Category Management

Apr 24, 2012

The Global Phosphate Supply Market: Risky and Getting Riskier

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… 

Apr 4, 2012

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

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… 

Apr 3, 2012

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

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… 

Feb 29, 2012

Category management begins and ends with stakeholders

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… 

Jan 27, 2012

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

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… 

Jan 15, 2012

Are you really a customer's of choice?

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… 

Dec 14, 2011

Planning for Uncertainty in 2012

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.… 

Aug 17, 2011

Thinking about human supply chain 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… 

Aug 3, 2011

Who's Next After the Lawyers are Reverse Auctioned?

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…