Monthly Archives: August 2009

And the Ratings Roller Coaster Ride Continues

Because I will not publish comparative rankings that cannot be substantiated by one or more external sources, and because I claimed that SI was ranked #1 among the supply management blogs the first time this blog took #1 in the Alexa rankings (primarily because it was the ranking site most favored by the blog that was ranked #1 on Alexa for quite some time), I have no problems pointing out that, as of Saturday (August 15), Sourcing Innovation slid back to the #2 spot on Alexa (with an Alexa rank of 324,279) while Spend Matters climbed back on top (with an Alexa rank of 317,868). [Get the Updated Facts]

But that’s fine by me. Why?

  1. Sourcing Innovation Always Bounces Back
    Every second time the ranking engines “renormalize” their ranking algorithms, my ratings drop. But they always bounce back. And even if SI doesn’t ever make #1 again (on Alexa), that would be okay because I’m confident SI will continue to do what it has done since day one … and that’s grow in visitors, visits, and hits and continue to grow in breadth and reach — and that’s all that really matters.
  2. Spend Matters Brought Back the “A” Game
    The last few months have seen not only an increase in the quantity of posts, but in the quality … harkening back to the early days when Spend Matters was breaking new ground. The in-depth coverage of the Staffing Services Providers in particular (in the late Spring) was great and brought you useful information that you can use to help you identify the providers that might be right for you. And as long as Spend Matters posts information that helps you, dear reader, I have no problem nipping at its heels.
  3. SI’s goal was to be the #1 niche blog dedicated to Innovation
    SI is about “best practices, education and innovation in sourcing, procurement, and supply management” and bringing you useful information day-in and day-out that can help you become a better sourcing and procurement professional. It was never the intent to make SI a news site, forum, commentary on current events, talk radio, print publication replacement, or analyst alternative. SI, which grew 30% in unique visitors in a single month last quarter, is doing phenomenal against its goal. What more could I want?
  4. SI Still Outranks A (Large) Number of (Big) Print Publications in (Daily) Web Traffic
    Sure the print publications have more recipients on the paper-copy and e-mail lists, but when it comes to daily web-traffic day-in and day-out, SI does very well because, unlike these publications which offer very little new content on their web site in any given week, SI brings you new content every single day.
  5. SI is Still the #2 Blog in Supply Management
    SI reaches (well) over 10,000 unique visitors every month. This traffic, combined with its steady growth, is why SI has ranked #1, at least temporarily, on each of the five major traffic ranking sites over the past six months.
  6. SI is very close to another big milestone.
    One where it will be only the second blog in the Supply Management space to achieve that milestone. SI is only three years old. The best is yet to come.

And SI’s traffic, which is still increasing month-over-month, is extremely impressive for a niche blog in Supply Management, so I’m quite happy with its progress … and the next post will be back to regular programming.

A Brief Review of Supplier Relationship Management Basics

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A recent article over on SupplyManagement.com on “6 steps to better SRM” provides a good review of the basics. Even though times are tough, chances are, they are tougher for your supplier which makes good relationships even more important. First of all, you want to be the customer of choice because your supplier likely has less staff to service their customers. Secondly, you want to be the first to know if any of your strategic suppliers are in danger of going under, so you have a chance to either bail them out or find other suppliers before you run into inventory problems. Finally, like all recessions that have come before, this recession will end, demands will rise, raw material shortages will occur, production capacities will be hit, and you definitely want to be the customer of choice next time this happens.

So, how do you start? The SupplyManagement.com article recommends these basic steps:

  • Segment the Supply Base
    You need to know which suppliers are tactical and which are strategic because you focus your efforts on your strategic suppliers.
  • Secure Executive Sponsorship
    C-level executives must be engaged in the management of the most critical strategic suppliers and be behind your SRM initiatives 100%.
  • Embed Processes and Governance
    Processes, roles, and responsibilities need to be documented, readily accessible, followed, and kept up-to-date so they can be continued in a repeatable manner if a key relationship manager leaves or if you start working with a new strategic supplier.
  • Use Technology Effectively
    Technology is the great enabler for Supply Management. Use it! Need help finding a vendor? Check the vendor post index and the company directory on the resource site.
  • Enhance Your People
    Train, train, and train … in what other profession can training deliver 10X, 50X, and even 100X returns when your supply managers find ways to take 10% off of multi-million dollar purchases either through better terms or by working with your suppliers to take cost out of the process?
  • Measure the Benefits
    Demonstrate the results, and use this leverage to keep your technology and training up to date and to get more bodies approved to allow you to enhance your relationships and roll the SRM initiative, which will start with a core group of your most strategic suppliers, to more suppliers over time.

And the Road Stays Rocky for the Oompa Loompas

When we last checked in on the Oompa Loompas, things were finally starting to look up. Not much, but with Cadbury’s going fair trade, the opening of the TCHO waterfront factory, and the UAE premium chocolate business resisting recessionary dynamics it looked like, after almost two years of hardship, that things were taking a turn for the better.

But did we speak too soon? Since then:

There was some good news too, but does it balance the bad?

Will the oompa loompas ever see a quarter without hardship?

The Benefits of Business Intelligence … With or Without SaaS

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A recent article in Industry Week on “making the move to SaaS” listed 7 ways that SaaS BI can help manufacturers. I found the article amusing because these key insights hold true whether or not you deploy your BI on SaaS.

So, here are seven ways BI can help you:

  • identification of demand trends
  • analysis of supplier costs and delivery histories
  • identification of customer buying patterns
  • channel team empowerment via full visibility into sales history
  • increased profitability through better cost controls and inventory levels
  • improved customer satisfaction through better service levels
  • continuous operational improvement

And, even better, you can do all this with a good “spend analysis” tool that was designed for more general “data analysis”. So go do it.

Four Tasks of the CPO

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In a recent edition of the Harvard Business Review, an article on “What Only the CEO Can Do” outlined the four tasks of the CEO who has to link the outside to the inside. They were:

  1. Defining the Meaningful Outside
    Which stakeholders matter most? What results are meaningful?
  2. Deciding What Business You Are In
    Where do you play to win? Only the CEO has the enterprise-wide perspective to make the tough choices involved.
  3. Balancing Present and Future
    The CEO needs to strike the right balance between the short and long term.
  4. Shaping Values and Standards
    Values establish a company’s identity and behaviors. If the company is out to win, the values must be connected to the meaningful outside and be relevant for the present and future.

This prompts the question, what are the four primary tasks of the CPO? Especially given the dozens, and dozens, of issues that the CPO has to manage on a daily basis? Well, they are very similar:

  1. Define the Meaningful Inside
    Most of the supply chain is outside … it’s the CPOs job to figure out what needs to be inside and how it’s going to be managed.
  2. Decide what Business You Are NOT In
    What products are not cost effective for you to make? What processes are you not first class in? What processes are not good candidates for outsourcing?
  3. Balance Present and Future
    It’s not about the lowest cost today, it’s about balancing value today versus value tomorrow.
  4. Focus on Sustainability
    It’s values, standards, ethics, compliance, social responsibility, and long term sustainability.

If you think about all of the things a CPO has to do, you see they fall under the above umbrella:

  • analysis : Business You Are NOT In
  • strategy : the Meaningful Inside
  • team recognition : the Meaningful Inside
  • innovation : Balance Present and Future
  • compliance : Focus on Sustainability
  • risk : Focus on Sustainability
  • technology : Balance Present and Future
  • sustainability : Focus on Sustainability
  • etc.