There is much written and said about successful vendor management. However very little concerns the fundamental cornerstones of sound vendor management. The below listed cornerstones, though ridiculously obvious, are frequently ignored and if, are the root cause of many supplier and internal stakeholder disputes that often have far reaching and bitter consequences. 1) Vendor Due … Read more

Procurement Due Diligence is frequently mentioned in the South African press regards the ongoing revelations around the PPE corruption debacle, as well as other current and past ones.  Providing the Vendor Selection & Appointment Process is NOT compromised, Due Diligence is vital to any Procurement Executive and their employer organisation to ensure an optimised supply … Read more

When planning any form of successful Strategic Sourcing Change Initiative, the pre-planning (prepping) is as important as the actual Change Initiative planning and implementation itself. This is obvious, even to those with minimal change initiative experience, but it is astonishing how many times these basic pre-plan components are overlooked and result in Initiative failure or … Read more

A lot of confusion exists as to what the difference is between Strategic Sourcing and Purchasing. Many people ‘bundle both disciplines into the same generic basket’. In this basic introductory article to a series on Strategic Sourcing, I will explain the difference. What is Strategic Sourcing (aka Strategic Procurement)? Strategic Sourcing is the continuous development, … Read more

Covid -19 has a far- reaching impact on world health, but however the effects on the global supply chain and financial markets is significant enough to already begin triggering economic repercussions that could last well into the 2020’s. Why?  For all the most obvious of lean management and labour reasons that supports long term Manufacturing … Read more

What constitutes Supplier Risk? Simply put supplier risk constitutes any threat originating out of the supply chain that jeopardises or potentially can jeapodarise an organisations earning’s, image and operational capacity. Obviously there are many software companies out there doing the” hard-sell” on Risk Management Programmes and I agree that these do certainly have their place. … Read more

A common misapprehension made by many corporate executives, HR and Recruitment professionals is the failure to appreciate the fundamental difference between Procurement and Purchasing, as the terms are often used interchangeably. Procurement whether in the private or state sector, is the long term strategic based planning and development function responsible for securing goods and services … Read more

Defined, Supplier Relations Management is the ongoing process of the systematic creation and capture of post contract value from supplier relationships. Many executives are now beginning to understand the true importance of ongoing Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) within the perspective of a successful value chain. SRM is a key management and control component within Procurement … Read more

Procurement Intelligence (PI) ensures up -to-date relevant information is available to aid Procurement decision making regards sourcing strategies, evaluating procurement performance, forecasting, and quality and improving bottom line financial performance amongst other key considerations. Procurement Intelligence must certainly not be a one -off exercise but a continuous strategic orientated information gathering process focused on influential … Read more

Internal customers Relations are a relatively new concept. The Supply Chain and Procurement/Purchasing in particular primarily exist to support internal stakeholders who in essence are their customers. A standard mistake made time and again within professional supply chain from rank and file to management,  is the underestimation of importance of those “internal customers” too which … Read more