Monthly Archives: September 2009

Fourteen Hundred and Seventy Two Posts Later …

… and Sourcing Innovation crosses the 1,000,000 word mark!

That’s right, after a mere three years and three months, Sourcing Innovation crossed the 1,000,000 word mark yesterday and became only the second supply management blog to reach that point. Not even e-Sourcing Forum and Supply Excellence, the only other blogs that have been publishing as long and (almost) as regularly, have come close to reaching this mark.

Blog Live (Y-M-D) Posts (Approx) * Words (Approx) *
Spend Matters 2004-11-30 3,265 1,180,354
Sourcing Innovation 2006-06-09 1,472 1,000,337
e-Sourcing Forum 2005-08-30 1,013 386,369
Supply Excellence 2006-04-30 737 234,292

To put this in perspective, the entire Harry Potter series (all seven books) only contains 1,090,739 words. This says that, in a little over three years, on this blog alone, I’ve provided you more free content than J. K. Rowling published in the Harry Potter series over the span of a decade. And let me repeat the phrase “on this blog alone” because I’ve also (co-)authored almost the entire e-Sourcing Wiki (which contains over 30 distinct wiki-papers consisting of over 229,160 words), contributed over 90 guest posts to various blogs and e-publications (some of which are indexed in this post and this post and total over 86,000 words), authored a number of Illuminations and white-papers (which collectively contain over 21,050 words) and co-authored and edited the e-Sourcing Handbook (which is approximately 91,500 words). (If you add it all up, that’s over 1,427,700 words!)

And, dear marketer, that’s one of the many reasons why your search traffic comes here.

 

*Methodology: Since each blog uses a standard blog package that utilizes common page structures, utilizing the “archive” URL format by day, I wrote a script that downloaded each day and extracted each unique URL using the “post” URL format (over time). It then downloaded each post page, extracted the post, saved it as text, and ran it through a word counter. (Random) Errors or inconsistencies in page generation (caused by a stray special character, etc.) could have prevented some posts from being extracted or properly parsed, but my manual checks satisfied me that over 95% of posts were captured and properly parsed, so the table is at least relatively accurate.

e-Leaders Speak: Gary Hare of Vinimaya on “B2B e-Commerce: Are We Starting To Get It Right?”

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Today’s guest post is from Gary Hare of Vinimaya.

Being successful at B2B e-Commerce is hard for both buyers and suppliers! Unfortunately, despite the hype, there are more stories of failure than success out there. Why haven’t we made more progress? Who’s to blame? These are valid questions, but there is one question that, if we can answer it, might hold the key to success.

Why has Consumer e-Commerce adoption blown past B2B e-Commerce?

Speaking as someone who has been in B2B e-Commerce since the days EDI was considered a “killer app“, and acknowledging that are some “complexities” in B2B that don’t exist in the consumer world, I am going to try to answer this question by noting three things that consumer e-Commerce does better than B2B e-Commerce:

  1. Usability – How many clicks and screens does it take to search for an item and place an order in SAP SRM? I don’t know exactly, but I do know it’s a lot more than ordering from Amazon! For years, B2B was all about how much functionality can we jam into a screen … the problem being you use 10% of the functionality 90% of the time. Consumer sites rightly focus on that 10%.
  2. Content – In the consumer world, all the content is available right on the web. You don’t have to join a supplier network or get a catalog file loaded to place an order. Although many B2B suppliers have invested heavily in their web sites, the majority have not, at least when you take into account the total number of suppliers. There are many reasons for this, some valid (e-Procurement system integration issues), some not so valid (don’t see the ROI).
  3. Technology – Ever hear the terms mash-up, widgets, AJAX, intelligent agents, REST, meta-search, RSS and JSON in the context of B2B technology? You probably hear terms like database, SQL, JDBC and HTML more often. The previously mentioned terms (e.g. mash-up, widgets, etc.) are all commonly used Web 2.0 technologies and protocols that make up the consumer e-Commerce “stack”. Note that they don’t replace the B2B technologies (e.g. database, SQL, etc.), but enhance their capabilities by providing an abstraction layer on top of them to make them more “web sensitive”, which makes it easier to do things like federated search and secure content syndication, without dedicated connections, using only the Web “as is”.

So, at the end of the day, consumer e-Commerce has simplified the online buying process by combining great usability with robust, easily available content; easily accessed via “web sensitive” technologies.

