Category Management

Oct 19, 2013

Emerging Issues for Procurement in Oil and Gas

This past week, I hosted a meeting with a small group of oil and gas procurement executives in Houston to share thoughts on some of the major trends occurring in…

Aug 22, 2013

Procurement needs to follow in the steps of marketing

A recent interview I conducted with a former Chief Procurement Officer who has worked for over 25 years in procurement in various industries captures what I believe is the true…

Aug 8, 2013

SCRC Partner Profile: A Textbook Transformation at Biogen-Idec

Although strategic sourcing capabilities are well established in industries ranging from automotive to electronics, they are still in the formative stages in the biotechnology sector. It isn’t easy to drive…

Jul 17, 2013

Don't Blame Purchasing! (The Hardest Job in the Enterprise)

Over the last week, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with a number of individuals about how important it is to change people’s view of the procurement function. Up to…

Jun 15, 2013

Applying Porter Five Forces Analysis to Drive Category Management Insights

In the past two or three weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a number of organizations seeking to drive insights into their supply markets, as they attempt to…

Apr 15, 2013

Coaching Suppliers and the Implications of Doing So

“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…

Apr 10, 2013

Jason Busch's Thoughts at the Coupa Conference

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…

Apr 3, 2013

Sub-tier supplier risk continues to be a challenge

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…

Feb 22, 2013

Procurement: Getting Back to the Basics

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…

Dec 4, 2012

The Global Economic Outlook: Jason Schenker's Soothsayings…

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…