This week I attended – and spoke at – Sainsbury’s fourth annual supplier conference and awards.
Alongside a host of speakers from the supermarket who addressed strategic suppliers on subjects from sustainability to logistics, online developments to customer insights, the opening presentation was given by a board director – this year, chief financial officer John Rogers.
As I said to the gathered group, strategic relationship management (SRM) doesn’t work without the support of those at the top. (more…)
For me, one of the big failures of London 2012 was to get to grips effectively with some of the ethical issues in the supply chain (despite some leading-edge work from LOCOG) and to address the question of ethical standards for sponsors. (more…)
In every facet of our life, technology is present. So it should come as no surprise that technology is present in the fulfillment industry and is playing a massive part.
Something as staid as the warehouse has been streamlined and revolutionised as a result of technology making it more proficient and organised. Warehouses must be far more efficient because online shopping has made the fulfillment industry more relevant. A company such as Amazon ships millions of dollars’ worth of merchandise every day, which would never have happened before the internet age. (more…)
You don’t have to look far to see the reputational damage caused by poor supplier decisions.
According to recent figures by the consumer-insight network Kantar, nearly half of us changed our shopping habits following the horse meat scandal. Following this, Tesco chief executive Philip Clarke pledged to increase orders of UK-sourced meat from 20 per cent to 90 per cent and ordered a review of how the company’s relationships with suppliers could be made more “transparent and collaborative”. (more…)
Contract management is about much more than automation and reducing administrative burden. Here are three innovative ways that companies have used to leverage contract management to support strategic business initiatives. (more…)
Reducing exposure to suppler risk in a global sourcing environment requires a keen eye on five key factors. Here is how to cut complexity, effort and cost from the risk mitigation process. (more…)
In the past few weeks, a number of retailers havecome under fire for forcibly requesting incremental discounts on invoices in return for more prompt payment.
With UK businesses already facing tough times, practices like these not only exacerbate cash-flow issues for suppliers but also damage relationships and increase supply chain risk. (more…)
Supplier failures have a habit of catching their customers unprepared and making the wrong type of headlines. When I wrote in January that sustainability would be a theme for procurement in 2013, little did I imagine it would be the European meat trade that would be providing the headlines. The disturbing news stories of contaminated meat being found in products across Europe underlines the importance of a robust supplier quality programme that goes beyond your first tier suppliers. (more…)
OK, that might be jumping the gun a bit. There’s still quite a lot going on in India and China. And businesses in Eastern Europe and Taiwan still have plenty of UK customers. But it is very interesting to see a trickle of firms favouring the greater control, proximity and traceability that comes with going domestic, over the lower cost, but potentially riskier option of contracting suppliers in other continents. (more…)
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