Blog


It’s Time to Think About the Total Cost of Ownership

United symbols of business and environment, achieved though total cost of ownership

‘High quality, affordable products, and services that don’t harm the environment, delivered on demand!’ Sound familiar? That’s the mantra of the modern customer. No longer is it acceptable to sacrifice quality for a cheaper price tag. Nor is it acceptable to cut corners at the expense of the environment and…

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The compounding impact of commercial nous

It feels like just yesterday that I received my first lesson in ‘commercial nous’. That was 25 years ago. At that time, I was a mechanic. The most valuable thing I learnt was not tightening bolts, changing oil, and replacing spark plugs. It was how to look someone in the eye, shake…

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Make or Buy: It’s Time for a Rethink

What is the point of sales departments? To create markets and stoke demand. Sales departments have been a standard part of industry for so long that we sometimes fail to remember that, for much of human history, sales activity was business to consumer. Business to business sales wasn’t a concept…

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Procurement Challenges Facing CPOs

A chain with a weak link, and text asking how resilient is your supply chain

Travel to Australia is down by 60% due to COVID-19. It’s just one of the many blows to the economy caused by the pandemic. This unprecedented drop in GDP is leading to a potentially seismic shift in how procurement is viewed and how it can make organisations across Australia more…

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5 Auction Types You Should Consider in Procurement

5 auction type

Just last year, we published a blog outlining the value of a particular auction type: the reverse auction. It listed 5 benefits, which included: The reasons above are as valid now as they were a year ago, and will remain so in 2021. This has led in part to reverse…

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Supply Chain Risk Management: How to Spot Potential Failures

A woman wearing a mask, a Hong Kong protester and a kangaroo trying to escape bush fires all lead to supply chain risk

We live in turbulent times. In the first seven months of 2020, we’ve had bush fires, mass unrest leading to protests in Hong Kong and the US, rising tensions with China that have seen government manufacturing incentives move elsewhere, and, most disruptive, the COVID-19 pandemic. And there’s still five months…

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What part can procurement play in kick-starting the economy?

Melbourne is in lockdown. Again. Many are asking, ‘How did we get here?’. The answer is multifaceted and, unfortunately, procurement played its part. The Conversation recently published an excellent article on the role procurement had in Melbourne’s clumsy hotel quarantining, including its influence on the troubled private security industry. We…

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Voice Activation & Bot Purchasing: Welcome to the Future of Procurement

procurement professionals

Back in 2016, Gartner predicted that “About 30% of searches will be done without a screen by 2020”. The following year, Oracle suggested that a significant portion of the sales executives are either already using chatbots or planned to use them by 2020. Well, it’s 2020, so how did these…

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The 6 Key Skills You’ll Need to Support Business Recovery Post-Pandemic

Procurement Skills Assessment

Life used to be simple. There were blue collar workers and white collar workers. You either wore denim to the factory or starched and pressed whites to the office. Now, though, the coronavirus lockdown has introduced a “new” collar. The pyjama shirt collar. When we begin to leave lockdown, some…

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In the Post COVID-19 World, Skill Mapping is More Important Than Ever

Skill mapping will show what skills you're missing

Skill mapping is a data-driven strategy that can help you navigate your company to more effective employees and better outcomes. Reflection is a luxury most cannot afford. Routines become ruts, which we follow day after day without deviation, never stopping to think because we simply don’t have the time. However,…

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Comprara acknowledges the traditional Aboriginal owners of country, recognises their continuing connection to land, water and community and pays respect to Elders past, present and future.