Alex Miller talks smart money and mergers and acquisition in this article designed to help buyers take the plunge when opportunity knocks. Corporate buyers face unprecedented competition from private equity funds, as well as with traditional and non-traditional competition for the most attractive acquisitions.  Horizontal integration has largely played out in most traditional sectors, and the U.S. Department of Justice is carefully watching consolidation in many industries.  Corporations are also experiencing intensified threats from disruption and innovation, and competitive cycles…

Claire de Weerdt shares an article designed to help your company prepare for an economic recession.  How can you prepare for a possible recession? One method is to conservatively shore up reserves to mitigate risk for a worst case scenario, however, this may come at a high opportunity cost in the event of a soft landing, as resources may have been more productive elsewhere. On the other hand, if you take a bullish perspective, you may not be prepared for…

In this article, Serge Milman explains the high costs of adopting a tail spend category. Unmanaged Spend ≠ Spend Category. Tail Spend is not a spend category, and thus cannot be sourced effectively. Tail Spend – or more accurately, Un-managed Spend – is an aggregation of spend and vendors that typically represent 40%-60% of total spend. Attempting to source Tail Spend as a category makes about as much sense as including Professional Services and Technology Hardware into a single RFP….

Gregory Borel shares a company post that outlines how to reduce energy costs.  The energy landscape is undergoing rapid transformation becoming more sustainable but increasingly complex. Meanwhile, commodity markets are becoming more volatile, resulting in record-high energy prices.  Never has it been more important for businesses to develop an energy strategy to mitigate and manage – and take advantage of – these uncertainties and complexities.  The proposed strategy of different players can be categorised according to the graph below. Four…

If it seems like your company burns through money, Serge Milman may provide insight into the reason why.  If you’ve spent any time at all around Procurement professionals, then you’ve likely heard about Tail Spend Sourcing. There are numerous consultants, technology providers, outsourcing providers and even some Procurement Leaders singing its praises. That’s unfortunate. Organizations pursuing Tail Spend Sourcing are explicitly communicating that they’ve given up on managing 60%+ of their supplier base, and perhaps more importantly, that they are…