Corbus, LLC Executive Recognized as Pro to Know in Supply Chain

February 21, 2012 – Corbus, LLC’s Senior Vice President, Jason Evans, was recognized by Supply & Demand Chain Executive magazine as one of 2012’s Provider Pros to Know.  Evans has been excelling in the supply chain industry for the past decade providing unparalleled service to Fortune 100 clients.

“Being recognized by Supply & Demand Chain Executive is a great honor,” remarked Jason Evans.  “I’m lucky to have had tremendous learning experiences working with top clients in their supply chains.  This industry is complex and changing daily with new technologies and customer needs.  In order to bring about true partnerships and efficiency, I utilize a global support team at Corbus and stay on top of trends if I can’t start my own.”

The annual award honors individual executives managing innovative and successful supply chains.  Winners are leading the industry in uncertain times providing extreme savings for customers.  The Pros are considered thought leaders within the industry and clients’ partners of choice.

Corbus, LLC

Corbus, LLC, a global solutions provider founded in 1994, offers superior services combining years of experience, solid partnerships and adaptability.  Corbus’ solution offering includes Information Technology (IT), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Project Management (PMO) services.  Corbus creates technology-empowered solutions with industry leading processes and technologies that deliver business value to global clients through year-on-year savings and are known for the ability to work in true partnership with clients to innovate and bring cost reduction along with enhanced product quality.  With competitive positioning and complete transparency, Corbus and clients together achieve success.  For more information, visit http://www.Corbus.com.

Corbus is a global organization, headquartered in North America with presence in Europe and Asia Pacific markets. Corbus is a wholly owned subsidiary of Soin International LLC, a private multi-national holding company that provides strategic management, administrative systems, and financial support to a diverse array of worldwide subsidiaries and affiliates.

Achieving Sourcing Savings in the Post-Merger Environment

The number of corporate acquisitions and mergers has increased dramatically in recent years. It is no secret that these scenarios create significant opportunity to reduce operating costs by coordinating purchasing volumes and negotiating discounts based on new size/combined sourceable expense! In addition to strategic goals like obtaining operational integrity, a post-merger environment quickly realizes that cost savings is also one of the top most priorities for the leadership team.

From a procurement contribution perspective, sourcing savings is by far the biggest contribution that the combined organization is looking forward to accomplish. Other initiatives including procurement organizations/systems rationalize and consolidate to bring some savings to the table.

Here’s a quick illustration of save potential. By consolidating the purchasing volumes, the two organizations can obtain more favorable savings than either organization could achieve on its own.

Pre-Merger:

• Company A (non-sourced) = Buys 1,000 units of product at $0.50 each. Total cost= $500
• Company B (sourced) = Buys 2,000 units of exact same product from a different supplier at $0.40 each. Total cost = $800

Total for Company A and B = $1,300

Post-Merger:

• New combined unit = 3,000 units at a newly negotiated price of $0.3466 each = $1,040

*Cost Savings:   20%

The first step is to form a taskforce team with key members from procurement and business units supported by a fully engaged steering committee. Typically, preliminary assessments would already have done by this time (at least by the acquiring company) and now it’s the time to dive deeper and develop strategies based on combined spending in each category. It is important to pay close attention to certain categories of spend that lend themselves to a reduced vendor cost curve e.g. by filling up any excess vendor operational capacity, the marginal cost to produce is minimal. Also, focus on the top 80% of spend (typically represented by 20% of vendors) based on a thorough combined spend analysis.

The game place typically revolves around three approaches -

1. Maintain current contracts/status quo – These are spend areas where best in class pricing already exists or there are way too many vendors and business unit users, specifications are poorly defined, and finally this spend area may not be that relevant in the post-merger environment.
2. Identify and address quick hits – Savings opportunity exists within current pool of vendors, few vendors, tightly defined pricing methodology, comparable specs, potential wave 2, and beyond sourcing candidates. Some simple messages to vendors that we will be comparing contracts, etc. will help gain some pricing quick hits for quick and immediate integration.
3. Full category sourcing – Integrated post-merger sourcing effort in wave 1 and wave 2 is defined based on criteria like supply market complexity, save potential, ease of implementation, etc.

Wave 1 and quick hits will drive significant immediate savings.

Some general project integration guidelines include:

1. Full access to contracts, spend, invoices and all required data across both organizations.
2. Team focus and objective should be to find opportunities, not finger point and/or blame past practices/people.
3. All communication to/from vendors controlled and done by assigned team. Discourage/control vendors trying to pull strings across organization boundaries. Follow the process.
4. No implied commitment of volumes to any vendor until full review by assigned team.
5. Pay particular attention to unnecessary vendor transitions/switching costs.

*Logically speaking if we were to apply this 20% save potential to $5B for a typical large organization of similar leverage able spend, the savings could be absolutely astronomical – $1 billion!! Would you agree? Please share your success stories.

-Suhas Petkar

Green Purchasing – How to do it Right!

