The Point

The featured speaker on this event was Jacob Gorm Larsen, head of eSourcing at Maersk procurement. I’m almost always impressed by the key speakers on these webinars, but Jacob is the first speaker that I would absolutely want to work with. You can watch the on-demand version of the webinar by clicking here. If you are interested in doing some additional reading, you can check out our Wiki-Wednesday page on Mathematical Optimization or our blog post on Optimization in the Real World.

This week’s Wiki-Wednesday topic is Mathematic Optimization, and that article is the source of all quoted text below. We are covering it because of the CombineNet/Procurement Leaders/A.P. Moller – Maersk event on taking strategic sourcing to the “next level”. For many companies, whether they have implemented a strategic sourcing solution or not, optimization functionality may take a little longer to make use of, both because it is a more complex part of the software but also because the categories that can truly make use of optimization are not low-hanging fruit.

You can read an excerpt from the Wikipedia page on mathematical optimization here, but I am going to take this opportunity to break it down and use examples from procurement/sourcing.  The article starts with a straightforward definition of optimization as “the selection of a best element from some set of available alternatives”.

Covering the September ISM Non-Manufacturing Report on Business this week, with the uncertainty of the supply availability and prices of Diesel Fuel, reminded me of a very good webinar I attended last month but didn’t have an opportunity to share with you. My notes are below, but you can also view the webinar recording and download the sides from CombineNet’s site.

As CombineNet did, I’ll start my notes with some background information on sustainability itself, aside form any transportation specific concerns. I have also included some additional reading at the end of my post if you want to know more.

Buyers Meeting Point attends many sales AND procurement webinars/webcasts. One of the interesting things about seeing both sides is that you start to notice trends. Sometimes those trends are aligned, and sometimes… well, read on and see.