Benchmarking

Analysing maverick spend between multiple procurement organisations.

The bain of procurement spend analysis is trying to analyse items which have been given different descriptions by end users. Now imagine having to do this across multiple organisations at the same time! This is the challenge faced by Purchasing Index when benchmarking prices of items between its various clients. “One of the biggest challenges

Analysing maverick spend between multiple procurement organisations. Read More »

Air travel prices continuing down… But isn’t the total cost going up?

This graph shows the index for the average SAA, BA Comair & Nationwide net economy return ticket prices (excluding taxes and VAT) for the Johannesburg – Cape Town route across a number of organizations from September 2002 to 2005. This index shows that net prices have been moving down despite the price of aviation fuel

Air travel prices continuing down… But isn’t the total cost going up? Read More »

Consulting and professional Services under the Procurement Spotlight

As Procurement expands its influence across the organisation, many large expense categories come under a new commercial spotlight. ‘Consulting Services’, a spend category often covering an amalgam of services from strategic business consulting to IT consulting and even contract labour, poses new opportunities and challenges…

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New Leading Practice Benchmarking Service launched

Purchasing Index is launching a new continuous Benchmarker service, aimed at showing participating organisations how procurement practices are carried out in SA organizations, how it is changing over time and what are the developing trends…According to Alan Low, MD of Pricetrak…. … participating organizations from a variety of business sectors will be asked to assist

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PC Prices drop faster than the rand strengthens

The average purchase prices for standard desktop and laptop PCs recorded by Purchasing Index in their continuous quarterly PC benchmarking service. The graph shows that the cost of PC technology in RSA has continued to drop far quicker than the Rand has strengthened against the Euro and US Dollar. In addition the specification for the

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Stationery Prices continue downward trend. Is there still scope to negotiate?

During the last month the prices of paper and envelopes have echoed the trend since September 2005. As a result prices are almost 15% lower than this time last year. (Based on last year’s prices.) But this is not the whole picture… Since the producer price index gained about 6.5% over the period, the real

Stationery Prices continue downward trend. Is there still scope to negotiate? Read More »

Critiscism of procurement performance : Can benchmarking provide answers?

Department X (names have been changed to protect the innocent 🙂)was very vocal in criticizing the prices a local Shared Services department achieved on a centrally negotiated supplier agreement. This happened recently at a South African financial sector company where Purchasing Index had been providing benchmarking services to the Shared Services department for some years.

Critiscism of procurement performance : Can benchmarking provide answers? Read More »

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