I regret to report that I’ve recently had a number of disturbing conversations with supply management executives from around the globe. Their comments clearly indicate that, despite all the blustering of bloggers, analysts, and even CPOs, the harsh truth is that, on the whole, the supply management discipline still has a long way to go:

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If you’re like me, your e-mail box is loaded with newsletters, research alerts, event invitations, and other “news” sources that seemed like a good idea to subscribe to at the time. These virtual infomercials do occassionally carry some valuable nuggets on best practices, category trends, or tips you can use to improve your supply management [more]

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A Supply Excellence reader comment to yesterday’s post reaffirmed the sense I’ve been getting from recent conversations with supply management executives: Everyone talks about best total value supply. (You can’t puruse a software vendor’s web site — including my employer — without being accosted by value terminology.) But few truly understand what best-value supply is. [more]

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In the midst of my current spend analysis fever, I came across this interesting factoid about the shifting dynamics of U.S. industry:
“Twenty years ago, the top 100 companies in the Fortune 500 either dug something out of the ground or turned a natural resource (iron ore or oil) into something you could hold,” wrote new-age [more]

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Countless analyst reports and enterprise testimonials (and even research conducted by Supply Excellence) point to the benefits of automated spend data management and analysis solutions. Automating data extraction, classification, enrichment, and analysis processes have been proven to improve spend visibility and leverage, enhance compliance rates, and uncover opportunities for cost savings of 2% to 12%.
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