Commentary Archives - Page 20 of 21

Procurement function one of most important drivers of future business success

Leave a Comment / Commentary, Global Sourcing, Low Cost Sourcing, Procurement Strategy, Smart Sourcing, Sustainable Procurement / StaffWriter

The procurement function has a significant role to play in an organisation’s future business success in the global market, far beyond its past role of simple order processing, said Gerd Kerkhoff, CEO of Kerkhoff Consulting, tells SmartProcurement. Today’s economies do not operate in isolation, but are intricately interwoven with others in which their suppliers and […]

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AMR report – Supply Chain is making it to the board

Leave a Comment / Commentary, Procurement Strategy, Supply Chain Management SCM / StaffWriter

Responsibility for the supply chain is moving to board level, a report by AMR Research has noted. “Twenty years ago, a typical product company had the supply chain reporting to manufacturing, with responsibility mainly for inbound materials management and outbound shipping.”

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Understanding the Purchasing Environment

Leave a Comment / Commentary, Procurement Strategy / StaffWriter

Procurement practitioners will only add sustainable value to an organisation’s bottom-line if they understand the environment in which they operate, Ronald Mlalazi (MCIPS), Edu cation Manager at Commerce Edge Academy, tells SmartProcurement. In his seventh article for SmartProcurement’s series on World-Class Procurement Practice, Mlalazi discusses the need for Procurement professionals to understand the purchasing environment

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Playing with giants – India

Leave a Comment / Commentary, Global Sourcing, Negotiation / StaffWriter

India’s influence in Africa is growing. Elaine Porteous, SmartProcurement Associate Editor and Procurement advisor discusses how to make the most of this partnership. Indian companies are increasingly investing in Africa. “India will invest US$1,5-trillion in the next five years,” declared Anand Sharma, India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry, at a recent conference in Nigeria on

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Customer-focused SCM would boost municipal performance

Leave a Comment / Commentary, Supply Chain Management SCM / StaffWriter

Service delivery for the customer of the Republic of South Africa – the citizen – takes place through local government. Recent service delivery protests have strongly indicated that there is much scope for improvement in terms of how government is able to meet the basic needs of citizens through its local authorities. In his master’s

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Volume leveraging benefits – Where’s the evidence?

Leave a Comment / Commentary, Public Sector Procurement, Smart Sourcing, Sourcing Strategy / StaffWriter

Public sector Procurement organisations of many of today’s recession-hit territories are responding to demands for savings in various ways, including increasingly desperate attempts (in many cases) to deliver Procurement savings by pressurising suppliers to deliver lower prices, on the largest possible scale. Over the last few years public and pri vate sector volume leveraging strategies

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Reducing SA’s Carbon Footprint – the Procurement profession’s role

Leave a Comment / Benchmarking, Commentary, Sustainable Procurement / Editor

Reducing Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) has become a priority for South African business and the Government.What role will procurement professionals play in this regard? The following graph shows the various scenarios of the changes to the volume of SA’s GHG emissions. At the Climate Change Summit earlier in 2009, consensus between industry and government included the

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Procurement visibility needed at compulsive buyer: UK National Health Service (NHS)

Leave a Comment / Commentary, Procurement Strategy, Public Sector Procurement, Technology / StaffWriter

In the United Kingdom (UK) Government’s search for budget balancing savings of tens of £ billions annually, as led by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, attention is increasingly directed to the more than £160 billion that the public sector reportedly spent on the procurement of goods and services from third party suppliers (half of which is

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PART 2: How to negotiate with a SOLE Supplier

6 Comments / Commentary, Negotiation, SRM Supplier Relationship Management, Tools & Tips / bernievn

By Bernie van Niekerk Its that time of the year…. Your SOLE supplier is about to present you “their valued customer” with their “negotiated” increase. They know, and you know that there is not much that you can do about it…. Now for whatever reason (part 1 of this article dealt with making sure you

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How to negotiate with a SOLE Supplier (Part 1)

Leave a Comment / Commentary, Negotiation, SRM Supplier Relationship Management, Tools & Tips / bernievn

By Bernie van Niekerk You know the feeling …Their price increases are double that of everybody else’s… As far as their service is concerned well you’ve got 2 choices. 1. Take it or 2.Leave it! Their ”service” personnel are insolent to say the least. But there is one thing that you both know. namely, this

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