Hopefully you were able to attend the December Strategic Sourcing & Procurement LinkedIn group member call with Kate Vitasek last month. We had a lively discussion centered around the paper she co-wrote - “Unpacking Oliver - 10 Lessons to Improve Collaborative Outsourcing “ (download here). Nobel Laureate Dr Oliver Williamson’s work dug into the incentives [...]

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Kate Vitasek, who literally wrote the book on Vested Outsourcing and spoke on that topic on a Strategic Sourcing & Procurement LinkedIn Group member call earlier this year, has volunteered to lead our Nov/Dec Group member call to discuss…
“Unpacking Oliver - 10 Lessons to Improve Collaborative Outsourcing “
The paper (which you’ll want to download here [...]

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The ISM NMI (Non-Manufacturing Index) came in at 53.8, which is down from 55.4 in May. The Business Activity Index was 58.1, down from 61.1 in May, and New Orders was 54.4, down from 57.1 in May. The employment index came in at 49.7, slightly below the growth threshold of 50. Here are some bullet points about [...]

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Another category identified for cost savings in last week’s Top 5 Categories to Source Now webinar was commercial print (full webinar replay here). With marketing typically driving decisions on commercial print, it’s a category many companies have had trouble bringing under management of the procurement team. However if approached properly, commercial print provides great opportunities [...]

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This week, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) released their manufacturing and services numbers for December. The non-manufacturing (services) number came in at 50.1%, which was right around expectations. While it did move slightly into the “growth” region (above 50), it certainly did not blow away the street and indicate that all is on the [...]

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