In the latest SCDigest, they compiled a list of ten signs that may indicate your global sourcing strategy needs a tune-up including:

• Many of the nominal savings on a per unit basis from global sourcing are, in reality, lost when true overall logistics and supply chain costs are accurately considered.
• Decreases per unit costs come at the price of substantial increases in inventory, as inventory buffers and inventory obsolescence increase significantly as a result of the longer and more uncertain lead times.
• Expediting charges to get goods from overseas in time to meet production and distribution requirements increase substantially.
• Sales opportunities are lost due to failure of offshore goods to arrive on time.
• A company consistently misses budgeted financials due to a mismatch between expected total landed costs and actual costs.
• Most global sourcing process and handle manually, with minimal technology support, and staff has an increasingly difficult time keeping up.

Here are a few of the signs that a company needs to re-assess its approach to global sourcing and bring in some outside help.  Read the entire list at SCDigest:

  http://www.scdigest.com/assets/On_Target/09-06-23-2.php

Logistics Management has an article covering how supply chain leaders should rethink their companies'  risks and potentially rebalance the trade-offs between cost optimization and effective risk management.  

The article discusses the three emerging areas of significant supply chain risk which are supplier stability, product quality and demand forecasting.  They suggest the following four step process to mitigate your supply chain risk.

http://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/CA6663599.html

Given the poor economic conditions, companies are looking for the opportunity to reduce costs and one hot area that is ripe with potential savings is to conduct transportation procurement bids. The process involves sending bid packages (aggregated forecast of shipments) to carriers, they submit their bids (often involving multiple rounds) and then you evaluate the bids and award the business.

There are a number of software solutions in the Transportation Procurement space that will automate and optimize the whole process.  These procurement solutions do not just consider carrier rates but optimize the results considering carrier performance, capacity, seasonal variability, equipment requirements, service level and business rules.  The benefits realized from these solutions include more reliable capacity with fewer rejected shipments, higher on-time delivery performance, drastically reduced procurement time with a substantial cost savings.

This link has an interesting article from Adrian Gonzalez of ARC Advisory that discusses this topic in further detail: http://logisticsviewpoints.com/2009/05/21/transportation-procurement-is-hot-right-now/

Many shipper's international supply chain processes are manual intensive and rely on phone, fax or email to arrange ocean bookings.  International logistics automation has not been a priority for most companies with many relying on freight forwarders and brokers to handle it for them.

In order to eliminate errors and reduce costs, companies like retail giant Lowe's (100K annual container moves) are automating their ocean booking process by utilizing a global technology solution. Shippers without the budget for a technology solution can utilize INTTRA's booking portal which is free for shippers. INTTRA has relationships with most of the major ocean carriers (but not all) and charges them a transaction fee for the bookings. INTTRA also has a related portal called oceanschedules.com, which offers shippers the ability to search for ocean voyages for no charge.

http://www.scdigest.com/assets/On_Target/09-05-27-1.php?cid=2485

Logistics Management has published their 2009 Logistics Technology Roundtable and some key findings are that companies continue to invest in Transportation Management Solutions (TMS) as a way to reduce costs, improve productivity, increase service levels and meet new regulations.  Companies have shown great interest in utlizing Transportation Procurement solutions as a means for lowering their freight costs.  

Since utilizing a TMS has proven to save 5 percent to 25 percent of a companies freight spend depending on how manual their processes are, companies are willing to invest in the technology, even with the poor economic conditions.  Companies that invest now will be able to be leverage their improved efficiencies when fuel prices rise and capacity gets tighter.  Here is the link to the read the full report:  

 http://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/CA6655601.html