Strategic Insights for Procurement Performance

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What is the Pulse Rate of Procurement in Europe?

By on May 23, 2013 in Contract Management, Financial Savings Management, Procure-to-Pay, Procurement Technology, Spend Analysis, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Management

Some of the serious challenges enterprises face today includes poor information quality, time-consuming and costly manual sourcing and procurement processes, weak process control and difficulty obtaining interest and support from internal spend stakeholders for procurement-led business performance improvement initiatives.

As part of a larger initiative to understand procurement landscape across the globe, Zycus commissioned the “Pulse of Procurement” research. The Europe research report offers some exciting insights for procurement organizations.…

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Cornerstones of an agile supply chain – Imperative no. V

By on April 16, 2013 in Procurement Technology, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Management

In this blog we will discuss the last imperative to build an agile supply chain. Click here, here, here and here to read about other imperatives in building an agile supply chain, discussed earlier.

The fifth imperative is –ENABLE RAPID RESPONSES & DEPLOYMENT.

Organizations that drive collaborative behavior in contracting approaches and maintaining healthy…

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Cornerstones of an agile supply chain – Imperative no. IV

By on April 11, 2013 in Procurement Technology, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Management

Till now we explored three imperatives to build an agile supply chain – Understanding the value proposition of your stakeholder, Understanding the ecosystem and Conduct scenario planning for impact assessment.

The fourth imperative is –BUILD RELATIONAL CONTRACTS.

Building relational contracts can help sourcing managers to plan for emergencies and uncertainties. A good relationship with the supplier ensures supplier…

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Cornerstones of an agile supply chain – Imperative no. III

By on April 5, 2013 in Procurement Technology, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Management

In the previous blog we discussed that the organization functions in conjunction with its immediate surrounding and society at large and thus understanding the ecosystem is preliminary to building an agile supply chain.

The third imperative is – CONDUCT SCENARIO PLANNING FOR IMPACT ASSESSMENT.

The next step after understanding the ecosystem is to conduct scenario analysis to gauge the impact of macroeconomic scenarios on the organization’s…

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Cornerstones of an agile supply chain – Imperative no. II

By on April 2, 2013 in Procurement Technology, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Management

In our earlier blog we discussed the first imperative to build an agile supply chain – understanding the value proposition of your internal and external stakeholders.

The second imperative is – UNDERSTANDING THE ECOSYSTEM.

An organization does not function in isolation. It influences and is influenced by its immediate surrounding and the society at large. It is therefore necessary to understand the ecosystem. This involves keeping…

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Cornerstones of an Agile Supply Chain – Imperative no. I

By on March 29, 2013 in Procurement Technology, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Management

In the previous blog we discussed why there is a need for businesses to develop an agile supply chain and listed the 5 imperatives to build an agile supply chain. In this blog we will discuss the first imperative.

The first imperative is – UNDERSTANDING THE VALUE PROPOSITION OF YOUR STAKEHOLDERS.

For implementing any key decision, its impact and significance for the stakeholders, both internal and…

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Cornerstones of an Agile Supply Chain

By on March 29, 2013 in Procurement Technology, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Management

For any business leader today the top challenge is cost. According to the latest Hackett report, managing supply risk has increased in priority (56% in 2013 vis-à-vis 42% in 2012) as a means of profit protection. Thus, as business leaders across industry sectors work towards realizing cost efficiencies, with millions of dollars at stake, the significance of supply chain is on rise and so is the impact of supply chain…

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Elevating Sourcing Process to the Next Level: Part 3 – Sourcing Simplified by Leveraging Technology

By on March 18, 2013 in Procurement Technology, Strategic Sourcing

In the second part of the series, we discussed how the sourcing process can be improved with the help of technology by accelerating event drafting and bringing in flexibility in scheduling the event.

In this post we will move on to the next two steps to simplify the sourcing process.

The third step is HOLISTIC RESPONSE ANALYSIS

This step involves analyzing the…

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Elevating Sourcing Process to the Next Level: Part 2 – Sourcing Simplified by Leveraging Technology

By on March 12, 2013 in Procurement Technology, Strategic Sourcing

In the first part, we discussed how the sourcing process has evolved over a period of time – from a highly manual process to the one backed by technology. We also explored the reasons mandating this shift in the process.

In this post we will see how the existing sourcing process can be improvised by using technology. The first step in this…

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Elevating Sourcing Process to the Next Level: Part 1 – Sourcing Redesigned

By on March 8, 2013 in Procurement Technology, Strategic Sourcing

Recently, head of Toshiba’s procurement function has been made the CEO. This instance again confirms procurement’s growing importance within the organization. The advent of technology has changed everything around us – the way we communicate, we shop, we live and the way businesses operate including sourcing.

In this 3 part series we would attempt to explore the shift in sourcing process and how it can be further improvised…

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