Daily Archives: August 23, 2006

The Sourcing Innovation Series: Part I

Those of you following the blogs would have caught part one of Tim Minahan’s post over on Supply Excellence yesterday on Sourcing Innovation: Predictions for the Future of Strategic Sourcing where he discussed where he thought sourcing was going.

You will have also noticed the first paragraph where the post was at my request, and that I do indeed want to tap the top minds in the business for their view of the future of strategic sourcing and supporting sourcing technologies. I’m pleased to announce that over the next week or two you can expect to see similar posts on many of the other leading blogs in the space. The day after a post goes up, I’ll link to it from Sourcing Innovation, highlight some key points, possibly throw in a few of my own thoughts, and keep this as the center point for the next week or two. So keep your eyes on Spend Matters, e-Sourcing Forum, Procurement Central, and Vendor Management over the coming weeks. I’m not going to tell you who’s going to jump in, or when, but I will tell you that this series of posts is one series you don’t want to miss! (And since these blogs are among the leaders in the space, they are definitely your best bets!) I’m really looking forward to it. We’re going to prove that Jason Busch was right when he predicted that blogs may reshape media and the analyst business models!

Tim’s post is a great first post in the series. He predicts that we will see advances in guided sourcing, hybrid sourcing, supply chain sourcing, and frontline sourcing. In the first case, he has somewhat beaten me to the punch, as I also foresee a bright future for optimization-based sourcing, but since that is the topic for my next purchasing weekend series that is running over on e-Sourcing Forum until the fall, I’m going to leave you waiting for a few more days. In terms of hybrid sourcing, I think Tim is showing great vision. The emergence of the “hybrid sourcing model” that blends sourcing technologies with third-party supply market and sourcing intelligence is definitely coming, but at this time, I believe that only a few individuals see it clearly. I’ll admit that I’m a little fuzzy myself on what comes next, even though I think I know where its going – so this post is definitely a must read! I know I can’t wait for part II, which will be up by the time you read this, as I’m very intrigued to find out where Tim thinks frontline sourcing is going!