Supply Chain View from the Field

Category Archives: Supply chain analytics

1. Patrick Hopkins at Coupa: Coca Cola’s four truths of procurement 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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2. Analytics Holds the Key for End to End Integration

   March 21, 2013
   by: handfield
   categories: Supply chain analytics

   “It’s the dialogue when teams review analytics that’s most insightful. Data without context is useless.” – Senior Manufacturing Supply Chain Executive This comment was made in a recent discussion by a group of senior manufacturing executives thinking about the need for improved information in their global supply chains.  Too often, they complained, reviews of standard [...]

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3. Healthcare Reform Begins with Comparative Cost Effectiveness: A Revolution in Healthcare Management

   January 24, 2013
   by: handfield
   categories: Healthcare Supply Management, Supply chain analytics, Supply Chain Management

   Josh Feldstein from the Center for Applied Value Analysis came to speak in my class today, and provided a fascinating view of the future for healthcare. CAVA started off as a spinoff of Josh’s medical education firm.  He could clearly see that the industry was changing, and healthcare clients managing large hospitals were asking for [...]

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4. 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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5. P&G slashes marketers in lieu of free social media

   February 1, 2012
   by: handfield
   categories: Business Process Outsourcing, Customer Relationship Management, Supply chain analytics, Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Talent, Supply Market Intelligence

   A recent article in business insider portends bad news for marketing folks.  Procter and Gamble’s prodigious CEO, Robert McDonald, announced that he is going to lay off 1600 marketing people in order to “moderate” his ad budget because Facebook and Google can be “more efficient” than the traditional media that usually eats the lion’s share [...]

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6. 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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7. 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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8. Small and Medium Suppliers as a Source of Innovation (and of Risk!)

   January 9, 2012
   by: handfield
   categories: Supplier Relationship Management, Supply chain analytics, Supply Chain Management, Supply chain Relationships, Supply Chain Systems

   I recently did a webinar on the topic of “Supplier Management: The Need of the Hour”, for a number of supply chain executives through the Zycus spend management series they have been sponsoring. The webinar discussed some of the challenges that exist for small and medium sized companies who are seeking to develop relationships with [...]

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9. Facing the Quagmire of Accountable Care and Comparative Effectiveness

   September 13, 2011
   by: handfield
   categories: Healthcare Supply Management, Supply chain analytics, Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Systems

   Attending the IDN Summit in Phoenix today, one wouldn’t know by the relaxed atmosphere at the beautiful Arizona Biltmore that there is significant tension in the air….until you sit down and talk to a few of the supply chain executives attending. There are several big themes that are dominating the conversation, and number one on [...]

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10. $30B of Waste in Iraq….We’re not in TCE Anymore Oliver…

    September 1, 2011
    by: handfield
    categories: Contract Management, Supply chain analytics, Supply Chain Management, Supply chain Relationships, Supply Chain Risk, Supply Market Intelligence

    The Wartime Contracting Report came out today and announced $30B in waste in Iraq, and focused on the fact that there was a lot of graft and corruption taking place. Is this a surprise? A chat with Tim Cummins at IACCM leads me to think not….In military contracting environments, there is often a lot of [...]

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11. Is IT strategic spending aligned with Corporate strategy ?

    July 9, 2011
    by: handfield
    categories: Supply chain analytics, Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Systems

    The SCRC team recently conducted a benchmarking study focused on IT spending in the manufacturing sector. In our opinion, the current roadmap for IT in many companies is NOT aligned well with the competitive capabilities that are being required to grow. Specifically, there is a need for IT to build competitive capabilities that will ensure [...]

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12. Marching to the ERP “Death March”

    May 26, 2011
    by: handfield
    categories: Supply chain analytics, Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Systems

    I coined this phrase from Pierre Mitchell from The Hackett Group – I think it’s probably one of his favorite terms when discussing the on-going SAP/Oracle/”fill in the blank” ERP system implementation that many companies are going through. Anyone who has survived and is in recovery following an ERP implementation can testify with tremors to [...]

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13. Supply Chain Analytics: The New Frontier

    December 2, 2010
    by: handfield
    categories: Supply chain analytics, Supply Chain Management, Supply Chain Risk

    Presentations by industry speakers and student teams at this year’s SCRC meeting on December 2 were once again outstanding.  The topic this year, supply chain analytics, provided a wealth of new thinking that provided ample fodder for new developments in the field.  I kicked off the meeting by reviewing some of the fundamentals around performance [...]

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