If you are feeling the need for community, why not start a group in your area with people of similar interests.
Human beings, by their very nature, love to gather. Yet as much as we crave community, the rigors of real life frequently interfere with our efforts to come together with likeminded individuals. For this reason, fellowship is crucial to humanity’s wellbeing now more than ever. Most towns and cities play host to a variety of small groups that allow people to congregate purposefully, but that does not mean we should not consider founding our own. When people with similar interests, ideals, or aspirations come together as a group, a community is built that provides a new dimensionality to our earthly experiences.
The formation of a group is like an invitation welcoming all those desiring companionship and camaraderie into a circle of support. You may feel driven to found a group for women, healers, knitters, readers, writers, or political activists. Rules need only be a part of your communal experience if you find that level of organization appealing, and it matters little whether your group is large, goal-oriented, or structured. When you have a firm vision of the group you wish to bring into being, hang posters, reach out to acquaintances, and get in touch with similar groups to attract
participants. Groups of likeminded individuals are to some extent inherently exclusionary, being that they serve as a supportive environment in which people who have something in common can gather. Yet such groups can also transcend the boundaries that might otherwise keep people apart, The group you create will likely attract people from many different ethnic, cultural,and spiritual backgrounds, and if you make these individuals feel equally welcome, your group will grow and thrive as a result.
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Procurement Service Associates has been the leading Procurement Service Provider, producing cost reduction through strategic sourcing and procurement process improvements.
Our services are provided on an On-Demand basis, so that you can supplement your internal resources when and where you see fit.
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Below are the services that we provide:
- Audit Services
- Change Management
- Electronic Enablement
- Low Cost Country Sourcing
- Process Redesign
- Procurement Best Practices
- Procurement Strategy
- Spend Analysis
- Strategic Sourcing
- Supply Chain Optimization
- Technologies and Tools
Resources On Demand
Spend Management is not a solo effort. We partner with our clients and their suppliers to drive increased value by leveraging our internal experience with our client’s expertise.
Our Procurement Services provide our customers with:
- A Faster Path to Obtain Savings
- Access to data including contract costs, terms, and conditions
- Market Research and Real-Time Market Intelligence from Hundreds of Other Procurement Groups
- Subject Matter Expertise
- Best Practices in Procurement
- Additional resources to Supplement Your Existing Staff
- A Knowledge Transfer Path Including The Use of Free eSourcing Tools After Any Engagement
An Outbreak of Positive PMIs; China Experiences Trade Deficit for First Time in Six Years – even as Exports Grow 22%
Although a bit uneven, the manufacturing sector appears to be recovering nicely across the globe, fueling hopes for a lasting and maybe even rapid economic recovery from this point on.
On the increasingly bullish environment, manufacturers in the US are increasing their spending on technology – though most are still slow to hire back workers.
In separately released Purchasing Managers Indexes in the US and China last week, the news continued to be good, with a rise in the US PMI to its highest level since 2004, and the China PMI indicating its manufacturing sector grew for the 13th consecutive month. (See also Understanding the PMI and other Indexes from the Institute for Supply Management.)
“At over 59 percent, the ISM index is at the highest level since the recovery began in July 2009 and is very close to highs achieved in previous cycles. All the individual indicators in the report are overwhelmingly positive and the vast majority of manufacturing industries covered are reporting growth,” said Daniel Meckstroth, chief economist for the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI.
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Special Purpose Tools in the Sourcing and Procurement Process
by Ramesh C. Manghirmalani, California
Does all procurement take place as per contract terms and conditions? Is there any chance of cost leakages due to say, incorrect prices being levied or in appropriate implementation of the terms? Such questions could exist in many organizations, and many times trying to evaluate all of this can be quite challenging. For example, keeping track of use of software licenses (Software Asset Manager) or managing telecom spends (Telecom Expense Manager) each have a set of challenges. There are tools to accelerate the process of compliance and control for such special cases.
Special purpose tools help address a specific activity or set of activities (providing analytics to support decisions, or accelerators to executing processes, or collaborate with suppliers). Spend analysis tools can be used to collate, organize, classify, analyze & summarize spends for each category or commodity, by various dimensions. They generally have ability to interface with, or use data from, varied end-to-end technology solutions In Software Asset Management, usually it is in the interest of procurement to ensure the organization pays only for the software licenses actually used, and to identify license reallocation opportunities. Compliance of software license terms may require evaluation. But again, the use of licenses may be decentralized, with many points of use. Tools can be deployed on servers to gather the license usage data from various systems, which can then be analyzed for deployment patterns, and identify areas for rationalization and changes. Surely, preventing over utilization, in many cases, means preventing penalties. Under-utilized licenses can perhaps be discontinued. Deploying this tool requires a specialist understanding and a manual effort in conducting the compliance review once the inventory is generated.
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Resistance Equals Persistence
The Wisdom Of Surrender
We can’t get rid of something we don’t want by pushing it away. The more we push away, the more we get pushed back.
We all know the feeling of being repeatedly haunted by the same issue, no matter how we try to ignore it, avoid it, or run away from it. Sometimes it seems that we can get rid of something we don’t want by simply pushing it away. Most of the time, the more we push away, the more we get pushed back. There are laws of physics and metaphysics that explain this phenomenon, which is often summed up in this pithy phrase: That which you resist persists.
Resistance tends to strengthen the energies it attempts to oppose by giving them power and energy to work against. Additionally, resistance keeps us from learning more about what we resist. In order to fully understand something, we must open to it enough to receive its energy; otherwise, we remain ignorant of its lessons. There is a Tibetan story of a monk who retreats to meditate in a cave only to be plagued by demons. He tries everything—chasing, fighting, hiding—to get the demons out of his cave, but the thing that finally works is surrender. He simply lets them have their way with him and only then do they disappear.