Now here’s the good news. B2B now gets it! You’ve been hearing for years about B2B providers who are “consumerizing” the B2B user experience (e.g. #1). Every day, more and more suppliers make their content available on the Web, and there are now providers out there who can build and even host B2B websites for as little as $5,000 a year (e.g. #2).

And what is enabling these changes is the technology (#3). As more and more B2B providers innovate and adapt consumer e-Commerce technologies to their B2B problems, B2B e-Commerce adoption will ultimately take off just like consumer e-Commerce did in the early 2000’s! To ensure this happens, it is important for users to engage these innovative providers, versus signing up for the same old solution from the same old provider (a wise man once said, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results“).

I guess the question now becomes, which of these innovative providers is going to be the eBay / Amazon / Google / etc. of the B2B world?

Thanks, Gary!

New and Upcoming Events from the #1 Supply Chain Resource Site

The Sourcing Innovation Resource Site, always immediately accessible from the link under the “Free Resources” section of the sidebar, continues to add new content on a weekly, and often daily, basis — and it will continue to do so.

The following is a short selection of upcoming webinars and events that you might want to check out in the coming weeks:

Date & Time Webcast
2009-Sep-10
11:00 GMT-04:00/AST/EDT		 Coordinated Effective Logistics at Saab Using the SCOR Model
Sponsor: SCC
2009-Sep-10
14:00 GMT-04:00/AST/EDT		 Study Finds Mobile Applications are Key to Productivity: Featuring a Case Study with PPG Industries
Sponsor: Industry Week
2009-Sep-15
11:00 GMT-07:00/MST/PDT		 Troubled Outsourcing Arrangements: Strategies and Tips for Managing Difficult Issues
Sponsor: SIG
2009-Sep-17
9:00 GMT-05:00/CDT/EST		 Global eInvoicing Beyond VAT Tax
Sponsor: Ariba
2009-Sep-18
11:00 GMT-04:00/AST/EDT		 Pre-Quantifying Green Initiatives with Supply Chain Modeling
Sponsor: SCC

Dates Conference Sponsor
2009-Sep-20 to
2009-Sep-22		 UPMG
Washington, D.C., USA (North-America)		 UPMG
2009-Sep-21 to
2009-Sep-23		 SCM Chem 2009
Atlanta, GA, USA (North-America)		 WBR
2009-Sep-21 to
2009-Sep-23		 LogiPharma 2009
Philadelphia, PA, USA (North-America)		 WBR
2009-Sep-21 to
2009-Sep-23		 European EXPP Summit & Forum
Amsterdam, The Netherlands (Europe)		 EXPP
2009-Sep-23 to
2009-Sep-26		 The Logistics & Supply Chain Forum
Southhampton, England, UK (North-America)		 Richmond Events
2009-Sep-23 to
2009-Sep-26		 The Procurement Forum
Southhampton, England, UK (Europe)		 Richmond Events
2009-Sep-23 to
2009-Sep-25		 Growth & Innovation Forum 2009
Miami, Florida, USA (North-America)		 Consumer Goods
2009-Sep-23 to
2009-Sep-25		 Supply Chain Optimization: Mission Possible
Atlanta, Georgia, USA (North-America)		 Logility
2009-Sep-23 to
2009-Sep-25		 ePayables Summit
Charlotte, North Carolina, USA (North-America)		 Paystream Advisors
2009-Sep-24 to
2009-Sep-25		 Strategic Outsourcing Conference
Dallas, Texas, USA (North-America)		 The Conference Board
2009-Sep-28 to
2009-Oct-1		 13th Annual North American Shared Services & Outsourcing Summit
Chicago, Illinois, USA (North-America)		 SSON

They are all readily searchable from the comprehensive Site-Search page. So don’t forget to review the resource site on a weekly basis. You just might find what you didn’t even know you were looking for!

And continue to keep a sharp eye out for new content!

e-Leaders Speak: David Bush of Iasta on “Strategy for Success in e-Sourcing: Sourcing Execution”

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Today’s guest post is from David Bush of Iasta.

As any one who has been around e-Sourcing technology for any amount of time knows, the greatest sourcing and procurement successes are directly tied to properly managing adoption and continued usage by both the sourcing and stakeholder communities. The best software in the world is only marginally effective if only a tiny fraction of spend is under management and being executed through a strategic sourcing process. To be truly successful, companies must bring more spend under management.

In this Sourcing Innovation series which highlights strategies companies can utilize as the global recession slowly releases its grip, I will focus on a critical strategy that consistently drives success. It is not a theoretical concept that requires the use of the latest-and-greatest functionality, but one that works in the real world with tools most companies already have in place.

