Supply Chain View from the Field

Category Archives: Strategic Sourcing

1. 600 Dead in Bangladesh: Is there a soul to the enterprise?

   May 6, 2013
   by: handfield
   categories: Procurement Sustainability, Retail Logistics, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Relationship Management, Supply Chain Management, Sustainability

   News of the increasing death toll in Bangladesh continues to pour in, with the latest at 600 found dead in the rubble of the Rama factory complex.  Demonstrators are protesting apparel offices (such as Gap’s offices in San Francisco) to demand better working conditions in Bangladesh factories.  But how easy is it for companies to [...]

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2. A Great Meeting – Insights on the Future of Procurement from BP, Caterpillar, Duke Energy, and others

   April 30, 2013
   by: handfield
   categories: Strategic Cost Management, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Relationship Management, Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Talent

   We had a series of great presentations this week at the SCRC meeting. Bill Knittle from BP first presented his experience on building a supplier performance measurement system, and how this has evolved into a true supplier relationship management system.  He talked about the importance of segmenting the supply base, and building out a small [...]

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3. Managing supply chains in a fragile environment

   April 19, 2013
   by: handfield
   categories: Forecasting, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Relationship Management, Supply Chain Management

   Gerard Chick and I had a good chat over skype this morning, and we both started jotting down a few facts…. Banks are buying up gold and moving currency out since 2009.  A friend suggests that the banks feel it is very unstable out there, and are hoping for some stability.  But the dollar, the [...]

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4. 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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5. Patrick Hopkins at Coupa: Coca Cola’s four truths of procure to pay in action

   April 10, 2013
   by: handfield
   categories: Contract Management, Procure to Pay, Strategic Sourcing, Supply chain analytics, Supply Chain Innovation

   At the Coupa INSPIRE procurement conference in San Francisco this week, the Chief Procurement Officer of Coca Cola Consolidated, Patrick Hopkins shared his views on the “4 truths of procurement”, and how he has operationalized his views through the deployment of Coupa procure to pay software. Coke has an incredible history dating back to 1886, [...]

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6. Thinking Differently About Procurement: The SCRC Meeting Theme on April 29-30, 2013

   March 14, 2013
   by: handfield
   categories: Global Supply Chain, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Relationship Management, Supply Chain Management, Supply Market Intelligence

   Our next SCRC meeting will focus on “The Future of Procurement”, and will be held on April 29-30, at the NC State University Club in Raleigh, NC.  We will be hosting a number of senior executives reflecting on this theme, including Ron Reising from Duke Energy, Pat Murzyn from Caterpillar, Bill Knittle from BP, Jason [...]

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7. College grads – trouble finding a job? Think welding….

   March 5, 2013
   by: handfield
   categories: Commodities forecasting, Strategic Cost Management, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Relationship Management, Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Talent

   We recently worked on a study examining the market for pipeline construction services.  Across North America, projects like Keystone are only the beginning of growth for pipelines in oil and gas.  The market for pipeline construction is growing, and there will continue to be competition for capable suppliers in the marketplace.  In areas such as [...]

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8. 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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9. Participate in our Global Logistics Survey!!

   November 16, 2012
   by: handfield
   categories: China Supply Chain, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain Strategy

   We have currently launched an important online survey, being conducted in conjunction with BVL International, a non-profit global logistics institute dedicated to promoting knowledge and best practices in logistics. The study is also being carried out in parallel with Technical University Berlin, Darmstadt University, FDC Cabral (Brazil), and other research partners in India and China. [...]

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10. Thinking About the Future Role of Procurement/Purchasing/Supply

    November 12, 2012
    by: handfield
    categories: Global Supply Chain, Strategic Cost Management, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Relationship Management, Supply Chain Management

    The field of supply management has undergone quite a few changes over the past several years. Leaders in the field are always thinking about what the future of procurement will look like. There is even some confusion about what to call it: Procurement? Purchasing? Supply Management? Does it matter? In view of this, I was [...]

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11. The Power of Bloomberg in Creating Supply Chain Intelligence and Risk Alerts

    August 27, 2012
    by: handfield
    categories: Strategic Sourcing, Supply chain analytics, Supply Chain Innovation, Supply chain Relationships, Supply Chain Risk, Supply Market Intelligence

    Supply chains are difficult to study.  People do not want analysts knowing about their supply chains.  So creating market intelligence around supply chains is extremely challenging.  Yet analysts rely on supply chain information.  They study market reports, and they react to announcements.  Research by Hendricks and Singhal shows that stocks can drop by as much [...]

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12. 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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13. 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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14. They’re Posted! Latest Supply Chain Sustainability Benchmark Reports!

    July 3, 2012
    by: handfield
    categories: Aerospace Supply Chain, MBA Supply Chain Programs, Procurement Sustainability, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Relationship Management, Supply Chain Management, Sustainability

    Every other year, a team of MBA students from the Poole College of Management take a one credit class I teach on supply chain sustainability.  As part of this class, students are assigned to teams to study a group of companies within a particular industry, and by applying the Supply Chain Sustainability index developed through [...]

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15. News from the UK: Coffee with Gerard Chick

    June 10, 2012
    by: handfield
    categories: Forecasting, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain Strategy

    Had coffee with my friend Gerard Chick while in London this week, who is on the research team at CIPS (the Chartered Institute of Professional Supply Management).  Gerard and I have done a good bit of work in the past, in particular holding an executive summit with British CPO’s, on the status of the supply [...]

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16. 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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17. Socialization: An Important Dimension of Supply Chain Relationships

    May 8, 2012
    by: handfield
    categories: Business Process Outsourcing, China Supply Chain, Customer Relationship Management, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Relationship Management, Supply Chain Strategy

    The ability to capture value from your business relationships is increasingly seen as critical differentiator in firm success (Cousins et al., 2006). Much of the strategic purchasing literature addresses the role of spend analysis, supplier selection, leveraging, negotiation, and contract management – yet there is a critical element of strategic supply management that occurs after [...]

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18. 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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19. 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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20. More Thoughts on New Contracting Models for Government Acquisition

    March 10, 2012
    by: handfield
    categories: Government Acquisition, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain Management

    The significant challenges associated with federal acquisition policies are well documented.  Many  problems with government acquisition are related to contract management, often mentioned as a core competence for federal contract officers to be proficient in.  Some of the biggest opportunities in this space include the application of incentives for contractor performance, cost-reimbursement contracts approved by [...]

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21. Applying Strategic Sourcing in Government Acquisition

    March 9, 2012
    by: handfield
    categories: Government Acquisition, Strategic Sourcing, Supply Chain Management

    The problems with the federal procurement process are well documented in the literature.  Bloggers have also suggested that new approaches be adopted by federal acquisition contract officers to apply the practice of “strategic sourcing”, that implies  that the collective buying power of the federal agencies can be leveraged to squeeze better prices from suppliers on common [...]

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22. 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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23. 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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