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…
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.
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
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.
Regardless of who might have authorship rights (Pimco? Ariba? Others?), the concept of “The New Normal” has definitely caught on in both the mainstream media and spend management circles .
However, it’s important to remember that “the New Normal” doesn’t translate directly to “permanent low GDP growth” as has been put forth by some investment advisors.
Instead, the New Normal is characterized by several trends that will, over time, become “SOP” for most large organizations:
1. Increased need for agility to respond more quickly to rapid change whether that’s in commodity markets, geopolitical supply risk, regulatory environments, or good old-fashioned competition.
2. Fewer permanent resources and increased reliance
A lot of Supply Excellence readers are members of the Strategic Sourcing & Procurement Group on LinkedIn and may have seen the lively discussion in December on how the Group can become a more valuable resource in 2010. Out of that discussion, the idea to have regular conference calls to tap into the Group’s collective brainpower was born.
I’m thrilled to announce that the first call is this Friday featuring the Hackett Group’s Chris Sawchuck. Chris will cover Hackett’s research on the “key issues” companies will face in 2010 and then open the floor for an interactive discussion.
The only catch…the call is for Group members only. So you must be a member of the Strategic Sourcing & Procurement group on LinkedIn to get the dial in number (you can request to join here). The details - including international dial in numbers and time - 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.
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