In my last blog titled “Green Purchasing- Where to Start?”, I had covered the basic idea behind Green Purchasing and had discussed guiding principles that the EPA developed to incorporate environmental considerations into purchasing decisions. In this blog, I will focus on steps that any company could take to successfully implement a Green Purchasing program in a short timeframe:

Step 1: Identify products to be purchased – Target quick winners first

Analyze the spend data and concentrate initial efforts on the most frequently purchased products or those with the greatest environmental impact.

Step 2: Form Purchasing Team – Involve like-minded people from respective fields

“Going Green” would need a multi-disciplinary team comprised of employees from purchasing, manufacturing, engineering, accounting, health & safety, finance, etc. They should have the ability to work in teams and are motivated enough for the green cause.

Step 3: Formalize Technical Specifications – Integrate ‘green’ criteria

Arrive at a list of required technical specifications for the product to ensure it meets the green criteria. Some of the product attributes that should be included in the specifications are: biodegradable, carcinogen-free, energy efficient, lead free, low toxicity, water efficient, etc. Create new or modify existing procurement policies.

Step 4: Set Goals and Specify Budget – Follow total cost assessment procedures

Establish SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time oriented goals.

To arrive at an overall budget for a green program and product benchmarking prices, it is important to look at entire supply chain cost from manufacture through disposal, as well as features like energy consumption, etc.

Step 5: Shortlist Suppliers & Solicit Bids – Engage with suppliers

Select new suppliers or encourage current ones to improve the environmental performance of their operations and products. Suppliers should be able to prove that their product does not contain any ingredients that make it is not acceptable per green norms.

Step 6: Negotiate & Award Contract – Commit to suppliers

Select suppliers from the bids submitted and award the purchase contracts. Suppliers that have made a commitment to operating more sustainably should be awarded with long term contracts.

Step 7: Track & Measure Progress – Look at the overall picture

Develop matrices around green activities and effectiveness to keep the program on track.  Tracking data also provides a basis for assessing the overall cost savings, health and environmental benefits of the program.

Step 8: Celebrate Success – The most important step in the process!

Celebrating achievement of environmental goals motivates employees and creates energy for raising standards for upcoming projects. So, celebrate success!!

It is important to note that the above outlined steps are not specific to any particular industry or organization and are derived from the basic purchasing process; they have only been slightly tweaked to give effective green results.

Has your company taken its first step towards Going Green?

-Sanjeev Singh, Associate Director, Supply Chain Management

References:

http://www.esourcingwiki.com/index.php/An_Introduction_to_Green_Purchasing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_procurement

http://www.naspo.org/content.cfm/id/Steps_to_Developing

IT Transformation Journey: What is it?

Let’s start with asking the question “what is IT transformation”? If you ask 10 CIOs to define IT transformation, you will get 10 different answers including cost cutting, retiring old systems, gearing to implement today’s technology, preparing for the future and so on. But there is one message that comes out clearly: each CIO would like to transform their IT to prepare their organizations to adapt to the changes in the customer’s demand, both from the current and future perspectives into checking the supplier and transportation costs. This basically means shifting from being reactive to being proactive for enabling business growth and process improvements.

Technology transformation is an integral part of the CIO’s IT transformation initiative. It can be defined as the migration of an existing platform or application to a new or different version of a platform or application using existing technology or a new technology.  The new technologies includes SOA (Service Oriented Architecture), PaaS (Platform as a Service), IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), SaaS (Software as a Service), and so on. So, does IT transformation mean only technology transformation? The answer is no. There are two more aspects which play a critical role in the IT transformation, namely, process transformation and data transformation.

Process transformation is the change in processes, the ways of working driven by the change in technology. It plays a critical role in the life of an individual and the organization and in the IT transformation. Today it may take 10 touch points, 5 different software screens, 2 monitors, manual emails transfers, etc. to get a job done, but with the advent of workflow-based technology and automation these touch points may get reduced to a small number leading to improved efficiency for an individual and the organization as a whole.

The next critical component in IT transformation is the data transformation. No matter how good your processes are and no matter how advanced your platform or technology is, if your data is not cleansed and not in the correct structure and form the output from the new process and technology will be useless. As they say, “garbage in, garbage out.” We have seen so many real life instances where IT transformations have failed because the data was not cleansed or transformed and the output generated from the new IT platform was incorrect and useless leading to continual inefficiencies. For an organization to transform their mission critical data it means data cleansing, data modeling, consolidation of data across disparate sources and creating the master data.

It is actually a combination of all of the above transformations – process, technology and data – that drives the IT transformation for an organization.  In order to create a successful IT transformation story, one should identify the problem areas aligned with the long term company strategy; map the existing processes along with the technologies; create the new process based on best practices (make sure the company strategy is in line); identify the gaps from the process, technology, and data angles; create roadmaps for the implementation; and then drive the execution.

The final step for the successful completion of the IT transformation is the implementation of the organizational change management. This needs to be part of the overall execution of the IT transformation plan.

Have you defined your IT transformation journey?

-Dr. Amit Shekhar, Senior Vice President, India Operations Head

Corbus, LLC Named as one of “The Dayton Metro Area Top Workplaces”

January 29, 2012 – Corbus, LLC was named today as one of the 60 Top Workplaces in the Dayton area by Dayton Daily News and Springfield News-Sun.  99 companies participated in the award program.

