Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Solution Providers — Sourcing Innovation Is Here For You!

Your favorite Reed Business Information Publication may be gone, but you have options — much better ones. Unlike tired old-media publications and web sites, Sourcing Innovation is going strong and growing month over month. Sourcing Innovation attracts up to 15,000 unique pairs of eyeballs every month, who make approximately 50,000 unique visits that access about 250,000 pages. That’s equivalent to the entire Encyclopedia Britannica being downloaded over 50 times, every month.

While Sourcing Innovation may not offer every service the publications offered, it offers quite a few, and I’d argue that some are better. Here are just a handful of offerings that you can take advantage of:

VISIBILITY: Blog Sponsorships and Resource Site Sponsorships

Every visitor sees your logo on every page they load. For a low monthly fee, this can generate 250,000 impressions … and studies have shown that impressions are much more valuable than click-throughs, and enormously better than rotating banner ads that are completely ignored by readers.

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP: Illuminations and Inspirations

You can sponsor a Sourcing Innovation Illumination, SI’s flagship publication designed to educate, inform, and illuminate the market on important problems and solutions. Unlike the productions of many analyst firms, it goes beyond arbitrary metrics and dives into the real issues and challenges that a buyer has to understand before he or she will consider buying your solution. Also, at 7-12 pages, it’s deep enough to convey meaning, but not so long that it isn’t an easy read.

And starting in May, Sourcing Innovation will be launching Inspirations, shorter, more focused white papers that will zero in on problems and solutions within each of the primary focus areas covered by SI. At 3-7 pages, they’ll make good quick-hit introductions to important topics and issues for the busy C-suite executive or on-the-fence prospect.

LEAD GENERATION: New White Paper Library

Sourcing Innovation will be launching a white paper library where you can distribute your white papers on a cost-per-download or cost-per-lead basis.

In addition, SI will be maintaining its joint label and private label writing services which can generate a custom white paper for you that you can use in your lead-generation efforts.

EVENT PROMOTION: Event Advertisements on SI

As described in the FAQ, Sourcing Innovation would be pleased to advertise your event with a logo on the side-bar and a landing page of your choice. Advertised events are also included in the weekly “New and Upcoming Events” post on the blog.

Additional information on these, and other, services can be found in the FAQ.

For more information, contact us using the contact information in the FAQ.

What About Bob?

Almost nineteen years ago, Touchstone Pictures asked What About Bob?, not knowing what a profound question this would be for the Supply Management space, which had not yet truly emerged, nineteen years later. And before you ask what is that crazy doctor referring to, be assured that I’m going to tell you. But first, a little background.

A little over a year ago, Dennis Moore, Susan Scrupski, Thomas Otter, Vinnie Mirchandani, Jeff Nolan, Jason Busch, Zoli Erdos, and pretty much anyone else who mattered in the Enteprise Blogsphere came together and created the Enterprise Irregulars, a central point where anyone who wanted a multi-faceted snapshot of what’s going on in the Enterprise space could go to get it. Little did we know that would be the first milestone on the path to Analyst 2.0, the new analyst model for the Supply Management space. Shortly after, Jason Busch of Spend Matters decided to double down. He expanded the number of voices he allowed to contribute, increased the rate of publication of his Perspectives, and announced bold new changes coming in 2010, which began with the new Compass publication series, which are essentially an Analyst 2.0 spin on the classic Aberdeen model. (The only difference being that instead of sponsoring one big fat [dry] metric filled research study, you sponsor a four-part series that addresses emerging trends and related issues as well as best practices with a dash of metrics thrown in for good measure.)

Then Mr. Horses for Sources himself, Phil Fersht, decided it was time to go all-in with the new Analyst 2.0 model and formed a whole new Analyst Firm dedicated to Global Sourcing Performance.

And now we have turmoil at the Analyst 1.0 firms who are trying to stay relevant. Gartner acquired AMR, and Andrew Bartolini, who was the VP of Global Supply Management Research (and who succeeded Vance Checketts who succeeded Sudy Bharadwaj who succeeded Tim “Mr. Perfect” Minahan), has departed Aberdeen to create his own Analyst 2.0 offering over at CPORising.com.

There’s so much going on right now, and so much noise being made, that I just have to ask What about Bob? You see, while most of the space is going gaga over all of the hullabaloo surrounding the emergence of Analyst 2.0, they’re forgetting two important truths. One, it’s about substance and quality, not flash and delivery. And two, quietly toiling away over in a little corner of The Ferrari Consulting and Research Group‘s piece of the web, is Bob Ferrari who has been plugging away on Supply Chain Matters for over two years now, bringing you deep thought and analysis on a variety of topics on a weekly, and occasionally daily, basis. He’s good. He’s great. He’s wonderful. And he’s too modest to ask it himself. So I’ll ask it. If you need a real analyst, with decades of experience, including stints at IDC and AMR, What about Bob?

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If you Want to Increase Your Value, Don’t Forget the Customer

As a Procurement Professional, your primary focus is on reducing spend, because that’s the greatest contribution to the bottom line that an organization can make. When one dollar of savings equals ten dollars of profit, it’s pretty easy to focus on squeezing every penny you can out of that supplier. But you can go too far. For example, if you push the supplier’s margin to minimally sustainable levels, and raw material costs rise, either the supplier is going to go belly up, or sacrifice on quality (with cheaper materials or processes).

If the supplier sacrifices on quality, and you don’t realize it until after the fact when customers start returning goods, your organization is going to have trouble giving the customer an excellent customer service experience, which is key not only to customer retention, but to profit. I was reminded of this when I came across this recent article in CRM buyer on the value of excellent online customer service. The article notes how a recent survey has revealed that customers are willing to pay a 9.7% premium for good customer service (and a 10.7% premium for customer service online). In other words, the only thing most organizations have to do to increase revenue by 10% is provide quality service around a quality product!

So keep this in mind the next time you’re trying to reduce an already good deal by an additional percentage point. If that’s the difference between good quality, and a product that is defective 10% of the time, then that 1% savings is costing you 10% revenue, which is not a good deal at all.

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Can’t Figure Out What to Do With That Religious Permission Slip?

Are you an atheist, agnostic, buddhist, hindu, islamic, sikh, or a member of the 72%+ of the global population who is not a Christian?

Are you tired of continual efforts to mix education and religion by your school?

Are you fed up with those permission slips coming home pre-checked?

Then David Thorne has the answer for you!

To find it, check out The Permission Slip on Crazy Crackerz (unless, of course, you are a Christian who is easily offended by those who might question your faith). Normally I like to avoid politics and religion on this blog, for obvious reasons, but I just found this particular illustrated comment thread too enjoyable to ignore!