This story in the Staffordshire and South Cheshire newspaper The Sentinel caught my eye. According to the piece, the Stoke-on-Trent City Council has drafted in a new £80,000-a-year head of procurement to overhaul the “struggling department”.
Well, I thought I would say it too, as everybody else seems to have done lately.
If we just sit tight through this economic blip, it’ll be business as usual after a couple of years and we can all relax, right?
Bad news. It seems there were more resignations in the UK in the year to February 2010 than the previous 12 months (4.7 per cent, compared with 4.5 per cent). Oh, and earning power has fallen.
The market for corporate social responsibility (CSR) consultancy has grown rapidly in the past five years. But is this growth the result of opportunistic firms trying to make “easy” money?
It is Tuesdays for me. Same every week. I get the most done that day – I even polish off those niggardly tasks. Don’t know why, but things just seem to take less time on Tuesdays.
Nothing beats sliding under the covers and letting yourself completely relax. But on these cold winter nights it can be difficult to drop off if your feet or hands are freezing.
Research has found that flexible working is good for the heart – and possibly also for mental health.
Our story yesterday on women-owned businesses stirred an interesting reaction among some of the female members of the SM team.
I attended an event last week, where a key topic for discussion was: How does procurement influence all of the spend with third parties? It seems many companies are still struggling to influence key areas of indirect spend, the usual suspects being marketing, professional services, conferencing and IT.
