Monthly Archives: December 2008

Spend Rappin’ (Repost)


To the Tune of “Christmas Rappin'” by Kurtis Blow

Don’t you give me all that JIVE about code you used before I’s alive,
Cause this ain’t 1965 – ain’t even 1999!
Now I’m the guy named Lamoureux and Spend is one thing that I know.
So every year, just about this time, I celebrate it with this rhyme!

Gonna save it, gonna shave it, gonna make it good,
Gonna take it all down through your neighborhood.
Gonna wring it, gonna sling it till it’s understood
My rap’s about to happen, like the knee you was slappin;
Or the toe you been tappin’ on a hunk of wood.

‘Bout a two fisted dude, with a friendly attitude
and a sack full of savings for the people on the block.
He’s an old grey beard, maybe looks kind of weird,
and if you ever seen him he could give you quite a shock.

Now people let me tell ya about last year
when the dude came slicing spend through here.
Well the wit was out, the gloves on the ground,
folks stayed to watch him cut it down.

The beat was thumping on the block,
and they were glued to just one spot,
as the master cubed at a solid pace,

got a taste of the waste thrown in your face.

And this old spend slayer laid down a heavy layer
of his slicing dicing rhythm to a tree-mapped beat.
And the guy with the database started to participate,
and I could sure appreciate the spend roll up neat.

We were all in the mood so we had a little brood,
not a sound did abound, as he plowed through the mound,
then I thought I heard a gasp as he sliced through the past,
and laid our mav’rick spend bare, as I flopped into a chair.

So I went to the attic where I thought about the static
that our last spending tool was programmed to always give.
And I threw up my arms at the industry yarns,
Just a trick, a nick, and I’d let the suckers in.

He was quick, he was sharp and always on the mark,
he had a lot of success on his chinny, chin, chin.
He avowed, he was proud of the savings he allowed
from the tip of the ‘burg he found the savings within.

He’s cool for a fool throwin’ out every rule
every hour of the day when the cold winds blow.
Though the beard was-a cleared, I still have never cheered
like I did in the storm when I was in the know.

I said you’re right, my spend’s a fright,
Can you stop for a drop before you have to go?
He said “Sure, Bill, if the wine is chilled
and I’ll stake a steak down at the Monaco”.

So we went out back and discussed the stack
of invoices that had all been over-paid
and every dollar spent off of the contract
and then we laid it all bare till we made the grade.

And before he went this fine old gent,
finding gifts went to sift through his spend reports.
From the top to the bottom he reached in and got ’em,
spend trends for me, and variances from torts.

And the higher-ups got presents too,
Banned suppliers and a stale contract.
A bloated pie ’bout as clear as the sky,
the best that money couldn’t buy.

Cause money could never ever buy the feelin,
the one that comes when there’s no concealin’
of your spend by a tool that’s new
and that’s what Strovink’s does for you.

The dude ya read’s back at the keys,
up late till all’s where it should be.
But if he were right here tonight,
he’d say Truthful Spending and to all a good night!

This post originally ran a year ago today.

The Twelve Days (of X-Mas)

The Twelve Days of X-Mas 2008

On the twelfth day of X-Mas
my blogger gave to me
a pound of cunning,
another vendor hyping,
blog posts worth keeping,
l’il hampsters dancing,
thoughts for a shilling,
strategies for winning,
tactics for saving,
five golden rings,
four little words,
tri-focal lens,
two boxing gloves
and a lesson in strategy.

 

The 6 Days of X-asperation 2008

Questions to Ask Every Vendor

Questions to Ask Your e-RFX and e-Auction Vendor

Questions to Ask Your Spend Analysis Vendor

Questions to Ask Your Decision Optimization Vendor

Questions to Ask Your Contract Management Vendor

Questions to Ask Your e-Procurement Vendor

The Twelve Days of X-emplification 2007

On the twelfth day of X-Emplification

my blogger gave to me

Rules of e-Payment,

Optimized Supply Networks,

Trade Data Insight,

A Sourcing Primer,

Some Market Lessons,

GPOs and Markets,

Supplier Networks,

e-Procurement,

A Contracts Piece,

Optimized Buys,

Some Spending Rules

and Notes on Some Bartering Tools

The Twelve Days of X-Mas 2006

On the twelfth day of X-Mas

my blogger gave to me

an ounce of cunning,

another vendor hyping,

blog posts worth keeping,

spend vendors lancing,

thoughts for a shilling,

strategies for winning,

tactics for saving,

five golden rings,

four little words,

tri-focal lens,

two boxing gloves,

and a lesson in strategy.

On the Twelfth Day of X-Mas … (Happy Holidays)

On the twelfth day of X-Mas

my blogger gave to me
a pound of cunning,
another vendor hyping,
blog posts worth keeping,
l’il hampsters dancing,
thoughts for a shilling,
strategies for winning,
tactics for saving,
five golden rings,
four little words,
tri-focal lens,
two boxing gloves
and a lesson in strategy.

