Have you ever heard the words “most say they work with category management but they really don’t”. EBG hear it all the time. What does that really mean? And how can each company find out if they really do what they think they do in terms of sourcing and procurement structure, processes and follow up?
During Sourcing Outlook there will be no special focus on “how to set up category management structures” – at least not yet. In stead the focus will be on “so, you have a strategy (probably a category management enabled one) – what does that strategy look like, how do you really enable the business to make the strategy come true and how do you follow up on that progress. Especially if you are a global company.
Some headlines from the summit will be:
What does it take to become a top performing supply management organization?
What does win-win really mean for buyers and suppliers?
OPERATIONS: How can procurement ensure global sourcing strategies are implemented locally?
GOVERNANCE | How efficient and effective is your governance structure?
Supply chain risk mitigation: a prerequisite for doing future business?
Operations: How are you managing sourcing – contract – operations discrepancies?
How can procurement ad value as a strategic business partner in the budget process
Strategy & Operations | Benchmark: Finding the balance between central category control and local management and expertise
Strategy & Operations: Keep in-house or outsource – how can you decide how to best stay flexible and agile?
Governance: Creating an agile and universal spend follow up process and structure
Strategy: M&A challenges and opportunities when turning global
Strategy: Creating a global indirect sourcing organization from scratch
Governance: Adding value with Cross-Functional Teams and Supplier Collaboration
Spring poll experiences | risk and cost reduction
Let’s take a look at the pains and headaches as described via webinar polls during the spring and see what we find. Note that this of course is no universal truth nor is the idea to offer a one-size-fit-all idea about general company challenges. Still – it offers an interesting view.
Priorities
During a webinar held together with EcoVadis EBG asked what the two top priorities were.
Cost and risk reduction focus – no news yet we all know what a challenge it is to cover even a fraction of all suppliers. Take a look at the below poll results from a riskmethods webinar where EBG asked about the scope of risk monitoring.
Tier-1 suppliers are being monitored focusing on financial health. All of which made CEO and founder Heiko Schwarz react like this:
- Report with many data points about supply disruption root causes (financials is no. 10 there!)
- Our data of more 4 years in operations with millions of data points (financials are no 17 there!)
- 7 of 10 respondents do not have sub-tier visibility – this is tough as 51% of the supply disruptions origin from tier 2 or below!
- 3 of 10 don not track risks in their supply base at all!
- 23% of respondents consider logistic hubs in their monitoring: 77% do not and haven´t switched their mindset to supply chain oriented approaches. what happens if the port is at strike?
- Those 73% who monitor threats of their supplier watch at supplier health (88%) – disastrous as this is a minor root cause of disruptions (they miss 10 to 16 more likely root causes)
Sources: Business Continuity Institute & Zurich Insurance 2016 & riskmethod’s own studies and data
Operations
In the early stages of 2017 EBG held a webinar together with Basware. For natural reasons focused on the operations side of source to pay yet highlighting how hard it is to actually comply with strategies. Starting with the idea that strategy, operations and governance should reflect business needs – i.e where the organization is heading target wise.
How should you act if you are not among the 8% who’s function is not well aligned with their business objectives? Or if you are not among the 18% who really well can visualize how their actions affect their organizations business needs. Since 0% never had faced adoption challenges to policy, process nor technology all need to consider how to act accordingly.
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EBG know most of you have challenges with some or all of the above topics and we welcome you to join us in Stockholm in October! Register here and we will see you in Stockholm. If you want more online inspiration, search for “play” and you will find numerous sessions to watch at your convenience.