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We often get asked,
“What are typical job responsibilities for Procurement Clerk? ”
Here you go:
Procurement Clerk’s Job Responsibilities:
- Prepare purchase orders and send copies to suppliers and to departments originating requests.
- Determine if inventory quantities are sufficient for needs, ordering more materials when necessary.
- Respond to customer and supplier inquiries about order status, changes, or cancellations.
- Perform buying duties when necessary. Contact suppliers in order to schedule or expedite deliveries and to resolve shortages, missed or late deliveries, and other problems.
- Review requisition orders in order to verify accuracy, terminology, and specifications.
- Prepare, maintain, and review purchasing files, reports and price lists.
- Compare prices, specifications, and delivery dates in order to determine the best bid among potential suppliers.
- Track the status of requisitions, contracts, and orders.
- Calculate costs of orders, and charge or forward invoices to appropriate accounts.
- Check shipments when they arrive to ensure that orders have been filled correctly and that goods meet specifications.
- Compare suppliers’ bills with bids and purchase orders in order to verify accuracy.
- Approve bills for payment.
- Locate suppliers, using sources such as catalogs and the internet, and interview them to gather information about products to be ordered.
- Maintain knowledge of all organizational and governmental rules affecting purchases, and provide information about these rules to organization staff members and to vendors.
- Monitor in-house inventory movement and complete inventory transfer forms for bookkeeping purposes.
- Monitor contractor performance, recommending contract modifications when necessary.
- Prepare invitation-of-bid forms, and mail forms to supplier firms or distribute forms for public posting.
by admin on April 22, 2010
Here’s something surprising I’m finding in my 2009 inquiries – a renewed interest in procurement strategy consulting services. It comes as a bit of surprise to me because of the tight economic conditions. Expensive consultants are among the first things that businesses slash from their budget, right?
What is driving this round of interest appears to the later adopters of technology – those companies that have yet to invest in e-sourcing, e-procurement, category management or spend analysis – either because they are very conservative and just haven’t taken the leap, or because they are smaller organizations and haven’t been sure what applies to them.
Read More here
by admin on April 19, 2010
Three Answers Every Supply Chain Executive Should Give Themselves This Year
A recent post over on the Harvard Business Review Blogs pointed out Three Questions Executives Should Ask for the New Year
based upon eight characteristics of top performers and four characteristics of under-achievers identified by Melissa Raffoni of Raffoni Ceo Consulting and author of Managing Time in the HBR Pocket Mentor Series.
According to Raffoni, who identified the following eight characteristics of top performers:
- they set clear measurable goals
- they seek feedback
- they communicate thoughtfully
- they act thoughtfully
- they are decisive
- they have integrity
- they have ego-less confidence
- they study to make themselves smarter
and the following four characteristics of underachievers:
- they don’t set goals with leverage in mind
- they don’t get enough out of the people around them
- they don’t listen well
- they lack the energy and boldness to try new things
Executives should ask themselves the following three questions before setting their goals for 2010:
If there was only one thing I could do to improve my business, what would it be and how would I make it happen?
- If there was only one thing I could focus on to improve my personal performance, what would that be and how would I make it happen?
- What messages am I not listening to or refusing to confront in my business and personal performance and how am I going to overcome that this year?
I agree. But even more importantly, I think supply chain executives (CPOs, CSCOs, etc.) should start with these three answers:
- I’m going to improve my organization’s technology platform.
Supply management is too complex, and the opportunity costs associated with continuing to use antiquated spreadsheet technology (which never fit in the first place), are too great not to have the right tools. I’m going to get the right platform for the job, make my people more productive, and watch the savings go Straight to the Bottom Line as efficiency soars and my people are able to strategically source more categories than they were able to in the past.
- I’m going to get training.
I’m going to learn what I’m missing, fill the holes in my vision, understand what my team needs to be the best they can be, and then get them the right training.
- I’m going to say “uncertainty be damned”.
“I’m not one of the lemmings”. “If my brethren want to jump off the cliff into the ocean, that’s their choice”. “I’m going to forge ahead and be successful, economy be damned”. “I’ll make the tough choices”. “And I’ll win”.
by admin on April 3, 2010
The news media continues its projections for a gloomy 2009 for employment and for business profits. According to most projections profits in most segments will be lower than 2008. In many cases profit margins will be negative. Unemployment rates continue to raise with most projections the unemployment rate inCalifornia will exceed 10 percent in 2009.
Read more here
by admin on April 1, 2010
It’s been a constant theme that the editorial team at Procurement Leaders keeps hearing about – how procurement can sell itself better; not only to the wider business, but to the wider business world, to university students, to business schools and so on.
While much has been said of procurement being the opposite side of the same coin to sales, I wonder how much of that is true. How capable are we really of selling ourselves and of letting the ignorant know of the huge potential that procurement holds for both business improvement and career satisfaction?
- Procurement manages our contract manufacturing and services supply base, responsible for the quality, delivery, innovation, and cost competitiveness of our extended supply chain capabilities.
- Facilitates developing your character by following practice of clearly defining the scope, coordinating and balancing actions of all participants involved in course of achieving goal.
- Effective procurement is informed, pro-active and transparent. It engenders change to optimise value for money and time to market to maximise the organisation’s competitive advantage.
- Purchasing is business’s single greatest profit center. Every dollar saved earns many multiple times the profit earned by all other pursuits combined.
- Is your business wasting money, time and market opportunities through procurement best practice ignorance? Solution – get serious about ALL procurement matters and boost your profits.
- Be responsible for spending millions of pounds of other people’s money on world changing technologies; make your future a career in Procurement
by admin on March 10, 2010
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