with suppliers if you need to ask for concessions, given all of the disruption from COVID-19.
This Spend Matters SolutionMap Insider release note provides insight into the Spring/Q1 2020 SolutionMap release for the following five categories: Sourcing, Spend and Procurement Analytics, Supplier Relationship Management & Risk, Contract Lifecycle Management, and Strategic Procurement Technologies Suite. The note reviews the process we follow and highlights what has changed since the last release.
Also, SolutionMap is shifting from quarterly updates to spring and fall updates. This is the last quarterly release and the first spring release, so you’ll see it labeled “Spring/Q1.”
Changes to Spring/Q1 2020 SolutionMap
In the above individual areas, the following providers have been added for this release: * Conga is a new participant in the Contract Lifecycle Management SolutionMap category. * Rosslyn Analytics is a new participant in the Spend & Procurement Analytics SolutionMap category. * Suplari is a new participant in the Spend & Procurement Analytics SolutionMap category. * Xeeva is a new participant in the Spend & Procurement Analytics SolutionMap category.
Wax Digital, has changed its name to Wax Digital / Medius, and Orpheus was acquired by McKinsey. Their offering is now “Spend Intelligence by McKinsey.”
In addition, 72 new or refreshed customer references (and 60 individual map references) were added in the Strategic Procurement Technology areas.
The Associated Press has another report about China and the use of forced labor from thousands of people from the Uighurs ethnic group, many of which are Muslim. The AP reports that forced labor is used in Nanchang, China, to make computer screens, cameras and fingerprint readers for tech companies like Lenovo, Apple, Dell and others. In other news, Toptal and Guidant Global partner up to take on the talent shortage. Also, get more news on the economic impact of the coronavirus. Afternoon Coffee: Procurement and supply chain news.
The effort to stem the spread of the deadly coronavirus in China has limited travel and business traffic, so companies are having to check on their supply chains to plan for any disruptions. Spend Matters Europe heard from risk experts about supply chain advice. In other news, China battery maker and Tesla join forces; Apple's supplier in Taiwan to tap production in India; and vertical farming has a new horizon. Afternoon Coffee brings you the latest in procurement and supply chain news.
Spend Matters welcomes this guest post from Frank McKay, the Senior Vice President & Chief Procurement Officer for Jabil Inc., a global manufacturing solutions company with a focus on electronics.
After weathering volatility over the past few years, the business climate in 2020 is shaping up to be a better year for supply chain managers, thanks to increased market predictability, especially for sourcing materials. Still, the best defense — and greatest offense — for managing dynamic markets, product complexity and unpredictable supply conditions is an intelligent digital supply chain that delivers visibility, agility, speed and resilience. With that in mind, here are Jabil’s top 10 predictions for 2020:
For the buyers and category managers out there, especially those of you deep in the weeds of buying and managing commodities, here’s a quick rundown of news and thoughts from particular commodity markets. MetalMiner, a sister site of ours, scours the landscape for what matters. This week:
Spend Matters welcomes this guest post from Matt Kunkel, the CEO of LogicGate, a provider of risk management solutions.
A recent study revealed more than 60% of organizations in the U.S. that have encountered a data breach were compromised because of a third-party vendor. Organizations use vendors as a means to efficiently complete tasks, but they can create vulnerabilities for which the organization is ultimately responsible. Vendor decisions and operations are frequently out of a chief information security officer’s control, but they still carry serious risks to the organization’s business and reputation.
Severe weather poses one of the greatest threats and the least predictable risks to global supply chains within our modern globalized economy. The summer hurricane season is a particularly problematic time because nearly half the planet, and a majority of the production capacity for many industries, are located in areas routinely struck by catastrophic weather — East Asia, the Northern Indian Ocean, and the Southeast and Gulf coasts of the United States.
DHL Resilience360 recently released Stormy Weather Ahead: A Global Outlook on the 2019 Season to compile information about the impacts that even small storms can have and discuss the short- and long-term implications of these systems on existing supply chains. And learn ways to mitigate that risk.
The supply chain risk environment is continuously evolving, DHL Resilience360 executives Tobias Larsson and Shehrina Kamal state in Resilience360’s first Annual Risk Report that looks at last year’s big issues and problems to come in 2019. “Risks are increasingly being called out in companies’ publicly filed financial statements, and as supply chains become more strategic, disruptions are turning into board-level issues,” the executives stated. “Each year brings new challenges for companies, with different threats, unexpected events and unpredictable consequences.”
As the digital transformation of procurement matures, relationships with suppliers are changing — in good ways and in challenging ways. To give us a close-up view of developments in supplier relationship management, we did a Q&A with Daryl Hammett, the general manager of ConnXus, a provider whose SRM solution helps buyers and suppliers work together to be efficient, responsible and sustainable.
In this first installment of this Spend Matters PRO series (see Part 1A and Part 1B), we noted that a number of pressing issues are shaping procurement from the outside in, yet chief procurement officers (CPOs) are primarily still concerned with issues set by an inside-out agenda — that is, cost cutting and supply assurance targets mandated by upper management. Our PESTLE analysis of factors shaping the modern CPO agenda identified broad trends like economic instability, globalization, changing digital business strategies and the need to address corporate social responsibility (CSR) as areas that procurement organizations need to consider if they want to truly tap and manage the opportunities (and risks) offered by external supply markets.
Perhaps nowhere is this more readily apparent than with the topic of sustainability and environmental stewardship, the focus of today’s brief. The environment is an inseparable component of any business. It forms the platform layer off which all goods and services are produced, and, more fundamentally, the resulting ecosystem services from which humans benefit create the foundations for our species’ survival and quality of life. Due to multiple ongoing trends, however, the environment is changing, as are the ways that consumers, investors and governments think about our relationship to the environment.
Accordingly, Part 2 of this series on the CPO’s Conundrum examines the outside-in drivers pushing sustainability and environmental stewardship higher on the procurement agenda. It also explores recent examples of how businesses are integrating these issues into their supply management strategies, while simultaneously addressing them in balance with traditional procurement objectives, such as category management, supply base alignment and demand shaping.
EcoVadis, a provider that rates businesses on sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR), announced Tuesday that it is expanding its capabilities with the new Sustainability Intelligence Suite, which will include "predictive risk mapping, performance signals and audit management."