Now use it wisely.

Happy Holiday Season.

On the Eleventh Day of X-Mas … (Introducing Trade Extensions)

On the eleventh day of X-Mas

my blogger gave to me
another vendor hyping,
blog posts worth keeping,
l’il hampsters dancing,
thoughts for a shilling,
strategies for winning,
tactics for saving,
five golden rings,
four little words,
tri-focal lens,
two boxing gloves
and a lesson in strategy.

Allow me to introduce you to Trade Extensions. Founded in Sweden in 2000, it offers an optimization-based negotiations platform to European clients (from Sweden and a base of operations in the UK), and now, American clients through its office in Houston, Texas.

Trade Extensions offers a self-service on-demand e-Sourcing platform that is available on a per-event basis and backed up by industry leading optimization algorithms designed by scientists with expertise in algorithms, combinatorial optimization, and micro-economics. Like many other platforms, it offers full featured e-RFX, e-Auction, and sourcing project management, but unlike the vast majority of e-Sourcing platforms on the market, optimization is embedded into the RFx bid evaluation and auctions. It’s your favorite sourcing platform on steroids.

The auctions are lot-based, and support as many items, associated attributes, and prices as you want per lot. In addition, pricing, and ranking, can support arbitrary formulas and comparisons can be made against bid logs and historical transactions. Lots are also color-coded, with yellow indicating fields that only the user sees, brown indicating historical data fields that only the user sees, and green indicating fields that the bidder sees. Example fields include name, description, bidder-entered, type, min-value, max-value, decimals, required, distance-to-bidder, and rank-displayed-to-bidder.

The underlying optimization is sufficiently sophisticated and qualifies as true strategic sourcing decision optimization, as per the requirements set forth in the wiki-paper. It supports a number of different types of constraints, called rules, that are based on filters that can act on any attribute. For example, it supports hard limit capacity rules, soft limit allocation rules, meta-allocation “chunk” rules, and composed rules that specify limits on specific lots or lot components. The rules are template-based, which permit them to be saved, copied to, and applied to any relevant scenario. The filters can work on bidders, lots, bids, plants, and lot fields, among others. Furthermore, it can support alternative bids … allowing tiered bids and certain types of matrix bids. And in addition to standard sourcing and freight optimization, the underlying platform can also support limited multi-level supply chain optimization … which is more than most platforms give you!

Analysis is flexibile and powerful, supporting as many scenarios, and comparisons between scenarios, as you like. The analysis screen also allows you to see the status of each scenario, the award volume, the lane allocation, historic costs, savings, applied rules, and solver data. Reporting is above average and allows you to create your own report templates using a plethora of fields, matrices, formulas, and reporting rules.

Now it’s not perfect, as it doesn’t yet support certain types of discounts through the UI that are occasionally useful (although I’m told the underlying model can support them), certain types of mixed freight bids (which, in reality, don’t occur that often), and the UI isn’t designed to support distribution network optimization (but hey, what tool is?), but it’s definitely a tier-1 solution, and it’s nice to see that there’s more than one company who understands that, to be truly useful to the average buyer at the average organization, strategic sourcing decision optimization needs to be powerful, embedded in an e-Sourcing platform and user-friendly. And, they are improving it every day, unlike some “competitive” applications that haven’t changed significantly in years.

Furthermore, unlike most of their competitors, it’s very affordable. They have an event-based model and an unlimited usage model. Their event-based model starts at 0.5% of the value of the tendered goods and services for a full-service event, and drops to as low as 0.3% of the value of the tendered goods and services for a pure self-service event (if multiple events are committed to). Ongoing licenses start at only 10,000 Euros / month for unlimited use (for up to 10 users). Considering that it was only a few years ago where events started at 100K and annual licenses at 50K a month for less functionality — just for optimization — and Trade Extensions’ platform also contains extensive RFX and Auction support built-in, it’s certainly worth investigating if you have optimization needs.

On the Tenth Day of X-Mas … (Supply Chain Blog Posts Worth Keeping)

On the tenth day of X-Mas

my blogger gave to me
blog posts worth keeping,
l’il hampsters dancing,
thoughts for a shilling,
strategies for winning,
tactics for saving,
five golden rings,
four little words,
tri-focal lens,
two boxing gloves
and a lesson in strategy.

10 Sourcing Innovation Blog Posts Worth Keeping

10 Spend Matters Blog Posts Worth Keeping

  • Watch Out For Spend Management Pirates
  • Spend Management Software — Now is the Time to Buy
  • A Supplier Bankruptcy Checklist
  • Reverse Auctions — Is it Hammer Time?
  • One Recipe for Attracting Top Talent into Procurement
  • The Total Cost Angle: Understanding Your True Energy Spend
  • What Does the Potential of “the Mother of all Meltdowns” Mean for Procurement?
  • Your e-Procurement Implementation Sucks (and What You Can Do About It)
  • Package Engineering — Going Green and Saving Green
  • Supplier Sustainability: Is Your Brand at Risk?

