Jeanette Jones and Kelly Barner’s take on market
intelligence for procurement professionals is spot on. “Supply Market Intelligence for Procurement
Professionals” tackles one of the most important, yet least tangible aspects of
the sourcing profession – how to get access to good, relevant information about
supply markets quickly, and then maintain that information so that you have it
when you need it. The book provides
insight into the importance of market intelligence, and explains why getting
that information not only helps sourcing professionals do their jobs more
effectively, but also how it can help them bring value to the organizations they
serve in terms of access to new products or technologies, grabbing up capacity so
your competitors cannot gain access to it, and making the best business
decisions in regards to hedging, spot buys and long term contracting. The book creates a business case for market
intelligence with vivid examples that make it easy to understand the applicability
and necessity of MI to the procurement profession at large.
Part I of the book provides a detailed overview of supply
market intelligence, and how MI fits into a best in class procurement
organization. Their assessment is useful
and insightful, and would be valuable to anyone from an entry level procurement
analyst to a seasoned CPO. Part I goes
on to detail how procurement professionals can collect, analyze and utilize
market intelligence, and the importance of continuous data collection as well
as quality assurance – double checking your sources before making decisions
based on your findings. These are
absolutely critical, and often overlooked aspects of supply market intelligence
gathering.
Part II of the book then performs a deep dive assessment of
all the market intelligence resources available to procurement professionals,
including free and paid directories, consulting firms and blogs, market
research firms and subscription services.
As comprehensive as the list is, where the book really provides some
unique and thorough research of its own is in providing a list of market
intelligence sources, by commodity, for a wide variety of industries and spend
categories. From commodity indexes and
supplier directories for chemicals and agriculture, all the way to resources
that can help attack marketing and IT projects, this comprehensive list of
sources is by itself something many organizations might pay tens of thousands
of dollars to gain access to. The amount
of independent research required to put together such a comprehensive list is staggering
in the opinion of this market intelligence junky!
The authors also understood that even the best sources of
market intelligence aren’t stagnant, they are constantly changing and updating
as new information, technologies and processes becomes available. Therefore, they have also made all their
market intelligence sources available online, so they can be updated as
required.
I want to congratulate both Jeanette and Kelly on a job well
done. In a world where access to good,
independent market intelligence is incredibly hard to come by, they have put
together a user’s guide to MI that should stand the test of time in an ever
evolving procurement industry. Get your
copy of the book today!
Thank you for this fantastic review of our book, Joe!
ReplyDeleteChapter 10 of 'Managing Indirect Spend' gave us a great path to follow, and we thoroughly enjoyed capturing our knowledge and experience of market research and analysis and applying them to the specific needs of procurement individuals and organizations today. We hope everyone else finds the book equally useful.
Kelly Barner