A rationale often used in support of a more centralized corporate purchasing function is the need for a company to project "One Face to the Supplier".

SciQuest Inc., a provider of cloud-based applications for automating spend management, has released version 15.1 of its spend-automation suite.

Applying leverage in negotiations results in a zero-sum outcome where one side wins and the other side loses. This typically means that the winner ends up with somewhat more than 50 percent of their hoped-for result and the loser gets somewhat less than 50 percent since, just as in sports competitions where the potential results are win-lose, lose-win and tie, the use of leverage doesn't allow for combined outcomes above 100 percent. Zero-sum outcomes not only create a relational imbalance, they create hard feelings. People who lose in one negotiation often do their best to turn the tables the next time such that they win - and you lose.

Automotive suppliers are under mounting pressure to satisfy two conflicting customer demands: to cut costs and to open more factories in fast-growing emerging markets so that they can be closer to their customers' production plants. Striking the right balance between cost and proximity in global manufacturing networks will be one of the industry's greatest challenges, according to a report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), conducted in partnership with the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA. The report is titled The Proximity Paradox: Balancing Auto Suppliers' Manufacturing Networks.

AmeriQuest Business Services has launched a new offering to help govern companies' indirect procurement, the purchase of non-strategic products and services.

Global Healthcare Exchange LLC (GHX) has finalized its acquisition of Vendormate, an Atlanta, Ga.-based company specializing in vendor relationship-management applications for healthcare providers and suppliers.

Faced with new challenges in serving global markets, Amgen set out to improve its supply-chain resiliency with the help of a system from Resilinc. Patricia Turney, executive director of supply chain, tells the story.