"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future" -- attributed to Niels Bohr (physicist, 1885-1962)

Every buyer faces the question: "What's going to happen to the price?" The only correct answer is: "It will go up, or down, or, exceptionally, stay the same." If I were able reliably to forecast the price of rapeseed oil (or cocoa, steel or tomatoes), then I would not be writing this article -- I would be sunning myself in the Maldives.

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When your graphic image suppliers are inmates with a sense of humor...
Vermont Inmates Slip Pig Image Into Police Decal -- Inmates working at a Vermont correctional unit's print shop managed to sneak a prank image of a pig into a state police crest. The image is emblazoned on police cars, and 30 cruisers sported the design for the last year. The official crest depicts a spotted cow against a background of snowy mountains. But the inmates' version featured one of the cow's spots shaped like a pig in an apparent reference to the pejorative word for police.

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One of the more substantial areas of disclosure in Apple's reporting its 2012 Supplier Sustainability analysis is in the area of conflict minerals. Apple provides a level of detail that is lacking in the rest of the report, especially when it comes to examining multi-tier behaviors and sub-SKU level material traceability. We might even describe Apple as an early leader in this area based on what we know are the early stage efforts of most other companies in complying with conflict minerals (Dodd-Frank) requirements. Specifically, Apple notes that it requires its suppliers "only use materials that have been procured through a conflict-free process and from sources that adhere to our standards of human rights and environmental protection."

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In looking at the impact good data -- and analyzed good data! -- can have on contracting and supplier development initiatives, it's important to understand, just to use one example, how a lack of validation of rate cards and checking of invoices leaves an organization at risk on pricing. But in all cases, the aim should not be just to recover overcharges through analysis -- the key is to discover the underlying reasons for the discrepancies, and to ensure that the vendor is able to adhere to the agreed pricing in future. In this process, it is essential to make sure that the procurement resources leading the charge have access to the right level of detail and that rate card SKUs match invoice data.

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Over on our World Class Procurement LinkedIn group (all practitioners welcome), we shared some of the summary findings from the 2012 edition of our annual Procurement Key Issues study we did a few months ago, and I thought the Spend Matters readership might be interested. So, to quote the Bud Lite commercial, "here we go"...

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As we all know, daily life can be trying and difficult for a plethora of reasons. It's also why we should all do our best to not sweat the small stuff. I try, for instance, to not go crazy over the cost of gasoline, but my patience is running on empty.

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Getting your vitamins.
The Cost of Getting in Shape: Am I Getting Enough Protein/Iron/Zinc/Vitamin E??? -- WELL. I had NO IDEA that my personal eating habits would raise such ire from the masses in last week's comment section. To speak to one specifically: "exercise not making you thin" brings up a good point relating to this entire series: I don't want to be "thin." Believe me, I've been thin. As a teenager I shot from 5'4 to 5'10 in two years and all the calories in the world couldn't keep up with me. Had I started smoking and kept my diet limited to diuretic teas and eating six almonds a day, perhaps today I could be trotting the runways at Fashion Week instead of writing thi...well...that's another story. One where I wouldn't have been able to pull 1:41 split times (times I haven't seen since college) last night in our 2K team relay!

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Even though Apple gets the most press about poor working conditions in China these days, we'd argue there's something else much larger, nefarious and cultural lurking beneath the timecard surface. As appealing as it might be to blame Apple for the errors of their Chinese suppliers' extremely abusive practices, this looks a lot like the results of a culture gap.

I'd argue it's not so much a China-specific issue either. Based on first-hand experiences from spending seven years in Japanese manufacturing industries in the '90s, the same workload expectations and obsessive/martinet managerial approaches were clearly on display all over Japan as well, with 'karoshi' or 'death-by-overwork' entering the vocabulary.

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