Category Archives: Event

Acquiring e-Sourcing and e-Procurement Technology: What Questions Should You Be Asking?

Join Sourcing Innovation and the doctor for the next NLPA Members-only webinar on Acquiring e-Sourcing and e-Procurement Technology; What Questions Should You Be Asking. Taking place next Wednesday, February 26, at 8:30 am Pacific, 11:30 am Eastern, and 16:30 pm GMT (London) time.

This webinar, which follows Novembers webinar on Making Sense of e- in Sourcing and Procurement, will outline the critical questions that must be asked when searching for an e-Sourcing or an e-Procurement solution.

In our last webinar, we clearly defined the sourcing and procurement cycle, indicated where each technology (e-Sourcing, e-Negotiation, e-Procurement, e-Invoicing, e-Auction, e-RFX, e-Contract, e-Payment, Procure-to-Pay, Source-to-Pay, etc.) fell, outlined what each technology did, and indicated the conditions that needed to exist for each solution to potentially be appropriate for your organization. This provided your organization with a set of questions it could ask to determine what technologies it needed to focus on as it looked to acquire new sourcing and procurement technologies to support it in its Supply Management Journey.

However, just knowing that your organization needs a solution is not enough, especially if its biggest need is a basic e-Negotiation suite that is theoretically available from over two dozen vendors. Which solution, or solutions, are right for your organization? Depending on the needs of the organization, it might be the case that only two out of twenty solutions will appropriately address the organizational needs, but unless the right questions are asked, it might look like six meet the needs and the organization will have a 66% chance of selecting the wrong solution.

That’s why the doctor of Sourcing Innovation is hosting this follow-up webinar on Acquiring e-Sourcing and e-Procurement Technology; What Questions Should You Be Asking. You’ll learn the critical questions that must be asked when searching for an e-Sourcing or an e-Procurement solution, some important questions that should also be considered for each major module, and how to structure a (multi-round) RFX for Success.

To register for this free event, login to the NLPA and navigate to the “Webinars” tab where you’ll find a registration link. Be sure to enter a valid email address as attendance details will be sent to you by email. Registration is free (as is basic NLPA membership) but attendance is limited, so sign up soon to ensure access to this event. (If you have forgotten your NLPA password, please visit the NLPA password reset page.)

See you next Wednesday, February 26, at 8:30 am Pacific, 11:30 am Eastern, and 16:30 pm GMT (London) time.

Sadly, It Looks Like the doctor’s 2014 Procurement Prediction is Going to Come True!

In Prediction Time Again? Ugh. (Part I and Part II), the doctor predicted that 2014 will be 2013 part II and 2009 part VI. Specifically, this means that

  • the focus will continue to be on cost-cutting and not value-creation,
  • valuable, high-ROI, technology will continue to be ignored, and
  • the training and new talent budgets will remain empty.

According to Deloitte’s recently released Global CPO Survey, 79% of CPO priorities have cost reduction as their #1 priority.

According to the Hackett Group’s recent EPM Executive Perspective on Technology Enablement: A Critical Piece of the Performance Management Puzzle, 63% of world class and 82% of peer group organizations still create management reports using spreadsheets as the primary business application.

And ProcureCon’s just-released “State of Indirect Procurement Benchmark Report”, which was complied from the responses to a benchmarking questionnaire distributed to ProcureCon Indirect West’s audience of procurement and sourcing practitioners, found that 55% of attendees at the event felt that their Procurement team was not adequately staffed and 60% of their organizations had no plans to increase the team size.

It’s a dismal state of affairs indeed.

If you need ideas to help kickstart your Supply Management organization and get out of this quagmire, consider joining the doctor at the inaugural ProcureCon Canada event (and register with code PCA14SI). Let’s share ideas, knowledge, and a commitment to moving the discipline forward, even if we need to light a few fires.

Join the doctor at ProcureCon Canada!


