Next Level Purchasing Association Podcast

Procurement strategies often fail. This podcast contains tips for successful procurement strategies.

eSourcing, the process of obtaining bids from different suppliers via a single online portal, has many benefits. Learn the benefits of eSourcing and how to get started today.

If you are considering implementing a supplier management process at your organization, you may wonder where to start and what metrics to choose. It's critical to begin strategically because early decisions are the foundation for all future supplier management work.

Supplier insurance requirements vary between companies, but there are two main reasons why companies require supplier insurance. Consider these points in determining supplier insurance requirements.

When buying custom items that only one supplier can make, using a should cost model is one way of determining fair pricing. This podcast gives tips for making accurate should cost models.

Travel and expense (T http://www.feedvalidator.org E) management has traditionally been handled outside of the procurement department. Follow these tips for better T and E management.

Today's economy presents many sourcing problems for both purchasers and suppliers. Learn the sourcing problems many purchasers are experiencing in today's economy and how to handle them.

Top management is counting on you to deliver better procurement results, but do you really know the finer points of strategic procurement. Learn secrets for ensuring that your procurement activities are more successful.

If you think that simply doing a "good job" will get you promoted to higher and higher procurement positions until you reach the CPO level, you may be in for an unpleasant surprise. There are certain characteristics that make you "CPO material."

When companies seek to reduce their expenditures on goods, they often try to source new suppliers. There are several ideas for achieving cost reductions without switching suppliers.

Procurement technology helps accelerate business improvements. The key to convincing senior management to invest in procurement technology is showing them a return on investment.

Because of the differences between domestic and global strategic sourcing, you need the right skills, knowledge, and tools to successfully source globally. This podcast discusses some of the most important global strategic sourcing tools.

Green procurement is quickly becoming a bigger focus in purchasing. Purchasing departments are looking for better green procurement processes in order to reduce their company's carbon footprint.

Many times, the cost savings estimated at the beginning of a contract exceeds the amount that you actually save. This failure to achieve cost savings potential is called "leakage" and poses a threat to the credibility of purchasing professionals and departments.

One of the keys to maximizing the positive impact of a supplier relationship is "getting your own house in order." In other words, if your own systems, processes, and people are not up to par, you can adversely affect the supplier's performance.

Your resume (or CV) can either help you greatly increase your salary or hinder your career advancement. Here's how to achieve the former with your resume.

Conducting Market Intelligence can reduce risk, increase savings, improve decision-making, discover new suppliers, new capabilities of existing suppliers, and countries where capable suppliers can be found. Hargraves says it can also help you gather data on supplier financial viability and business continuity, build cost models for use in negotiations, and find early warnings for supply market changes.

Small suppliers do have certain advantages such as fewer channels to go through to get responses and sometimes even lower cost due to less overhead. But you also need to understand that small suppliers can cause big problems when they perform poorly. Three precautions I recommend taking with a new, small supplier are: investigate the supplier's history, evaluate the supplier's capacity, and don't pay 100% up front.

Socially responsible purchasing is a hot trend these days but there's one topic that's been sorely missing from every set of socially responsible purchasing guidelines I've seen. I'll break new ground and give you a glimpse into the future of socially responsible purchasing by addressing the missing topic of animal welfare.

When you encounter situations with lots of constraints and complexities, it becomes quite challenging to figure out the best supplier selection. For these types of situations, some purchasing departments utilize supply chain optimization technology to support their decisions.

When you encounter situations with lots of constraints and complexities, it becomes quite challenging to figure out the best supplier selection. For these types of situations, some purchasing departments utilize supply chain optimization technology to support their decisions.

As corporate social responsibility becomes more widely discussed, more organizations are asking purchasing departments to increase supplier diversity spend. But supplier diversity programs have unique challenges.

Simplified, spend analysis is the systematic review of historical purchase data. The output of a spend analysis is a summary of purchases by various variables, such as category, supplier, and/or business unit. The primary reason for conducting spend analysis is to identify opportunities for cost savings.

Whether they are happy about it or not, it is becoming more and more common for purchasing professionals to be made responsible for management of the warehouse. Therefore, do not be surprised if warehouse management is added to your list of responsibilities in the near future. To prepare for this trend, we wil explore the similarities between purchasing and warehouse management.

We’ll be exploring best practices in sourcing something that just about every organization purchases and some organizations spend millions of dollars on – office supplies! We'll discuss some of the hidden challenges and secrets to success of office supplies sourcing.

A good contract management process ensures that both the buying organization and the supplier fulfill all of the obligations that they agreed to in signing a contract. It also helps the buying organization achieve all of the benefits it expected to when contracting with a supplier.

Instead of a purchasing department sourcing for a category of goods or services to establish a favorable contract with a supplier, joining a GPO will give that purchasing department access to an existing contract with favorable pricing and terms. Purchasing departments join GPO’s primarily for savings. By combining its spend with that of other companies, a purchasing department gets the buying power and leverage of a much larger organization.

In the late ‘90’s, the field of supply chain technology exploded with new innovations such as eProcurement, reverse auctions, and more. The bursting of the dot-com bubble slowed the pace of innovation but, in 2006, we are seeing the return of innovative technology in the supply chain field as well as the Internet in general. We will explore three emerging supply chain technology innovations: software delivery, community intelligence, and buyer-supplier collaboration.

What do your suppliers think when negotiating with you? We identified several negotiating principles for purchasing managers.