Spend Matters has received an anonymous tip that a new power-player in the field is proving that you don't need Dos Equis to be "The Most Interesting Man in the World." In fact, "The Most Interesting Man in the World" is about to meet his rival: The Most Interesting Man in Sourcing.

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Here at Spend Matters, we often consider the procurement and business implications of supplier and supply chain risk management. We don't often take the final step in this analysis that would focus on translating disruptions, infractions and related challenges to shareholder metrics. Yet some in the investment community are beginning to consider just how prepared companies are for potential disruptions. Bloomberg recently ran a fascinating story examining how some investors are looking at supply chain sustainability around the impact of water consumption and climate change and public company preparedness. In particular, one investor challenging J.M. Smucker believes that company management isn't taking future access to water in its ingredients markets into account in its financial projections.

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Someone asked me this week: "Why should I go to Commodity Edge when I'm already committed to a bunch of events this Spring?" I responded that the event, taking place March 19th and 20th at the Intercontinental at Chicago, O'Hare, is probably not for everyone in procurement (especially those entirely focused on areas like P2P systems). But I also noted the content and takeaways would be absolutely invaluable for those in a category/commodity management or sourcing role, not to mention those that they report to.

The discussion sparked my interest in creating a list of reasons why people should attend the event or, at the very least, stay current with the topics we plan to address. These topics include an up-to-date view on the directions of commodities (e.g., metals, energy, indirect, packaging, and many more), forecasting strategies and approaches for procurement, technologies to support negotiation, contracting and hedging and the overall direction of the domestic and global economies and their impact on procurement and supply chain strategies. Incidentally, the complete program will count for 9.75 continuing education credits/hours with ISM.

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Our sister site MetalMiner recently did a bit of research on Twinkies -- but not the type that require a workout to burn off. Specifically, MetalMiner took a look the questions to ask in evaluating how commodity prices and related costs may have played a role in the ultimate demise of Hostess. It does not take a rocket scientist to consider the volatility we've seen with ingredient prices in the past twenty-four months. Sugar, wheat, corn -- you name it. Just as the costs of Midwestern farmland have gone through the roof, so have the commodities that you can plant in the fertile soil of the nation's bread belt. At Hostess, challenges extended far beyond just labor, and we strongly suspect that commodity management and procurement were not helping the cause, at least not at the level they needed to.

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Please click here for Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.

As our analysis of 20 ways in which the falling Euro and Eurozone volatility might impact sourcing, procurement and supply chain strategies continues, we'll turn our attention to technology, beginning with one of our favorite topics on Spend Matters: e-sourcing.

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Please click here for the first post in this series, analyzing some of the general capabilities and core features of SAP's On Demand Supplier Management product. This analysis is based on a recent Spend Matters Compass Report: Supplier Management Market Observations: Recent Trending, Musings on SAP's Core Offering and General Deployment Pitfalls (for all Solutions) to Avoid. The report can be downloaded for free (registration required) via the previous link.

Spend Matters believes that the potential for vendor management greatness -- yes, we're too deep in this subject matter for our own good -- is there in SAP's Wave 7 release. Consider the configurable executive dashboards, the many data points captured and tracked, etc. As background, SAP has deployed several iterations of its sourcing application over the years. At the time of evaluation, "Wave 5" (version 5) appears to be what is in actual use in the marketplace. According to SAP, the Wave 6 released was not broadly adopted because Wave 7 came out shortly afterward. Several clients have now implemented Wave 7, but in the short-term these clients have decided not to launch public 'walk-in' supplier registration portals, instead opting for private registration links, at least at the time of our research into SAP On Demand Supplier Management deployments in 2011.

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Please click here for the first post in this series.

Continuing on in sharing insights from a MetalMiner series on sourcing commodities in the context of a falling (and/or highly volatile) euro, Lisa suggests that US buying organizations may wish to consider a range of sourcing strategies. These may include offsetting a falling euro "against the dollar with the contract in dollars." Under this approach, "the buyer should negotiate hard at the outset for a 'lower price,' as a declining euro will result in increased supplier profits over the course of the contract. In other words, the buyer should negotiate some sort of discount at the outset." An alternative approach might a contracting model factoring in a falling euro against the dollar with the contract in euros.

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This post is based on a recent Spend Matters Perspective: Sourcing, Contract Management, and Supplier Management Cloud -- Business Users Benefit From Savings Enablement. You can download the full research report for free via the previous link (registration required).

Procurement organizations -- not to mention the rest of the business -- often achieve significant savings and cost avoidance from deploying supplier management technology to create greater efficiency around on-boarding processes and continuous validation of supplier-provided information, reducing costs of managing supplier diversity programs and greatly enhancing the ability to manage and mitigate against a range of supply risk related elements. While it is often possible to build a business case for supplier management purely on cost avoidance savings (e.g., time and effort required to collect supplier registration details and to maintain the currency of this information), organizations typically consider a range of other factors (including the ability to implement working capital management strategies in an expedient manner) as key contributors to the supplier management value equation.

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Here at Spend Matters, we've spent quite a bit of time lately giving consideration to twenty sourcing, supplier management and related strategies companies are likely to take in the context of the falling euro (see our initial two posts in the series here and here). Yet much of the credit for these strategies, to be fair, should go to the sourcing experts at our sister site MetalMiner, including Lisa Reisman (my better half) and Stuart Burns (our UK-based metals sourcing expert and the often behind-the-scenes but ever present third owner/partner in our parent company). Not to be outdone by Spend Matters, MetalMiner is taking some of the ideas we've introduced around sourcing raw materials in an environment where the Euro is falling and fleshed them out further in the post Sourcing Metal Categories in a Volatile or Collapsing Euro Environment.

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