Over on Spend Matters, Jason Busch recently brought attention to McDonalds’ ever rising commodity price increases, which they are soaking up rather than passing on to their customers. As Jason notes, McDonalds’ expects cheese to rise 21%, chicken 5-6% and beef 8-9% this year. So, why not raise prices on their menu? Well if you [more]

[Read more →]

So far on our countdown, we’ve covered #5 Direct Materials and #4 Travel & Expenses. Now, let’s move on to our third place finisher: Transportation. No surprise that this spend category has been hard hit …. no make that VERY HARD HIT … by rising fuel costs. But as Transportation Category Manager Rachel Rutkoski (who [more]

[Read more →]

Jason Busch of SpendMatters recently hosted a number of podcasts with our Category and Commodity Managers (many of whom will be familiar names to regular Supply Excellence readers). The Category Chatter podcast series dives deep, sometimes very deep into the market trends, pitfalls and opportunities in each of these areas:

Low-Cost Country Sourcing - Jason and [more]

[Read more →]

Dow Chemical made a lot of headlines last week when they very publicly announced price hikes of up to 20% on their products. Most of Dow’s customers were left scratching their heads as to why this made any news. After all, it’s not as though buyers aren’t used to Dow and other suppliers raising prices, [more]

[Read more →]

Even if they use a euphemism like “market adjustment”, the recent steel surcharges announced by ArcelorMittal, US Steel, WCI Steel and other mills feel like a price hike to buyers. Many companies were taken aback by the unprecedented move, which jacked up prices they thought were contractually locked in place. But in this market - [more]

[Read more →]