Supply Chain View from the Field

Category Archives: Category Management

1. Coaching Suppliers and the Implications of Doing So

   April 15, 2013
   by: handfield
   categories: Category Management, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain Innovation

   “Supplier Relationship Management” is a term that’s thrown around a lot in procurement, and generally assumes that the relationship with the supplier is “managed” by the buyer.  This doesn’t leave room for what could be a more open interpretation of a relationship as a team effort, rather than a hierarchical relationship.  For this reason, I [...]

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2. Jason Busch’s Thoughts at the Coupa Conference

   April 10, 2013
   by: handfield
   categories: Category Management, China Supply Chain, Global Supply Chain

   Jason Busch from Spend Matters gave another great speech at the Coupa INSPIRE conference in San Francisco which I attended last week.  As an aside – Jason started Spend Matters in 2004 as a side interest because he was bored.  Look where it is today!  Spend Matters has grown to be a big part of [...]

   [1 comment]

3. Sub-tier supplier risk continues to be a challenge

   April 3, 2013
   by: handfield
   categories: Category Management, Supplier Relationship Management

   The issue of sub-tier supply risk continues to be a challenge in many of the companies we work with at the SCRC.  For example, one large company has experienced big problems in the form of tier 2 supplier mechanical failures that wind up in their product.  Even though they had a problem, they were totally [...]

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4. Procurement: Getting Back to the Basics

   February 22, 2013
   by: handfield
   categories: Category Management, Contract Management, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain Management

   I’ve been speaking to a number of procurement executives lately, leading to some interesting discussions around risk, category management, shared services, and a lot of other high level concepts that are no doubt important.  There are also a lot of websites and presentations at conferences around the “next big thing” in procurement.  One of these [...]

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5. The Global Economic Outlook: Jason Schenker’s Soothsayings…

   December 4, 2012
   by: handfield
   categories: BRIC Supply Chain, Category Management, China Supply Chain, Forecasting, Supply Chain Management

   Jason Schenker spoke at the SCRC conference today and spoke about his forecasts for the global economy. The global economy is expanding, albeit at a modest pace. US GDP and the US labor markets are showing modest improvements. Chinese GDP will grow, but central bank monetary policy at home and abroad is likely to remain [...]

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6. More About the “Influence Model”

   August 18, 2012
   by: handfield
   categories: Category Management, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain Management

   My last post was on the influence model applied to product design for the supply chain, following an interview with an engineer.  A prior post a few months ago also referenced the importance of working with stakeholders in category management. Clearly, this is a topic that has generated a lot of interest, as the headline [...]

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7. Airbus, Boeing, and CAT Discover Supplier Integration Comes Down to Hard Work

   July 11, 2012
   by: handfield
   categories: Aerospace Supply Chain, Category Management, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Relationship Management, Supply Market Intelligence

   The article in today’s WSJ refers to the new approach being used by Airbus and Boeing to “integrate” suppliers.  Supplier integration and collaboration are terms that are thrown around a bit too much for my liking, primarily because they don’t reflect the true hard work that underlies this term. Boeing discovered this in 2007 according [...]

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8. The Paperless Office: Pipe Dream, Procurement Mandate, or Sustainability Boondoggle?

   May 17, 2012
   by: handfield
   categories: Category Management, Procurement Sustainability, Strategic Cost Management, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain Systems, Sustainability

   In today’s cost-cutting environment, many procurement and category management teams are sharpening their pencils and looking at ways to reduce indirect spend in areas such as printing, document management, and paper.  In addition, the push to become more sustainable is also driving people to think about printing less, and saving trees.  These two distinct elements [...]

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9. SCM Talent Management: Creating the Next Generation of Superheroes!

   April 25, 2012
   by: handfield
   categories: Category Management, Forecasting, MBA Supply Chain Programs, Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Talent

   Our upcoming SCRC meeting  (April 30-May 1 in Raleigh, NC) is one that I am sure will peak a lot of interest in today’s supply chain professional.  The theme of this meeting focuses a topic that is at the top of almost every company I speak with today – supply chain talent management.  As organizations [...]

