Please enjoy this Boxing Day gift from our Canadian correspondent and resident rap aficionado.
This here's a jam for all the buyas
Tryin' to scry what those vendors tell us
Get shot down 'cause we're so attentive
Try to be smart, and reps get inventive
O.K., Buy-O, go to a trade show
Reps are everywhere and givin' demo
Your pal walks by, you wish you could ask her
But you're tied to the seat like you was just captured
And more...
Last year at the end of December 2019, we ran a series of predictions about procurement and supply chain trends for 2020 from expert tech and service providers in the market. But who could have foreseen what happened in 2020! This year, the vendor market again provides its predictions for the next 12 months and beyond, using learnings from the past year. Today we look at what the procurement and supply business management consulting firm Inverto (a BCG Company) has to say.
Spend Matters welcomes this guest post from Jack Freeman, Principal at PeakSpan Capital who is a growth-stage software investor.
The next generation of supply chain software leaders will be verticalized. The pace of innovation seen in the supply chain software space over the past handful of years suggests we’ve reached an inflection point, in no small part due to our ability to collect, analyze and harness the power of data, but that is a story for a future guest post. When you look at where supply chain scale-ups have found success over the years, it’s quite telling as to the future direction of this space. The time for horizontally oriented SCM platforms has come to an end. The next class of leaders in supply chain management will compete (and win) off focus and specialization.
It’s the holiday season and I’m sure we all feel the same way as we approach the New Year — relieved that the four numbers “2020” will soon no longer show up in our calendar.
With the joy that comes with the holidays and the thought of putting this year behind us, I know many of you that lead the procurement, supplier management and/or risk management functions of your organization are wondering how to reward your team to set them and your organization up for success in 2021.
Many of your organizations likely cut budgets this year, while some of your organizations may have extra spend sitting in the training budget since many in-person training and events were canceled this year. While we all love cool gadgets and gift cards and hope not to receive a dried up fruitcake, the best gift for your team should be special, meaningful and continue to reward year after year.
The perfect gift would show your team how much you appreciate them, while providing an opportunity to develop their skills. Certifications in strategic sourcing, supplier management, third-party risk management and intelligent process automation can bring you that win. Earning skills in these areas bring many benefits not only to the individuals who attain them, but also to the organizations that employ them. It also advances the profession in general along with the respect for those in that profession.
We are running a series of procurement and supply chain predictions for 2021 from expert tech and service providers in the market.
It is always interesting and often useful to try to look ahead at what might be in store for our profession, our industry and our way of working. And of course the best learnings for the future come from looking back, which is what this year's contributors have attempted to do following a year that really was unpredictable. Over the next couple of weeks we will be featuring individual service and solution providers as they share their insights from 2020 and what they expect to see in 2021.
Businesses cannot lose time or money to inefficient processes and supplier risk — especially while other businesses are digitally transforming to prepare for future risks. Communication between suppliers and manufacturers has been key to surviving the coronavirus’ supply chain disruption, and SourceDay, a provider of ERP-to-supplier collaboration technology for direct materials, has shared five insights that it is seeing with its clients.
As part of a new partnership, the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) and Spend Matters launched a video podcast this week called “Spend Friends” to discuss all things spend management, supply chain, risk and everything else under the procurement umbrella.
The podcast is hosted by Bill Michels, the VP of Operations — Americas at CIPS USA, and Pierre Mitchell, Spend Matters’ Chief Research Officer. With their years of experience, they plan to impart key wisdom and ideas for procurement practitioners of all ages and skills in each monthly video podcast.
In the first episode, Michels and Mitchell shared their insights into what they think will be the top supply chain trends of 2021.
Many procurement organizations see annual planning as a time to set savings goals and identify sourcing opportunities that will allow them to meet these goals. This is an understandable approach since it paves the way to understanding the coming year’s workload, which can in turn, inform budgets, resource needs and org structure.
However, rushing off to plan your savings pipeline without considering your company’s business goals can quickly get you out of synch with your stakeholders. Instead of jumping to the savings plan, it’s helpful to take a step back and assess what the business wants you to deliver and how you can meet those expectations. With this knowledge, you can set an intentional plan and strategic roadmap for the coming year.
Spend Matters welcomes this guest post on spend agility from Nikesh Parekh, the CEO of Suplari, a specialist in spend analytics and supplier management.
Companies need to adopt spend agility — the ability for enterprises to rapidly assess, predict and change spend, investments and operations strategy in real time. That ability helps you create value in the moment, rather than figure out long after the fact that you spent what you couldn’t afford.
As with many things in technology and business, 2020 and COVID-19 laid this reality bare.
Indirect materials procurement has dominated technology coverage and innovation for decades now. If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that the time has come for direct materials technology to shine. The market is growing, and the opportunity is ripe for the taking. Anne-Sophie Le Bloas saw this market developing.
Le Bloas has nearly 15 years of experience in direct materials supply chain and sourcing, and she was puzzled over the lack of digitalization and innovation on the direct side. She couldn’t believe some of the biggest, most cutting-edge companies in the world used Excel spreadsheets to track data from suppliers and sourcing.
That's why she started Ravacan. We sat down with Le Bloas to learn more about her experience in direct procurement and how it was being a woman growing up in the field.
When it comes to services spend, many organizations find it difficult to manage. CPO Innovation reports that “services spending can range from almost 50 to 80% of what firms buy from outside vendors.”
Just like any category of spend, especially indirect, it all goes back to the data. There’s the adage, “if you can't measure it, you can't manage it.” We know the goal of an organization is to have as much spend under management as possible — but if you don’t have good visibility into your spend, how can you expect to manage it properly?
In this post, we review the complexity of services spend, the importance of cleansing your spend data, and how doing so can help you manage not just your services spend better but all indirect spend.
Promena is an agile sourcing platform that embraces improvements and innovative solutions. In this context, the company continues to provide numerous benefits to its customers in 2021 with more modules and innovations. Today I will only talk about the innovations we bring to our existing modules: Chatbot and Quick Request for Quotation (Q-RFQ).