Category: Article
From renewable energy credits to frozen turkeys just about anything can be run through the reverse auction. And now a young lawyer named Robert Grant Niznik has developed a website that allows individuals to post their cases online and lawyers then bid on the cases via a reverse auction.
Some in the legal industry oppose the idea, calling the site the “eBay of lawyering,” and argues the reverse auction style service will lower the integrity of the legal profession.” But Niznik argues that “the site enables attorneys to expand their client base and gain credibility” and that “lawyers have nothing to lose and “everything to gain” from joining the site.” He adds that “financially challenged clients who ‘get turned away from legal aid’ can use the site to obtain affordable legal advice”, as supported by an ABAJournal.com post last year describing how many in the middle-class are stuck in legal limbo because they make too much money to qualify for legal aid, but not enough to afford an attorney.
What do you think? Do you think it’s an appropriate and respectable to market legal services? What are the advantages? Disadvantages?
Interesting read from Supply Chain Review about the rising interest in demand for procurement solutions- including reverse auctions.
Large enterprises are back in the market driving big deals, while mid-market firms are implementing sophisticated procurement systems for the first time.
Cloud computing is behind most of the positive trends in this market, including increased adoption, improved collaboration and new forms of application functionality.
I expect 2011 will be a strong year for the procurement systems market.
Reverse Auction Success Story: Even very large companies are engaging our services
eBridge recently engaged with a Fortune 500 company that had used reverse auctions in the past, but experienced limited success because their purchasing team was not fully engaged in the process and nor were their suppliers.
Knowing the reverse auction procurement process is now a best practice and that they needed to adopt it into their procurement strategy, they began looking for new reverse auction software solutions to purchase.
eBridge presented our full service solution and it resonated with them. They saw that there was no software to purchase and maintain nor extensive internal training and that eBridge would immediately come along side their team to deliver a fully managed reverse auction process for them. They valued eBridge’s leadership in the process in addition to the years of reverse auction experience to help them make the process change internally and to their supplier base.
When asked for their feedback, the senior procurement officer provided the following tangible results of implementing eBridge’s reverse auction services:
– A more efficient procurement process
– An expanded supplier base
– Knowing we are buying “at market” in every transaction
– Innovative technique has energized our purchasing team
– Pocketing an extra 10-15% to our bottom-line
A few weeks ago I wrote a post entitled, Organizational Change and Reverse Auctions. It stated “organizations don’t change, people do or they don’t”.
Expanding on the topic of the individual’s role in change management, the Change Management Learning Center states, “The essence of change management is encouraging and enabling individualtransitions resulting from a project or an initiative. Because change happens one person at a time, change management provides a critical component for achieving project outcomes and results.”
When applied to the reverse auction, organizations will not realize the efficiencies of the new technology if individuals are not challenged to do his or her job in a different way. The reverse auction is not a big change, but it is new technology and management is asking employees, as individuals, to do their jobs slightly different to yield greater results.
This makes having an effective change management strategy that focuses on the individual in your organization essential to affecting change and sustaining change.
How are you focusing on the individual to take advantage of new opportunities for your business?
The debate on American’s dependence on foreign oil is not a new topic. For years Americans have debated opening up ANWAR and other domestic oil producing sites to help decrease our dependence on foreign oil. But in recent months the debate has been magnified due to the unrest occurring in Libya and other major oil producing countries overseas.
Last week the Weekly Standard wrote an article discussing legislation that U.S. Representative Devin Nunes’ (R-CA) rolled out called “A Roadmap for America’s Energy Future”.
According to the Weekly Standard, one key insight the legislation hinges on is “advances in energy efficiency are often inextricably linked with energy production.” As a result, if the US opens up domestic resources, Nunes proposes that “any profits the government makes form increased domestic energy production would go into a trust fund for renewable energy sources, as well as new research and development.”
Nunes further suggests using reverse auction technology to disperse the newly created trust fund monies. Companies would compete in a free market environment on energy contracts, based on who can produce the most energy for the least amount of money.
What do you think? Do you think his proposals will help America be more efficient in creating renewable energy sources?
In Dr. Frank I. Luntz’s latest book “Win: The Key Principles to Take Your Business From Ordinary to Extraordinary,” he highlights “11 phrases for 2011′ calling them ” the phrases that you should or would be hearing if the political and business leaders really were listening to America”.
Check out the phrases below. Are you taking your business from ordinary to extra ordinary?
LUNTZ’S 11 for ’11:
–’Imagine’ is still the most powerful word in the English language because it is inspiring, motivating, and has a unique definition for each person.
–’No excuses.’ Of all the messages used by America’s business and political elite, no phrase better conveys accountability, responsibility and transparency.
–’I get it.’ This explains not only a complete understanding of the situation but also a willingness to solve or resolve the situation. It’s short, sweet and effective.
–’If you remember only one thing…’ is the surest way to guarantee that voters will remember the one point that matters most to you. This is essential in complicated situations like the upcoming debt ceiling vote.
–‘Uncompromising integrity.’ Of all the truthiness words, none is as powerful as ‘integrity,’ but in today’s cynical environment, even that’s not enough. People also need to feel that your integrity is absolute.
