Will the Industry Analyst’s Micro-Definition of Sourcing Ever Change?
I remember the first time I read a Gartner report at FreeMarkets. Our account representative at the time pointed out a new
report dedicated to examining “strategic sourcing” — something that
would be right up our alley. He referred me to a pri…
Ketera Joins the Free eRFX Fray
Last week, Ketera announced a new free eRFX offering designed around connecting buyers to suppliers. There’s
nothing overly novel in the approach of providing a free forum to
connect buyers and suppliers — MFG.com, Ariba’s network, and others …
Ariba, Wipro, and the Consultant/Channel Game (Part 1)
Earlier in the week, Ariba announced it was partnering with Wipro Consulting
Services in a licensing deal. Ariba’s goal is to get the outsourcing firm’s consulting arm up and running on its sourcing application. Taken alone, the deal is unremarkab…
Friday Rant: Doubling Down on Spend Matters (Part 2)
In a column from last Friday, I provided some background details on the current state of Spend Matters as well as intimating what might be around the corner. To summarize, for those who missed it and don’t want to read the first installment in this s…
SAP Influencer Summit, Dispatch 3: Summarizing E-Sourcing On-Demand Themes
While I plan to provide additional details on some of what I
learned around SAP’s On-Demand E-Sourcing
developments (from pricing to modular component break-out information),
not to mention providing some context around how
customers curre…
SAP Influencer Summit, Dispatch 2: First-Day Ramblings
I knew I was in trouble last night when fellow Enterprise Irregular, Dennis Howlett, cornered me in the pub around 10:30 in the evening and I asked if I was sober enough to record a video. The topics he wanted to ask were to focus on my first day imp…
SAP Influencer Summit, Dispatch 1: On-Demand Differentiation and Vision
After a 1:30 AM landing (thank you, United), I made it to my hotel room
early Tuesday morning so that I could attend the
SAP Influencer Summit later in the day. The main reason for my
attendance, a Wednesday session specifically devoted to s…
Is Buffet Betting on a Commodities Gold Rush With His New Railroad?
Over on Spend Matters affiliate site MetalMiner, my better half, Lisa Reisman, recently speculated about some of the reasons why Warren Buffet may have bought out the rest of Burlington Northern. For all you Berkshire groupies, the deal is particular…
Marketing Spend — The Straight Dope From the Spending Culprits (Part 3)
In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, I looked at a number of observations from a recent Advertising Age article examining how the marketing and agency world is looking at procurement’s involvement in marketing spend with equal degrees of fear, cynicism a…
Have CFOs Moved Beyond Cost Reduction and Supply Risk Management?
I was just saying to someone in the trade publishing business earlier this week how procurement organizations have lacked a more executive-focused but moderate-to-highly circulated publication compared with finance groups who have enjoyed the relativ…
