I hope that you have enjoyed the article “Negotiation Questions That Surprise Buyers.” It’s clear from the site hits and response that PurchTips articles about negotiation strategies are very popular. So I am going to make negotiation strategy a more frequent PurchTip topic. It’s one of the most beautiful days of the year in Pittsburgh today, so I’m going to…
Most of our historical appeal seems to be to the individual purchasing and supply management professional seeking improvements to their career. But lately, we’ve had some success with a new service geared towards the management of the purchasing function. We now compliment our online purchasing training with a service that allows management to: Assess the current skill levels of their…
As reported in an earlier post, one aspect of my current supply chain research is reviewing sales materials. And I’ve specifically been reading “Selling To Big Companies” by Jill Konrath. Well, aside from the nuggets I’ve shared earlier, there wasn’t much to learn from a “mechanics of supply chain” perspective from this book. It actually seems to be geared towards…
I was asked by a visitor to www.NextLevelPurchasing.com: “How can an eSourcing services solution can help mitigate a buyer’s concern on quality from vendors they haven’t worked with before?” The key to mitigating a buyer’s concern about ending up with a poor quality vendor after an eSourcing event is simple: rely on good purchasing practice, not just the technology. Pre-qualify…
In the course of my seemingly continuous supply chain research, I found this new search engine, RedZee. Search engines don’t generally excite me. I mean, there’s Google and is there room for anyone else? But this one has some neat features: a thumbnail of the site you’re about to visit, capability to search for MP3’s and videos, and, my favorite,…
I hope that you have enjoyed the article “Supplier Scorecard Price Comparison Formula.” I recently made a major, MAJOR supplier selection using the supplier scorecard approach. What was atypical about it was that price was only weighted at 10%. In my experience, most sourcing initiatives that use a supplier scorecard as a guide for supplier selection weigh price much higher.…
Total Cost of Ownership can be an overwhelming topic. In many cases, it is extremely challenging to calculate Total Cost of Ownership. Now, you can start trying to understand Total Cost of Ownership for the first time when you are in a complex situation in your work. But I think it helps to take a basic example and learn from…
As anyone who reads my purchasing articles knows, I am very big on good vendor relationship management. For the long-term success of an organization, you must have a focus on vendor relationship management with your key vendors. But sometimes the connotation of vendor relationship management doesn’t sit well with me. The way “vendor relationship management” is used by some people,…
We’ve recently redesigned the purchasing certificate that we award to individuals who complete one of our full-length supply chain online classes. We want our students to get a high-quality reward for their excellent work and diligence, so we have really upgraded the certificate’s appearance. Check out the new purchasing certificate at: http://www.NextLevelPurchasing.com/purchasing-certificate.html And without a price increase in the short…
I hope that you have enjoyed the article “Trend Alert: The Supplier Code of Conduct.” As an extra bonus, here are some other things that you can address in your supplier code of conduct: 1. The supplier must require its suppliers to abide by a supplier code of conduct acceptable to your organization 2. The supplier must comply with ethical…