–’The simple truth’ comes straight from billionaire businessman Steve Wynn, and it sets the context for a straightforward discussion that might otherwise be confusing or contentious.
–’Believe in better’ comes from BSkyB, the satellite television provider owned in part by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. empire. Of all the corporate mission statements of the Fortune 100, ‘believe in better’ is the second-most popular — and it applies to politics as well.
–’Real-time.’ This is not a pitch for Bill Maher. Many Americans were furious that they couldn’t get the details of the health-care legislation in a timely fashion. ‘Real-time’ communicates receiving information at the speed of life.
–’You decide.’ No, this is not paying homage to Fox News. The lesson of 2010 is that Americans want control of their lives back and they don’t want Washington or Wall Street making their decisions for them.
–’You deserve.’ This comes from DNC Chairman Tim Kaine and it was first employed by him in his highly praised 2006 SOTU response. It tells voters exactly what they should expect from their politicians and their government.
– ‘Let’s get to work’ was employed by Florida Governor Rick Scott (R) in his successful campaign. No other end-of-speech rallying cry is more motivational to voters.
In an OpEd today’s New York Times, David Yarkin, the former deputy secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of General Services, highlights the efficiencies and cost savings the State of Pennsylvania has achieved through strategic sourcing and urges other states to follow suit.
While I commend his leadership in procurement innovation, I wonder if Pennsylvania and other states have considered adding reverse auctions to their procurement strategy. The reverse auction is an online web-based online, like eBay, but instead of buyers bidding a price up, suppliers place lowering bids, driving the price down.
States such as Indiana and South Carolina have used reverse auctions to purchase over $50 million of goods and services, saving approximately 8% or $3.9 million. Online reverse auctions save an average of 10-25% and have been used by most Fortune 500 companies since the early 1990’s.
Mr. Yarkin is right- strategic sourcing is an excellent way to create efficiencies and savings in purchasing. But I challenge Pennsylvania and other states to take this a step further and incorporate online reverse auction procurement to their purchasing process!
Finding ways to do more with less
By Paul Davidson, USA Today
The post recession American workplace is a leaner and more productive workforce. Today companies across the US are finding ways to do more with less and are operating as a team that shares jobs/responsibilities and enjoying higher job satisfaction.
For example, a bank branch of Anderen Bank in Orlando has a frontline team of four employees today vs ten. This team of four are not chained to their stations but are cross trained to fill in and help out as needed as tellers, customer service reps, new account salespeople. Bank deposits at Anderen have gone from $35 to $100M.
Increased workforce productivity across the country (up 3.5% in 2009) is the new normal.
It is predicted 2.4 M jobs will be added in 2011 but won’t recover the 8.3M lost. That is due to efficiencies that businesses achieved in the downturn. Many combined two to three jobs into one and have become more efficient through implementing new technology and software into their process.
Human resources CEO Harry Griendling of DoubleStar said, “The downturn forced companies to re-examine everything they were doing and come up with a new model.”
“I think there is a generation of leaders who went through a crisis and are going to manage and lead this way for the next 10 years,” said Walt Shill, managing director of Accenture.
eBridge’s fully managed reverse auction procurement team has become an innovative part of company’s new business model. Their efficient online procurement process (with no upfront costs) delivers net savings of 10% to 25% on purchases over $100k and assures their clients achieve an ‘at market’ transaction every time.
“Change management and poor communications among stakeholder groups on IT projects is a key contributor to failure. For many organizations, cultivating communications on technology-enabled business projects appears an almost insurmountable problem.
Communications in this context means explaining the business impact of technology decisions to a non-technical audience. That impact likely includes process changes that may affect employees in a variety of ways.”
How is your organization tackling organizational change to stay up to date with technology?
Check out the full post by Michael Kringsman, author of the blog IT Project Failures by clicking here.
According to a recent survey conducted by Accenture, “80 percent of senior finance executives said their scope of responsibilities has expanded, with finance also now overseeing programs in other departments across the enterprise.” This includes supply chain and procurement departments.
With the expanded responsibility of CFOs in procurement and supply chain, financial officers need to find ways to create efficiencies and cut costs.
What’s the solution? Reverse auctions. Reverse auctions benefit the supply chain by increasing productivity, reducing purchasing cycle time and create cost savings. These benefits to the purchasing professionals make a big impact in the effectiveness of a CFO.
The reverse auction process automates many of the manual processes associated with the procurement process. eBridge works on behalf of buyer to modify or create specifications, source and train suppliers and manage correspondence with suppliers. According to a report from CAPS Research, buying firms report cycle-time reduction to be reduced by as much as 40% over traditional sourcing processes.
Reverse auctions also deliver efficiencies through cost savings. Reverse auctions give suppliers an opportunity to submit multiple bids in an effort to win business. When placed in a competitive environment, typically the buyer is able to glean an average 14% net savings from everything run through the process.
Reverse auctions should be a well-seasoned tool in an organization’s procurement department- they are very useful when applied to the right project and can make a significant impact to the bottom line.
Are you enjoying the benefits of reverse auctions?