The critical strategy I refer to is Sourcing Execution, the tactical operation of strategic sourcing performed by a third party for a procurement organization. Most people are familiar with procurement outsourcing from years of experience with very large entities such as IBM or Indian BPO providers handling the P2P process in a remote call center. What a number of organizations are beginning to learn, however, is the same tactic can be done within the sourcing department. Automating transactional driven functions within the sourcing process increases the efficiency and impact of sourcing teams which will, in turn, increase spend under management and savings.

AMR Research has covered this topic very well, specifically in their latest research on “The 2009 Supply Management BPO Landscape: Short-Term Body-Shopping Trumps Business Transformation”. They have built a nice example of this process contained within the Spend Analysis model summarized below.

Offshore Operating Model
As clearly outlined in the example, there are very distinct areas labor can be divided. The outsourcing of tactical data management can increase the effectiveness of the local resources. Another compelling strategy for Sourcing Execution is to identify and outsource the “block and tackling” of the competitive bidding process. Companies can use different methods to achieve this goal:

  1. Tactical Execution:
    Support from the partner is generally remote and process oriented. Internal stakeholders prepare the bid data and deliver it to the partner to be executed in a pre-determined way as designed by the procedure team/steering committee. For example, taking the RFP elements and building the online sourcing project and inviting suppliers to participate. The third party makes no sourcing decisions, but the time line is dramatically compressed, thus allowing the organization to focus on the more strategic objectives of the category.
  2. SME Assisted:
    The next level of “on-demand” support makes Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) available on a short term basis, to offer strategic input during the most critical phases of the sourcing process. These SMEs might be experts in supply markets, risk/financial analysis, e-Sourcing or specific category expertise that is valuable. For example, developing a complete RFI/survey or relevant lotting strategy.
  3. Category Implementation and Compliance:
    A sourcing project is only as good as the implementation rate. If a company identifies 20% savings for a category and implements 5%, the actual delivered savings is zero. Category compliance services provide tactical support for tracking and following the implementation of awards by managing reports that highlight compliance areas that need attention. The service can also distribute repetitive information to suppliers and stakeholders as it relates to new contracts.
  4. Category Management:
    Full blown sourcing advisory services at a category level where a qualified sourcing professional manages the most of the sourcing lifecycle — from spend data collection through award analysis and negotiation. This is the traditional X-step process, depending on which management consulting firm got their first. The SME is an extension of the procurement team for 8-14 weeks on average. This period can be extended if implementation and compliance are required.

A shared service approach to outsourced strategic sourcing delivers numerous benefits. A normal sourcing lifecycle can be reduced to 2-6 weeks from a standard 2-6 months. This allows internal category managers to focus on strategic initiatives, supplier development and core Tier-1 sourcing opportunities. Allowing indirect and “C” Level items to run through collaborative management, increases the amount of spend under management and reduces costs dramatically without adding head count.

Two resources on this topic that are worth exploring in more detail are the previously mentioned AMR Research (specifically Phil Fersht and Mickey North Rizza) and TPI. Bill Huber at TPI is very wise in these topics as he has implemented and researched outsourcing for years.

Simply outsourcing for the labor arbitrage is a short term plan which will not have sustained results. Simultaneously leveraging a technology, process and people strategy enables you to realize sustainable objectives.

 

Thanks, David!

One … One Home Foreclosure …

Somehow, I don’t think even the Count is laughing now. After all, I’m sure his mansion is on the foreclosure list too.

That’s why I find this recent announcement from Sesame Workshop on it’s upcoming special on Families Standing Together: Feeling Secure in Tough Times both humorous and frightening at the same time.

In today’s economic climate, approximately two out of three middle class families are at high risk of sustaining or losing their economic security. Moreover, increases in job loss and income cuts have made families struggle with basic costs like housing, medical care, transportation, food, clothing, and child care. Too often, parents are being forced to make difficult decisions that affect their children’s well-being.

In response to these recent changes in family economics, Sesame Street has produced, in association with David Letterman’s production company Worldwide Pants Incorporated and Lookalike Productions, a new PBS primetime special that aims to help families with children, ages two to eight, experiencing difficult economic circumstances by offering strategies and tips that can lead to positive outcomes for their children’s physical and emotional well-being during this tough economic climate which will air on PBS on September 9 and feature Grover and Elmo.

I just hope “rich-poor” doesn’t replace “near-far” as classic Grover.