Ask Spend Matters Content

Can reverse auctions — and e-procurement in general — sour a good supplier relationship? One of our readers wrote in with this question, worrying that reverse auctions may put pressure on supplier margins to such an extent that it is detrimental to the buyer-supplier relationship. In a reverse auction, suppliers compete for the buyer’s business by underbidding one another. This increased competition among the supply base ought to lead to lower prices for buyers, although it also runs the risk of undermining a supplier relationship that has taken time and effort to build. What’s the point of developing a strategic supplier relationship if you’re going to use an automated auctioning process anyway?

Editor’s note: This is part of the Ask Spend Matters series, where readers send in their burning questions about procurement and supply chain.

What is the difference — philosophically — between spend management software and e-procurement software? One of our readers recently posed the above question, noting the amount of noise out there over spend management and the general sense of confusion as to what constitutes spend management and what constitutes e-procurement. We’re always fond of these fun philosophical questions, so we asked our own Spend Matters analysts and editors for their opinions on this one.

Editor’s note: This is part of the Ask Spend Matters series, where readers send in their burning questions about procurement and supply chain.

A reader recently wrote in asking for ideas on controlling high-volume, low-dollar PO spend on readily available commodity items in order to free up time for value-add activity. The conventional wisdom is that purchase orders act as a point of reference and an insurance of sorts against fraud or unintentional errors related to invoicing, pricing, duplicates and wrong products. Yet POs can undoubtedly be a pain for buyers to draft, not to mention that all of the paperwork lengthens and slows down the entire purchasing process. There are two main options here to consider.

A North America-based reader from a professional services company recently wrote in with a question about asking for prices in the supplier prequalification process. She noted that procurement organizations in the public sector tend to ask for prices in the RFI process and then again in the formal RFQ process, whereas in the private sector they typically ask for prices in the RFI process only when they need to explore the market, saving price requests for the RFQ. Why does the public sector need an RFI with prices and then an RFQ, likely with the same prices? It seems inefficient to this reader, who wonders if there are some advantages to this approach that she is missing

One reader who wrote in to Ask Spend Matters last year posed an interesting question that fell outside of our editorial team’s wheelhouse: “What are the most pressing professional development needs for sourcing and procurement professionals today and for the next five years?” While we’ve fielded many of the procurement strategy and technology-focused questions we received, we thought our friends at MRA Global Sourcing would be perfectly suited to provide a compelling answer to the above. Read their response below!

With shifting market conditions, technological advancement and other factors, the procurement function is changing rapidly. If supply management professionals and their companies don’t keep pace, they’ll be at a serious disadvantage. As procurement evolves, so do attitudes toward professional development, and the way workers build their knowledge base. Let’s examine the state of professional development, and what’s on the horizon.

As Spend Matters analysts, editors and readers went on much-deserved vacations over the winter holidays, Ask Spend Matters went on a short hiatus, too. But as everyone settles back into their offices, hopefully more relaxed and refreshed, we at Spend Matters are eager to see where Ask Spend Matters goes this year. And so consider this our 2018 call for reader questions: What have you always wondered about procurement or supply chain but have been afraid to ask? What do you want to know more about?

A reader recently wrote in with a question about how to find group purchasing organizations (GPOs) or purchasing consortia. This individual is a U.S.-based sourcing manager at Heidelberg, a multinational company that provides equipment and services for the print media industry. The reader told us that his company is thinking about bidding out for copiers next year, and he became interested in looking into GPOs after hearing about them at a local ISM meeting. However, a casual internet search for GPOs yielded no shortage of results.

As we work behind the scenes to turn Ask Spend Matters into a more regular feature, we thought we’d chip away at a few of the reader questions we’ve been sitting on. As managing editor Taras Berezowsky promised last month those who have submitted a question but not heard back, we haven’t forgotten about you! Today’s lightning round edition, if you will, tackles three specific questions on the value versus price debate in marketing spend, where federal agencies find their suppliers and how to find a young person to prepare those boring databases.

For those of you who have submitted a question to our Ask Spend Matters program but haven’t heard from us, we wanted to let you know that even though we’re in the dog days of summer, we haven’t forgotten about your questions. In fact, we’ve taken a close look at all the questions submitted since we launched the program in early July. Our editorial team has grappled with which questions to pursue and investigate, and several have already been reported and published! Check them out within.

Often, it’s all about how quickly one can digest something. No, I’m not talking about Joey Chestnut’s eating-champ prowess. I’m talking about market intelligence. In a procurement professional’s day-to-day, that sentiment has certainly become more widespread than ever. In fact, with time at a premium, the majority of procurement pros — from junior buyers all the way up to CPOs — are faced with this issue every day. However, it can pay dividends to approach supply market intelligence in a strategic way.

The term big data is not new in the lexicon of business jargon. After years of hearing how big data analytics will transform the enterprise by producing brilliant insights from reams of unstructured information, procurement observers are understandably skeptical about the promises big data’s marketers have made. It was no surprise to us, then, that for one of the first questions we received in our new series Ask Spend Matters, an anonymous asker hoped to find some evidence behind big data’s claims.

The Spend Matters editors have been busy working through reader questions these past two weeks. Our recent submissions run the gamut from how to implement supplier relationship management to what professional skills will be most in demand in the supply chain and procurement field to, er, prank questions from our own colleagues. You might be thinking, “But hang on! What’s all this? Can I submit a question? Is this a new feature?” Yes and yes! In case you missed it (this is peak vacation time, after all), earlier this month we launched Ask Spend Matters, where you tell us what procurement questions to investigate, and we report out the answer in the form of an article.