ProcureCon Canada will take place from March 17 through March 19, 2014 at the Hyatt Regency in Toronto. Attend and join over 100 leading practitioners in Sourcing and Procurement to share insights, best practices, and case studies to drive your Supply Management in 2014. Sourcing Innovation readers save 25% when registering with code PCA14SI.

Through months of research, ProcureCon Canada has identified a Supply Manager’s top priorities for 2014 and has speakers and sessions to address the identified topics, including:

  • Increasing automation and centralization in your processes to enhance productivity, cost savings, and value
  • Creating lifelong value in procurement
  • Minimizing risk in the supply chain
  • Optimizing supplier performance and relationship management
  • Leveraging the latest procurement technologies for better business results

So join ProcureCon Canada and the doctor who will be moderating the panel on Optimizing Spend Analysis and Visibility to Maintain Cost Reductions at 11:55 am on Tuesday, March 18, 2014.

If you’re looking to start a spend analysis effort or improve the returns from your current effort, this is a chance to get some of your questions answered. In addition the e-Book Spend Visibility: An Implementation Guide, co-authored by the doctor and Bernard Gunther (of Lexington Analytics, which was acquired by Opera Solutions), is still free and available. This e-book, which has been downloaded over 10,000 times, provides detailed guidance on how to start your spend analysis and visibility journey.

Looking forward to seeing you at ProcureCon! And remember to register with the “PCA14SI” code.

A Major Disruption to Supply Chains Occurs Every Day – Is Yours Ready?

In 2013, Resilinc, a provider of supply chain resiliency soutions, reported 355 major Event Notifications that significantly impacted all supply chains that were in the vicinity of, or connected to, the event, which included natural disasters (hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tornado, extreme weather, and other force majuere events), man-made disasters (factory fires/explosions, power outages/shortages, factory shut-downs, chemical spills, etc.), extreme economic events (labour strikes, bankruptcies, port disruptions, levying of major fines, etc.), geopolitical events (acquisitions, rioting, FDA actions, etc.), and recalls, to name a few. Some of these events, such as bankruptcies, were localized to a few dozen companies that depended on the supplier that went bankrupt, but others, such as the Solomon Islands earthquake and tsunami off the coast of Japan or the Haiyan Typhoon in the Philippines (that wiped out a number of coastal cities) affected thousands of sites and the tens of thousands of supply chains that depended on the suppliers that had factories, warehouses, and/or other operations at those sites.

The impact of these events on their respective supply chains ranged from tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of millions. If a factory that produces a critical single-sourced component for your most profitable product line is destroyed, the costs associated with finding a new source — which include, but are not limited to, manpower costs, premium production costs, premium raw material costs, downtime costs, lost customer costs, etc. — add up quickly and can easily run into the tens of millions for large high tech, equipment manufacturing, aerospace, and automotive companies.

But if your company is prepared, most of these costs can be mitigated. How do you prepare? You make the right investments in supply chain resiliency. To find out how to get support from the C-Suite for these investments, tune into this Wednesday’s webcast on Justifying Investments in Supply Chain Resiliency in 2014, sponsored by Sourcing Innovation and Resilinc.

Justifying 2014 Investments in Supply Chain Resiliency

Are you looking to justify investments in supply chain risk and resiliency programs in 2014?

Can you determine a return on investment (ROI) from investing in supply chain resiliency?

How are other organizations leveraging supply chain resiliency solutions to drive real business benefits?

If you want to learn the answer to these questions, and more, attending the complementary upcoming webinar from Resilinc and Sourcing Innovation on Justifying 2014 Investments in Supply Chain Resiliency on January 29, 2014 @ 11 am PT, 14 pm ET, and 19 pm GMT.

Supply chain resiliency is becoming more important daily because the frequency, magnitude, and associated costs of supply chain disruptions are steadily increasing.

This webinar will examine the different types of cost savings and examples that can be obtained through a proactive supply chain risk and resiliency strategy based on multi-tier supply chain visibility.

Looking forward to seeing you there!