In a business environment driven by high customer expectations for speed and quality, increasing volatility and risk, and market interconnectedness, best-in-class sourcing and procurement is a significant competitive differentiator. But organizations are struggling to find skilled procurement…

The business battles of this century will be won by harnessing the power of suppliers. Therefore, APQC has been focusing much of our research this year on how organizations can improve their relationships with key suppliers. Leading organizations recognize that the playing field of…

Despite having formal procurement or sourcing processes, some organizations have employees who engage in maverick purchasing—bypassing standard, accepted procedures to procure items individually. Maverick purchasing often occurs because an employee views the established procurement process as too…

Supplier relationship management (SRM) isn’t always the topic of major news headlines. But this month it is. Panasonic and Tesla have gone public with their concerns about each other in the Nikkei (Japanese financial publication similar to the Wall Street Journal) and on Twitter. Currently,…

AOG is an aviation term meaning Aircraft on Ground. When grounded, commercial aircraft cannot return to service until they’re repaired and inspected. AOGs can happen at any airport for a myriad of reasons every day. But what’s the impact of an intentional temporary grounding of hundreds of aircraft…

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Pontus Westerberg, program officer at UN-Habitat, about the non-profit Block by Block program that leverages the best-selling video game Minecraft for public space planning by engaging local community members. The global accomplishments of Block by Block…

New year, new priorities. Where will your organization be focusing your supply chain efforts this year? To help you tackle 2019, APQC's research team wants to learn your top priorities and challenges. We want the research we conduct and the content we create to be valuable to you and targeted on…

Blockchain for business: It is no longer just a concept; organizations are actively creating solutions. There is currently a great deal of experimentation and investment in this emerging technology. Even hosting and cloud vendors (e.g., Amazon Web Services) are now moving to offer blockchain.…

With recent food safety crises such as the pre-Thanksgiving U.S. recall on romaine lettuce due to an E. coli outbreak, I have heard people calling for increased traceability of food and a greater ability to track products back to their origins. Thankfully, a few days ago the Centers for…

“As the [blockchain] technology pushes the globe towards new economic models, we will only demand more from smart contracts,” Forbes, July 2018. From the American Bar Association this September: “In the future, litigation attorneys may no longer be litigating the ‘four-corners’ of the contract,…