Category: Article

eBridge Joins High Impact Portfolio

High Impact Program identifies Louisville’s top fast-growth companies

LOUISVILLE, KY (April 12, 2011) – eBridge, a leader in fully managed reverse auction procurement services, was recently named to the High Impact Portfolio as one of the top fast-growth companies headquartered in the Metro Louisville Region.  The High Impact Program, a public/private partnership between Louisville Metro Government and Greater Louisville Inc.’s (GLI) ENTERPRISECORP, introduced the newest companies selected to the High Impact Portfolio during ENTERPRISECORP’s Signature Event today.

“Fast-growth companies are critical to the continued economic success of our region,” said Bobby Ferreri, Executive Director of ENTERPRISECORP.  “The High Impact Portfolio honors those businesses poised to lead our community in job growth over the coming years, and it was exciting to see the variety in this year’s companies.”

eBridge provides fully managed reverse auction procurement services, delivering an average net savings of 14% on purchases and creating efficiencies in procurement operations.  eBridge significant growth over the past twelve months is due to an infusion of capital and the addition of seasoned leadership to drive revenue and expand market share.

“It is an honor to be recognized as one of the fast-growth companies in Louisville,” said Jim Headlee, CEO.  “We are poised for continued growth thanks to a robust service offering and our team of procurement professionals that lead customers deliver savings and drive efficiencies for our clients.”

The High Impact program strives to nurture the prosperity of Greater Louisville’s growth businesses. Initiated in 2003, the program identifies companies meeting specific criteria, which are then named to the High Impact Portfolio.

Collectively, High Impact Portfolio companies represent $2.3 billion in annual revenues; have a 36 percent average growth rate; have created nearly 3,000 new jobs in our region; and have invested $438 million over the last four years.

About eBridge

Founded in 2002, eBridge Business Solutions, LLC provides fully managed reverse auction services, creating efficiencies and delivering hard dollar savings to the customers’ bottom line.  Leveraging years of experience in purchasing, sourcing and spend management, eBridge creates meaningful value for our customers through leadership in reverse auction procurement and process change consulting.   For more information, visit: www.ebridgeglobal.com.

About the High Impact Program

The High Impact program strives to nurture the prosperity of Greater Louisville’s growth businesses. The High Impact Program is a public/private partnership, funded by Louisville Metro Government and administered by GLI’s ENTERPRISECORP, that identifies and serves fast-growth companies, companies with the potential for fast growth, and those companies that enable growth in others. The program focuses on companies of these types headquartered in Louisville that have a disproportionately higher impact on the metro area economy. For more information on the High Impact Program, visit www.HighImpactLouisville.com.

eBridge announces partnership with Life in Abundance

African mission organization will receive one percent of corporate profits

 Louisville, KY- April 5, 2011- eBridge Business Solutions, LLC today announced a partnership with Life in Abundance (LIA), an African-founded Christian community development organization.  LIA equips local churches to respond to the needs of their suffering neighbors and empowers them to break the cycles of poverty in their midst.

This year eBridge will donate one percent of its annual profits to LIA, to coincide with the organization’s initiative to develop partnerships with businesses in the United States.  Funds will be used to help individuals start businesses in the local communities where LIA serves through micro-financing opportunities and training programs.

“eBridge’s business model and objectives typify the type of corporate partners we seek,” said Justin Narducci, Director of Partnerships and Resources for LIA.  “They have strong leadership, committed staff members and a mission that serves the needs of their clients. We look forward to providing many micro-enterprise opportunities in Africa because of this partnership.”

“Each day eBridge works to create value for our customers by delivering excellence in reverse auction procurement practices,” said Jim Headlee, CEO.  “But we believe our work has a greater calling than only reverse auction procurement which is why we are partnering with LIA.  Through this partnership, we hope to enrich those living in the impoverished communities LIA serves and set an example for our staff and customers to make a difference in the lives of others.”

To learn more about Life in Abundance, please visit www.liaint.org or  www.ebridgeglobal.com/social-responsibility.

