Monthly Archives: June 2012

What Elements Are Truly Necessary To Prevent Missing Links in Your Supply Chain?

A recent article in Canadian Transportation & Logistics that asked where the missing links in your supply chain are did a great job of of pointing out that when it comes to supply chains, what you see is what you get. And it often is the situation that the more you can see into the chain, the more benefits you can receive.

It also hit the nail on the head when it noted that the ability to view timely, accurate information from the beginning of the chain to the end is essential for:

  • reliable forecasting
  • accurate decision making
  • minimizing risks
  • optimizing inventory turnover
  • reducing days and costs in supply chain cycles
  • healthy cash flow and profits
  • customer satisfaction
  • competitive advantage

But when most companies rely on a patchwork of systems and software to address supplier management, purchase order processing, receipt of goods and inventory management, did it have the right checklist of critical system and software capabilities required to avoid the critical missing links that are currently present in most enterprises that are not Supply Management Leaders?

The article identified these necessary elements, which we’ll take one by one:

  • Real-time detailed visibility into every key juncture
    i.e. demand, procurement, production, transportation, and inventory and accounts payable (to make sure the invoices match the order), market data (to make sure quotes are reasonable), risk data (to detect potential volatility or issues as soon as the signals appear), and trade data (to inform you on issues of regulatory and customs compliance)
  • portals connecting the entire supply chain from order through deliver
    what year is this? 2002? there has to be e-integration all the way down through you supplier, and their suppliers, to raw material providers for key or scarce raw materials, but it doesn’t have to be a portal; heck, it could be as simple as the pull of a daily update EDI file from a secure FTP server or as complex as real-time asynchronous communication between multiple databases in a replication configuration
  • collaboration capabilities that allow stakeholders of the chain to readily share information on supply and delivery
    and communicate with each other, in real time, when they are both online
  • ability to integrate varying information formats from various supply chain partners
    which is a given and should be automatic; again, it’s 2012, not 2002
  • open-endedness with flexibility
    enabling easy modifications and integration with other systems and this is a definite must — avoid any system with proprietary integration methods
  • capability of generating alerts of events that require attention
    throughout the supply chain as most day-to-day management should be exception based, with the exceptions defined on your rules (and not the vendor’s)
  • ability to create “dashboards” that enable consolidate viewing of information from multiple sources
    in a manner that focuses on problem areas identified by missed metrics, bad data, missed data, or declining trends — generally speaking, you don’t care about the green, only the red

These were quite good, but it’s also very important not to overlook:

  • sourcing, procurement, logistics, and global trade solutions
    this could be one solution with dedicated sourcing, procurement, logistics, and global trade modules (or views) or multiple solutions that are interconnected — you need end-to-end sourcing to identify the right deal, procurement to secure it, logistics to get it delivered on target, and global trade to make sure there are no costly, disruptive snags
  • an analytic solution
    that lets you analyze trends and predict demand levels, market cost changes, and potential disruptions
  • out of the box ERP support
    because chances are that a number of supply chain partners are going to have one of the big ERP solutions and be relying on it at least partially
  • security
    as there will be a lot of sensitive data flowing back and forth — make sure it is encrpted and only accessible by authorized parties
  • adoption
    how many companies are currently using the solution, how big are they, how much third party support is there and what is the long term outlook for the solution

But if you can meet all of these requrements, and the collaboration flows, the the solution is probably going to prevent many of the critical missing links in many of today’s supply chains.

Purchasing Blues

Editor’s Note: This is a repost of “Purchasing Blues“, which was originally posted on June 20, 2009.

Well, it’s time to raise a fuss
  and it’s time to raise a holler
About diminishing returns
  from the corporate dollar
I just heard from my boss
  who governs me
If I don’t save the cash
  he’s gonna fire me

Sometimes I wonder
What I’m gonna do
If there ain’t no cure
For the purchasing blues

My CFO he told me to
  go beat on the supplier
That his margins must be high
  while ours are under water
So I talked to the supplier
  he said costs were elevated
He was losing all his money
  at the rates we had created

Sometimes I wonder
What I’m gonna do
If there ain’t no cure
For the purchasing blues

So I found a consultant
  told her about my problems
And she went and discovered that
  the supplier was just stalling
Material costs were falling
  and the exchange rate was fair
I had wasted all my time
  just pulling out all my hair

Next time I have a problem
  I’ll find me a solution
I’ll find a sourcing expert
  and get my retribution

It’s The End of TechCrunch As We Know It

It’s The End of TechCrunch As We Know It
It’s The End of TechCrunch As We Know It
It’s The End of TechCrunch As We Know It
And I feel fine