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10. The Global Phosphate Supply Market: Risky and Getting Riskier

    April 24, 2012
    by: handfield
    categories: Category Management, China Supply Chain, Commodities forecasting, Global Supply Chain, Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Risk

    An MBA student team in my supply market intelligence class  this week presented their supply market intelligence study on phosphate production.  One of the key points was the volatility of Morocco as the major supplier of phosphate.  Based on current reserves and production trends, Morocco will play a very important role in the world of [...]

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11. Random Thoughts on the Impact of Frugal Innovation on the Supply Chain

    April 4, 2012
    by: handfield
    categories: Category Management, Global Supply Chain, Strategic Cost Management, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain Innovation, Supply Chain Management, Supply chain Relationships, Supply Chain Strategy

    In this week’s Economist, an article by Schumpeter provides some interesting views on the emerging concept of “frugal innovation”.  He cites the example of the Tata Nano, a $2,000 car  developed in India, which makes a new car within reach of ordinary Indians and Chinese.  He also cites a new book, Jugaad Innovation” by Navi [...]

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12. What Will the Role of the CIO Look Like In the Next Five Years?

    April 3, 2012
    by: handfield
    categories: Category Management, Contract Management, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Relationship Management, Supply chain Relationships, Supply Chain Systems

    I recently spoke with Todd Taylor from Apptivo, who is writing a book on IT technology management.  Apptivo provides IT business technology management, and is focused on transparency of IT application usage.  Todd is also affiliated with the CIO Technology Council, and is writing  book on current trends in IT.  He notes that CIO’s are [...]

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13. Category management begins and ends with stakeholders

    February 29, 2012
    by: handfield
    categories: Category Management, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Relationship Management, Supply Chain Management, Supply chain Relationships

    While not always the case, companies often use category teams to develop supply management strategies. Supply management strategies often apply to categories—general families of purchased products or services. Examples of major category classifications might include castings, electronics, motors, or wiring harnesses. These are some of the big, complex categories that are ripe for strategic sourcing [...]

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14. The Lowly UNSPSC Is Moving up in the Supply Chain World!

    January 27, 2012
    by: handfield
    categories: Category Management, Forecasting, Global Supply Chain, Healthcare Supply Management, Supply chain analytics, Supply Chain Management

    The inauspicious UNSPSC (United Nations) code began as a historical marriage between the UN code set and a code set with a commercial concern (Dunn & Bradstreet).  The focus initially was to begin to drive some standardization in the way that products were coded, and overcome the challenges with the many different proprietary coding systems [...]

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15. Are you really a customer’s of choice?

    January 15, 2012
    by: handfield
    categories: Category Management, Contract Management, Customer Relationship Management, Supplier Relationship Management, Supply chain analytics, Supply Chain Management, Supply chain Relationships, Supply Market Intelligence

    Within the context of the current financial crisis, the importance of sustaining critical supply chain relationships has received more attention than ever. Despite the return to a “buyer’s market” in some sectors, the need to build and sustain supplier relationships is not obviated. Indeed, in an environment of heightened supply chain financial risks, supplier performance [...]

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16. Planning for Uncertainty in 2012

    December 14, 2011
    by: handfield
    categories: Category Management, Commodities forecasting, Contract Management, Supply Chain Management, Supply chain Relationships, Supply Chain Risk, Supply Market Intelligence

    As I look back on 2011, I’m reminded of the success stories and disruptions that occurred, but am also thinking about who is going to win in the year ahead. On the economic front, 2011 was really about another year of uncertainty. A global economic recovery remains underway, although it is alarmingly long and slower [...]

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17. Thinking about human supply chain intelligence

    August 17, 2011
    by: handfield
    categories: Category Management, Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Risk, Supply Market Intelligence

    The value of supply chain intelligence coming from street level knowledge is a recurring theme that people are struggling to understand. The military is a good case study of how one can start to think about this phenomenon. I recently interviewed a former Marine who served in Iraq, who described some of the activities regarding [...]

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18. Who’s Next After the Lawyers are Reverse Auctioned?

    August 3, 2011
    by: handfield
    categories: Category Management, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain Management

    Yesterday’s WSJ shared an interesting story about the application of reverse auctions to the legal profession. For those of you who don’t know what these are, we have a long list of rants and articles about this “procurement tool” that have accumulated since people started using them back in 2000…..including the original founders of the [...]

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