The annual award is awarded based on feedback from an employee survey sent out to the company’s Dayton-area employees.  A majority segment of the company must reply to the survey in order to be considered.

The Value of Value

Over the past several years, the word “Value” has moved down the ladder of usefulness in an organization’s efforts to portray their offerings to the marketplace.  It has slid from signifying differentiated great worth to one that has ironically become cheap and easy to use when nothing specific can be declared.  We hear “Value Add” and “This Valuable Offer” so regularly that our internal voice responses, “Sure, you along with everyone else”.    In a business context, declarations of a product or service having value are so commonplace that it seems everything has value, if one believes each organization.  This leads me to conclude that its definition is unclear and inconsistent across its users.

First and foremost, value is an assessment, a relative one, to the needs of a particular individual.  One person’s assessment of the value of something is not often shared among the masses.  How could it be if individuals have unique, individual needs?  The second element involves how significant the product or service is to taking care of the specific needs of the individual.   If it does not address what a person is trying to take care of, then its value is low.  Finally, the last ingredient for creating value is the scarcity of what is being offered.   If it can be found on every street corner, then the overall value is once again diminished.   Put simply, the relative value of anything being offered in the world, be it a product, service, or even relationship, boils down to the simple mathematical formula of:

Value = Relative Assessment (Level of Significance * Level of Scarcity)

In order for an organization to increase “the value of its value”, it needs to get back to the basics of determining what its customer needs are (really) from a relative perspective (what else they can choose from).  After understanding this aspect at an individual level, a company must look honestly at its offering(s) as to how well it addresses what the individual is trying to take care of (really) and how many other competitors the individual can go to (scarcity) for  the same offering.   Often when selling their value, companies forget that individuals buy from the seller, not companies.   In order for any sale to take place, it is at the individual buyer level where concerns need to be understood, how well the company’s offering can address those concerns and in the end, who else is offering something along the same.

Consider the following example:

You are in New York City and are thirsty and on every block a vendor sells water, pop, sports drinks, etc.   You want to take care of your thirst (concern), a nice beverage would do that (significant) and the sources are many (not too scarce)…value of the drink?  Whoever has the cheapest kind you prefer.    Now, you are transported to the middle of the desert, where standing before you is one person, with one bottle of water.  Value of the drink?   “Priceless”.

It works in the business context the same way as in an individual’s private situations, from products to services to people, the formula never changes.

-David P. Spencer, President and COO

Corbus, LLC Wins Golden Peacock National Quality Award

January 26, 2012 – Corbus, LLC was honored January 20^th in Bangalore, India by the Institute of Directors at the 22^nd World Congress on Total Quality with the Golden Peacock National Quality Award for 2011.  Corbus won the award based on its improved organizational performance and focus on quality in both its Information Technology and Supply Chain Management solutions.

“We are proud to be recognized with such a prestigious award,” remarked David P. Spencer, Corbus President and COO.  “Our focus is to offer exceptional service to our clients and this is supported by the rigor we put on quality

in all aspects of our business.  Being acknowledged for our excellence proves our constant efforts have been successful! ”

Archana Kaul, Head of Quality at Corbus, supported the company philosophy as she presented to over 400 attendees, declaring, “This is not an award for the quality team but for all of Corbus because excellence in quality comes from a company culture and not from one team alone.”

Over 150 companies applied for this award and were judged on an exhaustive set of parameters.  The award was presented by an impressive panel that included the Union Minister of India Corporate Affairs, Chairman of IOD Advisory Council and former Chief Justice of India, former Prime Minister of Sweden and the Lords Minister for the British Government.

The Golden Peacock Awards drive manufacturing and service organizations with operations in India to better themselves and offer exceptional services to global clients.  The awards are known worldwide for their testing of organizations’ excellence, independence, integrity and transparency.  Winning such an award proves a competitive advantage against those within the industry.

L to R: David P. Spencer, Corbus President and COO; Shri M. Veerappa Moily, Union Minister of India Corporate Affairs; Archana Kaul, Corbus Head of Quality; and Dr. Amit Shekhar, Corbus India Operations Head accepting the award.

Corbus, LLC

Corbus, LLC, a global solutions provider founded in 1994, offers superior services combining years of experience, solid partnerships and adaptability.  Corbus’ solution offering includes Information Technology (IT), Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Project Management (PMO) services.  Corbus creates technology-empowered solutions with industry leading processes and technologies that deliver business value to global clients through year-on-year savings and are known for the ability to work in true partnership with clients to innovate and bring cost reduction along with enhanced product quality.  With competitive positioning and complete transparency, Corbus and clients together achieve success.  For more information, visit http://www.Corbus.com.

Corbus is a global organization, headquartered in North America with presence in Europe and Asia Pacific markets. Corbus is a wholly owned subsidiary of Soin International LLC, a private multi-national holding company that provides strategic management, administrative systems, and financial support to a diverse array of worldwide subsidiaries and affiliates.