The Point

Whenever you do business in a culture different from your own, there is so much to learn. There are many nuances that can make or break the deal. This blog from Smart China Sourcing outlines some of the common mistakes.

Most organizations do not have the time or resources to work directly with the manufacturers in China so they must rely on a third party to be their 'eyes and ears on the street'. Because of that, the process of selecting that agent becomes a serious selection process that requires serious attention.

At Buyers Meeting Point, we often have opportunities to recommend the publications we have read, reviewed and endorsed to our supply management colleagues. Vested Outsourcing by Kate Vitasek is one of the easiest books to recommend, not because it is excellently written – although it is, but because questions constantly arise in discussion groups and forums around strategic outsourcing relationships with suppliers and how to make them work.

This week’s featured webinar, The Politics of Outsourcing Roundtable Webinar, was sponsored and hosted by the Outsourcing Institute on March 20^th. You can listen to the webinar on demand here.

This event was conceived in response to Outsourcing Institute members who had concerns about political policy regarding outsourcing based on President Barack Obama’s 2012 State of the Union Address. One quote that was called out in the event overview was that it is time to "stop rewarding businesses for taking jobs out of the country and start rewarding them for bringing jobs back home." (Note: if you are interested in hearing the relevant portion of the State of the Union, listen to the Buyers Meeting Point Weekly Update for March 19th on Blog Talk Radio.)

People do business with people they like. We have all heard that phrase before and know it holds a great deal of weight. In this economic climate, the financials have to be the key driver in decision making. However, with that being comparable, the strength of the relationship will seal the deal.

The process is basic and simple but since not everyone does this, it can be quite a differentiator. This has a lot to do with procurement since you have internal customers and also constantly working with suppliers and salesmen.  

The first thing to remind yourself about nearshoring is that it is a relative idea – nearshoring includes Mexico and Canada if you are in the U.S., but businesses in Western Europe are more likely to consider Eastern Europe as a nearshoring destination. But in almost all cases, nearshoring means finding a location other than Asia (including India) to find products and services at a lower cost than at home.

In addition to last week’s webinar notes on SourceOne and The University of LaSalle’s webinar “US Companies and Global Opportunities: A Perspective on Strategic Sourcing from Mexico”, here are some other nearshore outsourcing resources that you may find helpful.

I had a unique opportunity yesterday to participate in a live event – an international conversation of sorts. Source One presented a webinar at the University of LaSalle's School of Business in Mexico City about a topic near and dear to their hearts: nearshoring. While this isn’t a new topic, the presentation was so completely different that it was hard not to feel enthusiastic about the opportunities that exist. In the last 10 months, I have attended roughly 100 webinars. None of them had a live video feed from another country and none of the presentation formats were able to capture the enthusiasm that this audience expressed. I highly encourage more event planners and hosts to try to incorporate applause into their events – somehow it makes the message more exciting.

This week’s featured event was sponsored by Supply & Demand Chain Exec: Vested Outsourcing: Five Rules that will Transform Outsourcing. The main speaker was Kate Vitasek from the University of Tennessee’s Center for Executive Education. She is also the Founder of Supply Chain Visions – a Top 10 Boutique Consulting firm specializing in Supply Chain Management and the author of a new book, Vested Outsourcing: Five Rules that will Transform Outsourcing.

In order to get another perspective on the topic of procurement outsourcing, we reached out to our undercover sales expert, "The Sales Guy". TSG is a sales VP with 30 years and approximately $1B+ in sales under his belt. We are keeping his identity under wraps – for the same reason magicians never reveal their tricks, his colleagues might not like him giving us the inside scoop on sales’ view of procurement. Here are his thoughts...

This week’s webinar on legal process outsourcing by SIG was an interesting look at a profession in much the same position as procurement; legal departments are cost centers whose responsibility can be fairly clearly divided into strategic and tactical responsibilities, leading corporations to outsource some of the work in order to minimize overhead. You can read more about the parallels between legal and procurement in my recent blog post ‘Professional Responsibility in Procurement’.

I'm hearing more and more about procurement outsourcing these days.  I don't mean procurement people outsourcing other people's functions, I mean procurement BEING outsourced.  There are different definitions for outsourcing, and the end impact on our careers is anything but known. There is always downside risk to every career choice, and ours is starting to come into focus. But don't worry - this is not a doomsday posting. You and me, we're going to be just fine. And here is why...

Only SIG members can listen to archived recordings of their webinars. If you are a member, you’re in luck. If not, it’s not too late to register for an upcoming webinar – they do one each Tuesday. The following are our notes from attending this week's event.

This week, BMP attended a webinar on nearshoring by Sourcing Interests Group. Unfortunately, you have to have a membership to listen to the recording, but they put on a webinar each Tuesday. Visit our events calendar for a listing.

As the session involved a company called Softtek, and so the geographical focus of the nearshoring was Canada and Mexico. You can read a white paper on nearshore outsourcing on their website.

SIG Webinar: Next Generation Sourcing Strategies For Facilities And Maintenance Transformation, Presented By A.T. Kearney (Daryl Watkins, Senior Sourcing Manager and Bernard “Bud” J. Going, Director of Procurement).

Any BMP member involved with an outsourcing initiative, whether it involves offshoring or not, will find this book an indispensable resource. Authors Brown and Wilson include a multitude of quotable statistics that can be used in executive presentations as well as practical tools for completing the day to day work in outsourcing projects.