10 e-Sourcing Forum Blog Posts Worth Keeping

  • Kryptonite for e-Sourcing Software Selection and Success
  • Supplier Risk Assessment Best Practices
  • Gloomy Short Term Future for SaaS?
  • e-RFx — It’s Not Just About the TCO
  • Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Telecom Savings
  • Two-Way Scorecarding Best Practices
  • Let the Market Decide!
  • Surefire Strategy For Producing a Consulting Train Wreck: “Just Focus on What You Can Control, You Can’t Be Blamed for the Actions of Others”
  • Strategy in Emerging Markets
  • Can You Really Afford to Leave Millions on the Table?

10 Supply Excellence Blog Posts Worth Keeping

  • What’s Your Bailout Plan? Indirect Spend is a Good Start (Part 2)
  • 6 Keys to Getting More from Your Purchasing Staff
  • Is Renegotiating During a Recession Ethical
  • Managing Exceptions Instead of Pushing Paper
  • The Four Core Aspects of Category Assessment
  • 3rd Party Financing — Cut Costs or Raise Prices?
  • Credit Crisis Collaboration: The Best Cash Flow Alternative
  • Spend Management 3.0 and Beyond …
  • Regulators vs. Profitability: How Can Buyers Help?
  • On Demand: What Software Companies Don’t Want You To Know

10 Purchasing Certification Blog Posts Worth Keeping

  • Supplier Partnerships Mean You Have to Contribute Too
  • The Recession & Supplier Stratification
  • Supplier Financial Risk & Purchasing/AP Collaboration
  • LCCS and Cultural Considerations
  • Turn The Other Cheek? Not When It’s A Supplier Slapping You!
  • Reverse Auctions STILL Controversial? Come On!
  • Supplier Collaboration – Tales of Two Different Approaches
  • Cost Savings Potential
  • Tough Negotiating: What’s The Worst That Can Happen?
  • Purchasing Principles From The Stanley Cup Finals?

10 Supply Chain Matters Blog Posts Worth Keeping

  • Prescriptions for Difficult Times
  • A Perspective on China’s Business Culture
  • Insuring Your Supply Chain Professional Development
  • Supply Chain Management Challenges in the Post Financial Crisis Era
  • Seven Grand Challenges for Supply Chain Management- Part Three
  • A New Look at Inventory Planning Urged
  • Another Lesson of Supply Chain Risk for Food Supply Chains
  • Investing in Supply Chain Technology during Uncertain Times
  • Supplier Portals — The Value Proposition
  • Navigating Through Economic Downturns- the balancing of sourcing strategies

10 Safe Sourcing Blog Posts Worth Keeping

  • Consumers care about the environment and safety; not so much about your profitability.
  • Twenty steps to running high quality e-procurement events.
  • Here are nine steps to safer and more eco-friendly procurement.
  • How can retailers creatively use e-procurement tools to limit upcoming losses from below normal holiday spending?
  • How can the procurement department lead the way in company green initiatives?
  • How do suppliers benefit from participation in e-procurement events such as reverse auctions?
  • Should Retailers conduct e-procurement events as Full Service or Self Service? Are there other alternatives?
  • Supplier selection! This may be the most important decision you make.
  • Collaboration. What appears to be common sense obviously is not.
  • Twenty steps to running high quality e-procurement events.

10 e-Sourcing Place Blog Posts Worth Keeping

  • Reverse Auction Guidelines
  • Gartner Magic Quadrant for Sourcing Application Suites – A Reaction
  • Spreadsheet Worst Practices
  • Where Next? Has Changed
  • e-Auctions in the News
  • On Reverse Japanese Auctions
  • e-Auctions in Supply Management
  • Does Procurement Auction Design Matter? (Part 4)
  • Does Procurement Auction Design Matter? (Part 1)
  • Another reason why enterprise software is generally so bad

10 Transformation Leadership Blog Posts Worth Keeping

  • The Mark of a Leader — Part II
  • Corporate e-Harmony
  • Transformation Insights I
  • Payment Terms IV
  • Deliberate Supply Chain Interruptions
  • Low Cost Country Sourcing
  • TCO — Total Cost of Ownership — IV
  • Supply Chain Components of Natural Gas Cost — II
  • Supplier Risk Management VII
  • The ROI of Supplier Recognition

10 European Leaders Network Blog Posts Worth Keeping

  • Food for thought
  • Psychology the key as survival instincts kick in
  • Lessons from the world’s largest supply chain
  • Suppliers strike back as big boys stick boot in
  • Procurement on the sales radar
  • Europe Catches e-Sourcing Fever
  • Viral marketing hones in on supply chains
  • Tier two cities could put India on the map
  • Research points to new focus on services procurement
  • Supply chain management and the war for talent