Republicans Weigh a Federal ‘Reverse Auction’ to Push Clean Energy

On Monday the New York Times featured an article discussing U.S. Rep Kevin Nunes proposed legislation to increase domestic energy production.  Any savings would be put in to a trust where businesses could bid, via reverse auction, on funds for research and development of renewable energy sources.

From the article:  The provision sits deep in H.R. 909, a bill Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) proposed in early March. Overall, the bill focuses on ramping up oil and gas production, oil shale and nuclear energy; it also cancels U.S. EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases.

Some of the royalties and fees from the oil and gas production go into a trust fund. The Department of Energy then solicits offers from renewable power generators and awards the funds to those that offer the lowest price.

It’s called a “reverse auction” for renewable energy, and it’s an idea Democrats have floated in past Congresses. Now it comes from a Republican majority that has questioned climate science and pressed for more fossil energy — and could easily have put the cash toward the deficit.

To read the full article click here.

Business alliances will remain a popular strategy

The economic landscape over the past few years has forced organizations to look internally to find ways to create efficiencies in their supply chain and business operations to preserve resources.

A recent study released by CFO research studies  surveyed almost 200 global senior finance executives and found that forging partnerships with third parties still remains a top priority.  The survey explains that “companies are finding that a partnership strategy born of necessity can also be a valuable part of a growth strategy“.

At eBridge lock arms with our customers by providing fully managed purchasing solutions to deliver measurable results- averaging 14% net savings in everything run through the process and creating efficiencies in procurement processes.

The article concludes by stating, in an uncertain economy the greater risk may be in going it alone.

Is your organization forming strategic partnerships to stay afloat during these uncertain times?

To read the full article, click here.

Importance of ext. relationships in the recovery; likelihood cos. will pursue strategic partnerships

Restaurant Groups Looking for Ways to Create Efficiencies in Supply Chain

Today’s Wall Street Journal features an article about the initiatives large restaurant chains are taking to create efficiencies in their supply chains.  Companies like Starbucks, Darden Restaurants (owner of Red Lobster and Olive Garden chains) and Texas Roadhouse are hedging prices on ingredients and looking for ways to purchase cooperatively to give the groups more buying power and more leverage with their suppliers.

“We’re seeing a level of sophistication in supply-chain management that didn’t exist five years ago,” said Dave Donnan, a partner in the consumer products practice at consulting firm A.T. Kearney.  “The separation of those that will succeed and those that will fail will be based on attention to detail.”

How is your organization paying “attention to detail” to improve your supply chain?

Click here to read the full article.

Practicing Boldness in Reverse Auction Procurement

Each month eBridge focuses on a character trait to help staff grow personally and professionally- and to exemplify these traits in our daily business interaction with customers.  This month we are focusing on boldness- “the confidence to say or do what is true, right and just”.

Each day eBridge provides value to our customers through our leadership in the reverse auction process.  Part of this process is encouraging our clients to be “bold”– with their suppliers, internal purchasing teams and with company leadership- to implement a new idea – even if it goes against status quo.

In the same way, we commit to our customers to be “bold”: to do what we say we will and be worthy of their trust.  This means operating with transparency and challenging them to be more efficient in their purchasing process.

In our discussion about boldness, one member of our team pointed out, “boldness is like a muscle we exercise.  The more we use it, we increase our ability to act with courage in the future.”  Another team member pointed out, “fear keeps us from being bold.  If you don’t face your fears, you will start making choices to avoid them rather than overcome them.”

We encourage you to join with our team this month and practice boldness by facing your fears and exploring opportunities to challenge the status quo.  What areas of growth does your organization have and where can you practice boldness to help achieve more remarkable results?

New Zealand Airline Offers Discount Tickets through Reverse Auction

A popular reverse action service from Air New Zealand is now a significant part of its fare distribution system following a major upgrade of the platform.  Grab-a-Seat originally launched around three years ago and was only used ad-hoc to shift seats on specific occasions, but it did attract a reasonable following and was a useful way of offloading distressed fares.

