Strategic Sourcing Europe

Late July 09, Wal-Mart announced plans to develop a worldwide sustainable product index, which is expected to lead to higher quality, lower costs and measure the sustainability of products and help customers, live better in the 21st century. This index will be build out of a 3 steps program, starting by the assessment of their 100 000 supplier base with a Supplier Sustainability Assessment.

Do you have a clear understanding of what Supply Risk Management means, of what other professionals think?
Are you not interested in sharing your vision? If so, the survey described below and initiated by the MIT might worth being completed.

PwC is proposing an online tool to benchmark a purchasing function through 39 criteria. Collecting data – to complete this benchmark – is announced to require 4 to 6 hours. This benchmarking tool is part of PwC’s Global Best Practices Knowledge base. Compare performance with other companies by using this quantitative diagnostic tool created to [...]

Comparing your performance to your peers in your industry is essential to understand how good you are. Many ways to do so and hereby is another one I just identified, focused on ‘Cost Performance’, reading the article “In Pursuit of a Cutting Edge” published on CFO.com. You” be able to compare your company performance against leading US players in following markets (link brings you directly to an excel tool):

2 and 3 years ago, I did this exercice already; comparing the online footprint of leading Spend Management Solution vendors with Alexa.  You’ll find below the update 2009  including for the first time Quadrem, Zycus,  Hubwoo and MFG as I appreciate them belonging to the  leading players. At the very bottom you’ll get  additional information [...]

Aberdeen revealed Top 4 pressures in its April 2009 report. Pretty basic, standard and ‘to be expected’ in current economic turmoil, but speed in responding to those market requirement will be the key success factor. Those 4 pressures are listed below and prioritized in the ‘figure 2′ included.

A European survey 2007 on “Responsible Purchasing” (involving 300 CPO) has just been released, published by HEC Business School, EcoVadis and Ariba. The objective of the survey was (read my former post) to identify the ‘tools’ which will help the better an organization to make Sustainable Procurement practices a reality. The report is worth reading [...]

Aberdeen Supply Management research is undertaking a new survey about the procurement of marketing materials and services. I received the following notice today: Corporate spend around marketing (including print, marketing and advertising media and services) is significant within organizations, driving efforts to reduce costs in this complex category of spend. Approximately 40% of enterprises previously reported [...]

I got the news directly from Kay Bayen (EIPM) something like 2 weeks ago.  If you want to participate, just go there: http://eipm.socratesonline.com/salary/. You’ll be able to compare your salary with 2000 respondents and benchmark it through different criteria: industry, age, job position, geographic zone, education level etc. Enjoy and many thanks to Kay

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) just released the outcome of their new survey (2007) about outsourcing, based on US/UK client mainly . Straightforward, clear, worth reading I feel. If the tag-line is nothing surprising at all (we all recognise that collaboration is more powerful than simple ordering), the dimensions of the analysis executed by Pat McArdle and his [...]

This is the amazing overall result of a serious security-oriented study commissioned by enterprise rights management company  Liquid Machines. Conducted online, more than 900 professionals, with 84% from the US, were polled over a one-month period earlier this year.  Sharon Gaudin, from the InformationWeek , reviewed the study and wrote a full article about it. [...]

Do you know BITC? I guess you do… if you are CSR-addicted. If not, this post might be useful to you. BITC (Business In The Community) is a unique independent business led charity whose purpose is to inspire, engage, and support and challenge companies, to continually improve the impact they have on society. With a [...]

Though the impact of sustainable development in the supply chain and procurement has been on HEC radar screen for already 4 years, the french HEC School of management has decided to expand their research with the support of Ariba – duly represented by an eProcurement/eSourcing pioneer Pierre Francois Thaler, currently director of managed procurement services [...]

CAPS Research, A.T. Kearney, and the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) are jointly sponsoring a research study entitled “Succeeding in a Dynamic World: Supply Management in the Decade Ahead.” The research will identify trends shaping tomorrow’s business strategies and models and how these will affect the ways that organizations develop, manage, and use supply relationships [...]