Happy New Year!

Task #1 - Make procurement a priority in 2012.
SupplyChainDigital.com has published on its site the article, Making procurement a 2012 priority, by William Gindlesperger, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, e-LYNXX Corporation. In the article, Mr. Gindlesperger emphasizes that procurement “has earned its place at the strategic decision-making table of any organization that wants to improve its bottom line.” While it may seem to be obvious that procurement and procurement practices have a direct connect with an organization’s financial viability, we agree with him that this needs to become a priority – a top priority.Task #2 – Commit to forming a mutually-beneficial relationship with your vendor partners
In our blog entitled, 5 Tactics to Becoming the Fittest in the eCommerce Evolution, I wrote,“The fittest Vendors and Buyers will internally promote and put into consistent practice procedures to support an open and free-flowing level of communication within and outside their organizations.” You can refer to our earlier blog, What is the ecommerce evolution?, for more details.
Task #3 – Commit to exploring and leveraging eProcurement
Advances in information technology and cloud computing have made eProcurement affordable and reliable. In our blog,Procurement Partners eCommerce Evolution Blog, I wrote that businesses today can leverage “enterprise-class features, instant application service delivery and management, easy set-up and use, reliability, availability, responsiveness, security and encryption, scalability, data storage and backup, user and systems support services, Business Intelligence reporting, high availability, business continuity, interoperability with many platforms and 3rd parties, and disaster recovery.” If you haven’t already done so, include technology in your procurement processing planning.Task #4 – Create and implement an effective plan
The blog mentioned above also cited what is likely the most important task to tackle from the start - planning. “The fittest have a plan that will put into effect their commitment, best practices, and the required technologies. The plan will include a specific statement of the goals; deadlines; obstacles; people, groups, and organizations which can assist; the benefits to achieving the goal; the skills needed to acquire the goals; and development of the plan.”New Year’s resolutions have the tendency to evaporate over time. However, in today’s economy that is a luxury few can afford. Get back to the basics and make streamlining the procurement process a priority.
What steps have you taken to economize in 2012?