The Dangers of Lean — Ignore at Your Peril
Even though I’m married to a Six Sigma black belt who wants to run Kaizen events to improve my personal organization and process efficiency both in the office and out, I’ll be the first to suggest that lean principals can introduce material risk into the supply chain — especially in volatile and risky economic markets. [...]
Dell and Others: The Business Dilemma of Pushing Out Payment Terms (Part 2)
In the first installment of this series, I began by suggesting that I don’t buy in to the fact that there is a moral dilemma to push out supplier payment terms. But I quickly got sidetracked and began to explore the potential and challenge of early payment discount programs offering an alternative approach and thereby [...]
Dell and Others: The Business Dilemma of Pushing Out Payment Terms (Part 1)
I’m sorry, but I could care less about the moral dilemma of pushing out payment terms, as many paint the payment term rationalization argument. I personally believe all that matters is the business dilemma of whether or not such logic makes sense based on the balancing act of improving working capital and keeping your suppliers [...]
Spend Management at 35,000 Feet — Reducing Fuel Requirements at American Airlines
Image via Wikipedia For all you frequent fliers in the Spend Management audience — I’m sure there are a good many of you — this article from the Chicago Tribune this past weekend is one that you should not miss. In it, the authors describe how American Airlines is attempting to get pilots to agree [...]
Basware and Lavante: Where Invoicing, Supplier Management and Audit Recover Meet? (Part 3)
In the first two posts in this series looking at the recently announced relationship between Basware and Lavante (Part 1 and Part 2), I provided context behind the partnership announcement, including a 30,000 foot fly-by of the audit recovery market and how Lavante has introduced a solution originally designed to automate and improve upon traditional [...]
Basware and Lavante: Where Invoicing, Supplier Management and Audit Recovery Meet? (Part 1)
Earlier in the month, Basware and Lavante announced a partnership that promises to more closely link the P2P, invoice management, supplier management and audit recovery areas. Basware, for those who are not familiar with this Finnish-based provider, is one of the largest — if not the largest — invoice automation / electronic invoice presentment payment [...]
Friday Rant: When Finance Takes Over Procurement
In my spring 2010 “predictions” conference presentation (which I’ve now given almost half a dozen times), one of the scenarios I posit for the future of procurement in the next five years is that finance will take a much more active stance and roll within the procurement function. I don’t think I’m alone in this [...]
