Commuting through the haze created from several hundred California fires, I drove past my local water reservoir, which is currently at 16% of capacity. There’s talk in the region about water rations and rate increases are on the horizon. And that’s just my local water scarcity problem, caused by a prolonged drought and ever-rising consumption.
California’s [more]

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Jason Busch of SpendMatters recently hosted a number of podcasts with our Category and Commodity Managers (many of whom will be familiar names to regular Supply Excellence readers). The Category Chatter podcast series dives deep, sometimes very deep into the market trends, pitfalls and opportunities in each of these areas:

Low-Cost Country Sourcing - Jason and [more]

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We’ve talked a lot on this blog about the desire many companies have to move towards more sustainable, socially responsible supply chains. It sometimes feels as if companies can be divided into two camps: those who have embraced sustainability whole heartedly AND those who would … if they could only figure out where to start.
Well, [more]

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Sonoco’s Supply Systems Manager, Jennifer Roberts, gave an interesting talk on their Supplier Performance Management (SPM) efforts at Ariba LIVE in Brussels last week. Her team has led Sonoco’s efforts to move off of static Excel spreadsheets and to a more automated and far reaching approach. Ultimately, they want to bring every “critical” supplier into [more]

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When I read Jason Busch’s latest tirade against Wal-Mart’s sustainable supply strategy, I tried to refrain from comment. Unfortunately, restraint is not one of my better qualities.
The Spend Matters’ blogmaster chalked up the news of Wal-Mart’s ongoing effort to reduce the carbon footprint, packaging, and waste in its supply chain to just another example of [more]

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