Purchase to Pay

14 Nov

Posted at 15:55h in AP Automation, e-invoicing, Electronic Invoicing, Purchase to Pay, Purchasing Card, Supplier Networks by
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OB10 can make some great claims. They might like to claim to be the biggest and they'd certainly want to claim best. I think they can legitimately claim to be the first. But these superlatives are very much double edged. "First" also means oldest and "biggest" can mean least agile. So how can OB10 maintain their leading position? Last week I had the great pleasure of meeting Luke McKeever, their new CEO, who told me.

08 Nov

Posted at 13:22h in Purchase to Pay by
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We’ve all seen it at the airport check-in. Mr. More-Important-Than-Everyone-Else complaining about something or other. He’s late to board and they won’t let him on. Maybe he’s exceeded his luggage allowance, or, best of all, because he’s a frequent flyer, he wants an upgrade. “I fly with you all the time.” “ I’m a personal friend of your CEO.” ” Do you know who I am?!” I was once given a master class in how to get upgraded on a flight. It was from a colleague, a professional buyer,  who bet me he could get his sister a business class seat on a coach class ticket. I paraphrase the conversation for brevity but this is how he approached the check in.

08 Nov

Posted at 09:54h in Dynamic Discounting, Global Sourcing, P2P Europe, Procurement Best Practices, Procurement Software, Purchase to Pay, Supply Chain by
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Some great things have come out of Australia but leaving Rolf Harris and Skippy aside, passion for procurement doesn’t seem to be one of them. Why is it that Aussies don't get as passionate as the poms about procurement? Well I'm not sure that the Europeans do get quite as passionate as Claudine Swiatek believes in her captivating article in her blog The Young Sourcerer about passion. But her point is well made that it's a shame that procurement isn't as well respected in some quarters as it should be.

18 Oct

Posted at 11:55h in Procurement Best Practices, Purchase to Pay by
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It's been a difficult couple of weeks to RIM. The service disruption in parts of Europe then more recently in the US couldn't have come at a worse time. With revenues down 10% and profits more than halved,  (according to The Economist) it's a brave IT buyer that backs the Blackberry. The Blackberry is losing ground for all kinds of reasons. Some blame the odd governance structure of Research in Motion with joint chairmen also acting as joint CEO and the growing competition from the iPhone and Android smart phones is having a significant impact. But RIM's difficulties are just a single example of how the rapidly moving market for consumer IT is making the job of managing IT policy and IT sourcing more complex.

26 Sep

Posted at 12:24h in Purchase to Pay, Purchase to Pay Process, Purchasing Process by
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We hear all the time about big companies paying suppliers late, abusing their power to take advantage of the good will of smaller companies by delaying payment for as long as possible in order to enrich themselves at the expense of weaker, more vulnerable companies. Well, it’s not true. Deliberate late payment by large companies in all but a few exceptional cases doesn't go on. Systematic management of cash flow by withholding payments is a myth. The reality is, surprisingly, much worse!