Air New Zealand has now taken the plunge and relaunched the system as an always-on service, meaning there is a ticket deal available through reverse auction every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day.

What do you think?  Is this an effective way for Air New Zealand to create efficiencies in ticket sales?

Article from the Reverse Auction Research Center, David Wyld.

Audio interview on IT success and failure

Below is a link to a recorded audio interview discussing IT success and failure from a CIO perspective.  It includes discussion of collaboration and knowledge sharing on the subject between Mike Krigsman from ZD Net’s blog “IT Project Failures” and Mike Gammage, consultant for consulting firm, Nimbus Partners

Click here to listen!

Pharmecutical firm Draws Criticism for using Reverse Auction on PR Contracts

The Holmes Report recently published an article about GSK (GlaskoSmithKlein) using a reverse auction to streamline the organizations’ agency expenses.

“The pharma giant asked as many as 40 agencies that comprise the roster to take part in the online process, which ranks agencies according to their proposed costs for different services. The roster, which oversees at least £5m in fees, is believed to include such agencies as Ogilvy Healthworld, Chandler Chicco, Huntsworth Health, Waggener Edstrom, Weber Shandwick, Red Door and Virgo.

The GSK reverse auction comes after the company ran a similar exercise last year to refine its European PR roster from 20 agencies down to 10. “The process is not dissimilar from other big pharma companies,” said one source from a participating agency. “As an industry we can moan about it, but it’s a reality.”

While GSK maintains using the reverse auction has helped them, participants feel the process “treat[s] PR like paperclips and printers,” in a bid to drive down expenditure.

A spokesperson for GSK rebuttals, saying “It’s not a Tesco-esque bullying of the little guy,” added the participant. “The real question is – is there business once you’ve gone through that? There should be some level of guaranteed business.”

What do you think?  Is agency work appropriate for the reverse auction?

Getting Employees to Accept Change- in eProcurement and Beyond

In a blog post by Anne Field of Register Rep, the author writes about the importance of communication and collaboration when implementing a change and then offers practical tips for adoption.

From the post:

You know what they say: The one constant is change. That said, there’s another eternal truth: The one constant about change is that people hate it. And since your employees undoubtedly are people, you can expect that they, also, feel uncomfortable when facing the prospect of a disruption to their routines. But that can make it very difficult to try to introduce changes, large and small, into your practice. We’re talking about anything from a new CRM system to an all-out revision of strategic direction. Making matters even trickier, according to Daniel Crosby, an organizational psychologist in Huntsville, Ala., who specializes in change management for financial advisors, the natural inclination for many results-oriented advisors is to move at top speed, completely ignoring the time-consuming spade work they might need to persuade their staff to get on board.

Trouble is, if your employees don’t embrace whatever change it is you want to introduce, you can forget about it: You won’t succeed. “Trying to make a change without staff buy-in is a recipe for disaster,” says Crosby.

Still, introducing change is quite doable if approached with sufficient finesse and patience, as Story discovered. “Change is a process,” says Crosby. Understand what’s involved and you, most likely, can make just about any change stick.

First place to start is a reality check. That means acquiring an understanding that you and your employees might regard a specific change very differently—and that you need to respect their point of view.

Like any sale, however, introducing change ultimately is about convincingly demonstrating the benefits of whatever you’re pushing. In other words, you need to show employees how the move will help them and the practices do better. “When people are well-informed and understand the decision, change is much easier,” says Palaveev. In some cases, that might take some doing—but the effort is essential.

After you’ve made your case, then you have to persuade employees they have a stake in the outcome. And you do that by, as the jargon goes, getting them to assume ownership of the change. Best is to identify the people directly affected by the change and incorporate them into the decision-making process.

By getting employees involved in the decision-making process, you also can save time in unexpected ways.

How are you including your employees in decision-making processes, particularly when it relates to new procurement processes?