As many of you know, the Category Managers who contribute to Supply Excellence also create a quarterly report called SupplyWatch. The Q1 issue is up and includes detailed category breakdowns for…

• Metals
• Plastics, Rubber & Raw Materials
• Transportation
• Electronics, Electrical & IT Hardware
• Paper & Packaging
• Services & Capital Goods, Construction & Engineering

In addition, there is a feature article on Cutting Costs and Increasing Value in the Discovery to Pay Cycle as well as a deep dive into macro-economic data.

In other words…it has A LOT of great data, insights and analysis from a very experienced, savvy team. If you’d like to subscribe to the email list so you’re notified each quarter when the new issues goes up, you can sign up here.

Justin Fogarty is Managing Editor of Supply Excellence. For any questions or feedback on the blog or its contributors, Justin can be reached at jfogarty[at]ariba.com.

While making fun of the way governments purchase has long been a good source of humor in spend management circles, the deficit news coming out now leads one to believe that it is now time to really make something happen.

What do you think? How would you make this happen? Is it a lost cause?

Ariba has jumped into the fray several times and has even set up, with the help of some public sector experts, a toolkit for public sector professionals to get started.

The value that has been realized by the private sector from the institution of advanced sourcing, contracting, procurement and payment techniques has been staggering. Many in the private sector look at this and think “if only we could do this for the government and, even more, the taxpayer”. Despite the very real challenges, the potential value from broad implementation of Spend Management in the public sector is enormous. Cost savings is just one of the benefits: [Read more →]

The ISM’s PMI came in at 58.4 for January, which is significantly higher than I expected (I was thinking it would be around 55). This is the highest number in five years, and it is a clear indicator that the recovery we started seeing in the fourth quarter is showing signs of sustainability. Couple this with the strong GDP numbers that came out last week, and we should see a strong start to the week in the stock markets.

What is a particularly good sign is the increase of the employment index to 53.3, which is the highest level since April of 2006. Manufacturers are starting to bring back employees and fire up capacity, which might start to quell fears of a “jobless recovery”.

Now, not to rain on everyone’s parade, but [Read more →]

The media buying market is has moved into unfamiliar territory lately. So unfamiliar that even the granddaddy of advertising itself, The Super Bowl, has had to resort to lowering prices. The market has softened so much that for only the second time in the history of the Super Bowl, advertisers are getting a bargain. Large players and perennial Super Bowl commercial all-stars are staying out while the rookies are stepping up to the big show. The lower prices and weakening competition has allowed smaller advertisers to get their message out to over 100 million viewers.

It’s a buyers market regardless of your organization’s media budget or venue. The “lower prices” of the Super Bowl ads may still be prohibitively expensive for many fortune 500 organizations; however, we can still learn from this example. The Super Bowl is simply an extreme illustration of what all buyers should be investigating. If media spend is not currently being scrutinized, buyers may be missing out on tremendous purchasing opportunities.

So what can be done, how can I find a deal? Go bargain shopping. A great tool available to advertisers is ad exchanges. Publishers try to sell [Read more →]

Toyota consistently ranks among the most respected global corporations and is well-known for their manufacturing prowess and strong supplier ties. That’s exactly why this week’s news about the accelerator problems for 4 million vehicles came as a shock to so many of us. The impact of this episode will be long-term, far-reaching, and very expensive.

Supply risk specialists speak often about the three distinct kinds of supply risk (Brand, Commodity, and Disruption). While this episode at Toyota may not have hit a trifecta, they are certainly dealing with an awful daily double. The only thing that might be more expensive than the disruptions in their supply chain could be the hit to their brand.

If you think that only your biggest suppliers need to be involved in a formal supply risk management program (e.g. automated alerts and scorecards populated by both objective and subjective data inputs from various sources as one component) and the rest can be covered with just some historical financial information/ratios, on-time delivery ratios, and maybe an annual business review, think about the fact that CTS is almost certainly not even in the top 500 of Toyota’s list of largest suppliers.

[Read more →]