That’s great, it starts with a web-shake, noobs and trolls,
get terrified – the doctor is not afraid.
Eye of a hurricane, listen to the web churn,
bloggers serve their own needs, dummy serve your own needs.
Feed it off an aux speak, grunt, no, strength,
The ladder starts to clatter with fear fight down height.
Wire in a fire, representing seven games, entrepreneurs for hire and a lagging site.
Left of west and coming in a hurry with the furries breathing down your neck.
Team by team reporters baffled, trumped, tethered cropped.
Look at that low playing!
Fine, then.
Uh oh, overflow, population, common news, but it’ll do.
Save yourself, serve yourself.
Web serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed
  dummy with the rapture and the revered and the right – right.
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched.

It’s The End of TechCrunch As We Know It
It’s The End of TechCrunch As We Know It
And I feel fine

Last Friday, TechCrunch ran a post that asked Where the Hell Are All the Rants? that noted that ever since some of its most prolific writers left the blog game to either a) become entrepreneurs or b) become investors, the tech blogosphere has been quiet — too quiet. And by quiet I mean so noisy that it’s difficult for anything of any substance (or signal) to come through. And the doctor agrees. Lately, he’s been reading TechCrunch less and less. Heck, this week it was almost indistinguishable from TUAW with all the me-too Apple coverage. I have to say I miss the TechCrunch of old where the bloggers asked How the Hell is This My Fault because not only did those posts have substance, they had character. You can find bland coverage on any old site. But you can’t find deep thought, real opinions, and the willingness to call out the elephant in the room and call a duck a duck (when it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck) on any old site.

To cut to the chase, no rants, no real opinions and willingness to make them known. No real opinions and willingness to make them known, no individuality. No individuality, no point. And that’s why it just may be the end of TechCrunch as we know it.

The Insightful e-book Spend Visibility: An Implementation Guide is still FREE!

That’s right, this illuminating e-book, co-authored by the doctor and Bernard Gunther of Lexington Analytics, now a division of Opera Solutions, which has already been downloaded over 2,450 times, is still completely and totally FREE.

This e-book, which is a rare medium well-dome, really is the definitive book on next level spend analysis performance. It’s one of the first books to not only get to the science of spend analysis, as compared to the elusive art, but to also provide you a detailed 10-step process that you can use to implement spend analysis in your organization and get real, repeatable, results — starting from your first project. And the numerous examples, backed up by 78 figures, really go the extra mile to making theory reality. There’s a reason it has been called one of the most comprehensive step-by-step resource guides I have seen for this industry and a reason the downloads keep going and going like the energizer bunny. It was written to help an average sourcing analyst get results, and that’s exactly what it does.

So if you still haven’t downloaded your FREE copy of Spend Visibility: An Implementation Guide, do so today!

Doing Cross-Border Trade in Europe? Download this Free Handbook!

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) recently released the
Handbook of Best Practices at Border Crossings — A Trade and Transport Facilitation Perspective to assist the 56 OSCE participating States / UNECE member States in the development of more efficient border and customs policies through the promotion of existing best practices in the field. Clocking in at 268 pages and 5.7 MB, this e-book is filled with advice on the international legal framework; international co-operation; balancing security with trade and transport facilitation; policies for control, clearance, and transit of freight; risk management; border crossing point design; the use of information and communications technology for non-intrusive inspection; human resource management, and measuring performance. Given the wide array of legislation that an international organization can face, given that this e-book is totally free, the doctor thinks it’s a must have in your global trade e-Library.

As the handbook points out in chapter 3, there are five major categories of security threats that countries need to watch out for at their borders:

  • normal criminal acts
    such as car thefts on one side and chop shops on the other
  • technical violations
    such as lack of proper documentation
  • traditional organized crime
    that would include smuggling of weapons, people, and other contraband
  • terrorist threats
    that could result in attacks, destruction of property, and death
  • border management threats
    that would include corruption and abuse of power

These require a number of security procedures and controls to deal with. (The UK alone has 37 procedures, as outlined on page 57, that range from AEO [Authorised Economic Operators], CSI [Container Security Initiatives], and MATRA [Multi-Agency Threat and Risk Assessment] all the way to dangerous goods declarations, pre-ship notifications, and commercial insurance.) Some of these are compliant with the new WCO SAFE Framework, some are not. Either way you need to be aware of them, what impact they have, and how they can benefit you.

To really dive into the issues, and recommendations, download your FREE copy of the OSCE Handbook of Best Practices at Border Crossings — A Trade and Transport Facilitation Perspective today!