Monthly Archives: December 2014

The Boxing Day Blogger’s Lament

Sorrow is my own yard
where the new grass
flames as it has flamed
often before, but not
with the cold fire
that closes round me this year.

For five straight years
On this day we spend rapped.
The web page is white today
no insights from grey beards.
Insights on spending
once filled many pages
put colour in our cheeks.

Yellow and some red,
but the grief in my heart
is stronger than they,
for though they were my joy
formerly, today they are absent
and we do miss old grey beard.

Today a bird told me
that in the meadows,
at the edge of the heavy woods
in the distance, he saw
a glimpse of grey beard.
I feel that I would like
to know that
the old grey beard will return
and bring us a spend rap again.

Thirty Five Years Ago Today

Europe made its bid to get in on the space race and prepare for inter-planetary supply management with the first successful launch of the Ariane rocket. Developed by the European Space Agency, it was a four stage vehicle designed to put two telecommunications satellites at a time into orbit.

While it wasn’t a big step forward, like the Voskhod 1 which was launched 50 years ago on October 12, it put a new player in the inter-planetary game (as communication relay stations are going to be necessary, and that is going to be accomplished by way of satellites), and a player that would contribute to the International Space Station.

It may have been Christmas eve, but dedicated scientists kept working. It’s unfortunate that corporations, including General Dynamics, who promised us a convoy to Mars in 1975 back in 1963, didn’t show the same dedication.

So you think you know KPI, TCO, and SRM? Find Out!

You might think you’ve mastered KPIs, TCO, and SRM and that you’re ahead of these trends, but here at SI, we beg to differ. But even if you have a good grasp of these capabilities, and know where the trends are taking them, these are just three of the ten trends your organization needs to be ahead of if it wants to get ahead of the game, and the competition, in 2015.

So even if you think you know what the KPI, TCO, and SRM trends are, that’s only three of the ten trends that you need to be aware of. Moreover, these are the most mature and the least forward-thinking of the current trends, so mastering these is not going to give you or your organization much of an advantage or an advantage it is going to hold for long.

Especially when current KPI definitions are anti-productive, most companies are confusing Total Cost of Acquisition and Production and distribution with Total Cost of Ownership, and Supplier Relationship Management with Supplier Browbeating. Your organization also has to stop calling top n spend reports spend analytics, understand the true cost of outsourcing, and what supply chain finance really is. So, if you’d like to understand what meaningful KPIs really are, what TCO really is, what SRM should be used for, where analysis needs to go, how to value outsourcing, what supply chain finance really is, and five other topics that you should be mastering to get ahead of forthcoming Supply Management trends, then download Sourcing Innovation’s new white-paper on Top Ten Trends for Supply Management Value Generation in 2015 (registration required).

You may have brought your costs under control in 2013 (with SI’s 2013 Top Ten) and put a proper Supply Management technology infrastructure in place in 2014 (with SI’s 2014 Top Ten), but that doesn’t mean you’ve prepared for what comes next. If you’d like a little help, download Sourcing Innovation’s Top Ten Trends for Supply Management Value Generation in 2015 (registration required), sponsored by BravoSolution, and find out how to get ahead of the trends.