In the first instance, the commodity group ‘professional services’ nowadays encompasses an extremely broad range of technical and specialised services ranging from consultants (e.g. accounting and tax) to architectural, business communications, legal, medical, and so on. Secondly, because of the ever increasing complexity of the global economy and the processes of government, the need for […]
“Unfortunately it is a fact that organisations are exposed to certain financial and other employee-related risks, many of which occur within the procurement area. Risks to be seriously considered are ‘white-collar’ fraud, IT integrity and identity theft, workplace violence and unethical conduct in all its forms”, Elaine Porteous, Branch Manager – Interim and Executive Search
Hiring some new talent? Check them out properly first… Read More »
One of the key strategies in Strategic Cost Management is the option of sourcing your ‘direct’ or even ‘indirect’ commodities from Low Cost Countries (LCC’s). This would be done due to various factors, but primarily because LCC’s are sometimes in substantially more price competitive positions than organisations at home. Several countries are now classified as
Overcoming business barriers with China and gaining savings Read More »
Who is responsible for contracting Human Resources (HR) services in your organisation? “In essence, this category falls under ‘Services Spend’ and should accordingly form part of the Strategic Cost Management portfolio of an organisation… In general, the modern procurement department will be sufficiently equipped and resourced to be given the responsibility for the procurement of
HR Services procurement: Beyond the purchasing department’s scope? Read More »
“Courier Services is a surprisingly complex spend category to manage as the devil (and delivery of savings!) is in the detail,” benchmarker Purchasing Index (PI) MD Alan Low, told SmartProcurement. ” We regularly benchmarks domestic courier rates across organisations from a variety of industry sectors… and Rates from courier companies vary dramatically.” The charts
Courier Services Benchmarking Shows Up Rate Discrepancies Read More »
“The world-wide trend in commodity spend management is to either appoint speciality managers internally, or to outsource the spend to a credible third party service provider”, Gary Davies, Managing Director of Print Outsource International (POINT), told SmartProcurement in a recent interview. In the industry, this specialist outsourced service is neatly captioned “Print Management”. Furthermore,
Outsourcing Management of Print can lead to 30% cost savings Read More »
In a recent roundtable think-tank between UK members from Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply (CIPS) and the Management Consultancies Association (MCA), it was suggested that procurement should become more involved in the delivery, and not only the purchase, of management consultancy deals. Hugo Were, a partner at Accenture, and president of the MCA, said
Procurement vs Management Consultants and other Professional Services: Round 1 Read More »
There are several interpretations of the Professional Services commodity group. Greg Buckley a sourcing expert with Volition tells Smart Procurement: "Normally I consider it to be ‘the provision of services, by a 3rd party vendor, most often on an ad-hoc basis.’ His article claims that, although perhaps not the easiest category of procurement spend to
Taking control of Professional Services Spend… even Dog Handling! Read More »
The commercial agreement between the principal buyer and the service provider of outsourced logistics has far reaching, long term consequences for both parties. Cobus Rossouw of Volition shares some practical insights with Smart Procurement on how to extract the maximum value from your service provider…. “There are some common ideas being put forward as being
“Open Book Costing” and “Cost Plus” can hamper Outsourced Logistics contracts. Read More »
