The Alibaba Group

Introduction: At the time of this writing, October 5, 2014, Alibaba has had a lot of coverage in the business media. This is primarily due to their September 18, 2014 IPO which raised a projected $21.8 Billion making it one of the largest public offerings ever in the US. (Wikipedia, Telis & Jarzemsky). Furthermore: The price gives the e-commerce company an initial market value of $168 billion, making it one of the 40 biggest public companies globally, according to S&P Capital IQ, and worth more than U.S. online- shopping giant Amazon.com Inc. Amazon is currently valued at $150 billion. (Telis & Jarzemsky)

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The Clear Need for Metrics

Anyone versed in Quality Management principles knows the value of a well conceived and managed system of metrics or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to both manage the day-to-day operations and guide continuous improvement efforts. Even if an enterprise does not have a formal continuous improvement effort and no plans to implement one, setting up a system of KPIs is still a very good thing to do.

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Wal-Mart Stumbling?

Really? Wal-Mart stumbling? This is exactly what was reported in the May 16, 2014 Wall Street Journal. The lead story in the Marketplace section was: Wal-Mart Takes Another Hit on Sales Fifth Quarterly Decline in a Row Comes With Forecast of Further Weakness

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Hardcore Purchasing: Not What we Advocate

I had the opportunity this past week to have coffee with Paul Zaleski. Paul's a Director at Cost Reduction Analysts: http://expensereduction.com/analyst/paul-zaleski. He is a very qualified and experience business leader whose current focus is helping small to mid-sized companies determine savings opportunities in both MRO and non-direct expenditures. Companies of any size can easily be spending too much if they are not focused, on constantly assessing the market and looking for opportunities. Smaller companies have less human resources and thus are not doing this assessment and subsequent sourcing work to ensure they are getting the best pricing, service, and quality they can. They are probably leaving a lot of money on the table.

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The State of the Supply Chain Union

For the past few years, we have written a Supply Chain State of the Union or yearly outlook and published it in our blog. We are late in doing so this year simply because we were not exactly sure what opportunities and issues to focus on. We are sure now. The focus for this year is simply: Process Improvement

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