WhitePapers

A Toolkit for Sourcing Road Transportation
The impact of the current economic crisis has been as brutal on the transportation industry, as it has been on the financial sector. Most analysts have been reporting that freight demand has hit rock bottom and this has put transportation spend under particular scrutiny at most companies. Companies understand that transportation usually represents significant spend and that they need to bring it under control, but occasionally find themselves lacking the tools and techniques to reduce cost while maintaining or improving service. Savings of a few cents per mile can save millions of dollars annually, but choosing an unreliable carrier to save those few cents can result in potential revenue losses of millions as well. This trade-off necessitates a finely nuanced approach for sourcing transportation, maximizing the potential savings while ensuring that high service levels are retained. This paper aims to provide the reader with a toolkit to implement best practices in Full Truckload transportation sourcing, however the basic principles hold true for other modes as well. The paper also addresses achieving additional efficiencies in transportation management through technology implementation in load-tendering, optimization, invoice payments, audits.
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Sourcing Chemicals
The global chemicals market is going through a period of extreme volatility as commodity prices are swinging wildly, uncertainty coupled with the economic downturn, have increased difficulties for chemical buyers to make the right sourcing decisions. The market is just ruining buyer’s peace of mind and a large number of current sourcing decisions are focused on achieving quick savings, leaving the long term value-creation opportunities vulnerable to the whims and fantasies of the market.
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Leaders Battling Procurement
The heat of the 2008-09 meltdown has singed industries across the board - automobiles, financial services, manufacturing, travel, and retail have been the worst hit. Procurement leaders worldwide are now engaged in fire-fighting at the front lines with mandate to cut costs across the board. People must go, products must go, and markets must go, to survive the recession as consumer sentiments have already hit at an all time low. No one knows how long this is going to last, and how many more surprises are in store. Downturns dramatically re-order industry positioning, and separate the leaders from the rest of the crowd. “Never waste a good recession” goes a popular saying. We try and understand what leaders mean by this and what they are doing to change procurement in these troubled times. Branded as the “elite cost-cutters”, many leaders are taking the long term view. This paper synthesizes common wisdom gleaned from such leaders and offers a contrarian view of the current market situation – a step away from the talk of all gloom and doom.
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Unbundling the Category Management Function in an Economic Downturn
In today’s economic environment, CFOs have increased savings targets for their respective procurement departments and procurement executives are looking at innovative ways to reduce costs for their corporations with minimal investments. For procurement to effectively communicate the value that their function can bring to these new stakeholders often require a category knowledge specific to these functions. However, some organizations have taken this to an extreme level, hiring an army of category managers across functional areas requires a significant investment which is hard to come by especially in this current economic downturn. In this paper, we propose an innovative way to “unbundle” the category management function.
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Sourcing with 'The Pros'
Companies today are looking for areas where they can squeeze out additional productivity and cost savings. One area that traditionally hasn’t been tackled very well by procurement has been professional services – in part due to the aura these companies have built up around their services. This white paper tackles the fears and concerns of "sourcing of professional services”. With a focus on providing practical advice to the procurement professional, we have compiled the latest, most effective trends in sourcing relationship-driven categories such as legal services, management consulting, and creative marketing and have also included ‘myth-busting’ case studies from companies that have successfully sourced professional services categories – and lived to tell the tale.
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The Phantom Menace - The meltdown may have been averted but the crisis remains
The financial crisis is rapidly moving from Wall Street to Main Street as most companies’ results are reflecting squeezed operating margins. Net margins are further impacted by tighter, more expensive access to credit. This paper provides CEOs, CFOs and Procurement leaders alternative short and long-term prescriptions that their procurement organizations can utilize to achieve cost reductions, reduce margin compression and release cash from operations while implementing procurement related best- practices that will separate market leaders from laggards when the market eventually recovers.
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Overcoming fear, uncertainty and doubts (FUDs) about SaaS Procurement Solutions
Making a smart investment decision while acquiring sourcing and procurement technologies is never easy. There are a lot of fears, uncertainty and doubts (FUDS) about multiple issues, some needlessly planted by vendors themselves. In this paper we focus our attention on a critical issue i.e. the choice of a software delivery platform that works best for you: Software delivered as a service or on-premise solution. Should you place your bets on SaaS? Find out for yourself what works now.
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Facility Management - Cost Effectiveness and Process Optimization through Strategic Sourcing and Outsourcing
Facilities and its related support services represent a large cost in most companies. The optimization of these services can make a huge impact on a company’s financial results. The adoption of firm-wide standards and processes combined with strategic sourcing as well as the use of outsourcing vendors for non-strategic facilities services are key elements in the pursuit of cost effectiveness and process optimization. Trends include higher quality service delivery at lower cost, the increased application of automation technology, and outsourcing benefits and related gains in skills and domain expertise.
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Make the right turns along your Transformation Journey
Successful procurement transformation is all about making the right turns at the right time, to deliver anticipated value on time.
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Simplifying Procurement Technology
Simplifying Technology is a compelling vision for the procurement organization of the future. Challenged by issues of slow adoption, lack of resources and perennial technology bottlenecks, procurement leaders are re-defining their search for the right solution. Find out why 'simplifying technology' may be a smarter alternative to the conventional approach.
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Procurement Outsourcing
Many enterprises are taking considerable interest in procurement BPO because of its ability to impart two key benefits -- cost reduction and value creation -- two factors which are highly desirable in today’s business environment. Procurement outsourcing facilitates the reduction of operational costs and also has the ability to impact third-party expenditures, in addition to operational expenses. By virtue of the quick pay-back period associated with procurement outsourcing, the value proposition for these initiatives is fairly compelling.
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Impact of eSourcing on Supplier Relationships
Companies are increasingly looking at e-sourcing and reverse auctions as a means by which to reduce their procurement expenses and provide bottom line savings to the organization in a relatively short time. However, this has sometimes led to resistance among suppliers who believe that e-sourcing results in commoditization of goods and services, lack of appreciation of value-added services, and in negative impacts on buyer-supplier relationships. This presentation discusses the likely impacts of e-sourcing and reverse auctions on supplier relationships. It also presents short and long-term strategies to both buyers and suppliers to minimize costs and maximize collaboration / benefits.
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eSourcing for Services Industry
Over the last few years, many corporations have successfully implemented revolutionary eSourcing processes and tools to strengthen their strategic sourcing processes. These eSourcing efforts have aided organizations in realizing tangible and sustainable reductions in their sourcing costs. However, a major focus of these eSourcing initiatives has been primarily aimed at the goods producing sector and for product categories of direct and indirect materials. The service industry, which is a significant portion of the U.S. economy, has not yet reaped the benefits of eSourcing tools. In the tough and competitive economic environment, companies in the service industry are increasingly looking at innovative ways to reduce their operating expenses without compromising quality and service levels. This paper focuses on eSourcing tools and processes for the service industry.
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The Case for Spend Analysis
Without having access to accurate, detailed spend data, organizations are unable to effectively source quality products and services at the best possible prices. Most organizations have difficulty gaining access and control over detailed spend data because often times a) much of the data exists in the form of paper-based invoices b) electronic data is spread across multiple enterprise transaction systems and c) the captured spend data is inaccurate and improperly classified due to errors in the data entry process. Having a systematic process for spend analysis at regular intervals is critical for any company to achieve the most savings out of strategic sourcing . This white paper focuses on the case for spend analysis.
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