On-Demand Content

Reducing Costs While Improving Value – Webinar

Purchasing teams are being challenged to deliver aggressive savings in 2024. Many suppliers are still battling rising costs and labor shortages, giving them little flexibility to reduce prices without degrading service.

We discussed three key steps to improving value while delivering savings on purchased materials and services:

1. Interview stakeholders to identify exactly what is needed to meet the needs of internal customers
2. Engage commodity experts to identify suppliers that align with the company’s current and future needs
3. Obtain cost transparency from suppliers to drive cost savings beyond the initial cost reductions

Download the webinar to learn the critical actions your team should take while implementing cost savings to ensure that cost reductions are achieved while improving value through better alignment.

Creating an Effective Negotiating Culture in Your Team – Webinar

Crafting an effective negotiating culture within your purchasing team is a formidable challenge that can lead to better results and better relationships. In this engaging webinar, we delved deep into the essential practices leaders employ when they want to create a consistent negotiation culture that improves their team’s skill and knowledge and leads to better negotiation results.

Watching this webinar, you’ll gain valuable resources to bolster your team’s performance, including:

• Comprehensive Debrief Forms
• Pre and Post Negotiation Check Sheet

Download the webinar to take this transformative journey towards elevating your team’s negotiation prowess.

Best Practices for Training Your Purchasing Team – Webinar

Purchasing leaders and managers can have a huge impact on the success of training for their teams. Three Purchasing Leaders – from three very different industries – shared their advice for getting the most out of your investment in buyer training.

Download the webinar where we discussed APD’s advice for maximizing the ROI from training purchasing teams and learn from the recent experience of three experienced purchasing leaders.

Adapting Communications for Better Negotiations – Webinar

Commercial negotiations can be stressful. While both parties want to achieve a deal, most of the time they are striving for an outcome that favors their side over the other.

Negotiation fundamentals – concepts like understanding power dynamics and listen to understand before you share – help forge a productive path. But finesse in communications is necessary as well.

Download the webinar to learn what is Behavioral Science, why purchasing professionals should care, and how buyers and sellers can use behavioral science to improve their negotiations.

Delivering on Strategic Sourcing – Webinar

Done correctly, Strategic sourcing projects can quickly deliver cost savings while ensuring supply and aligning supplier capabilities with the needs of the organization. But when poorly planned – or executed hastily – they often fail to deliver the desired results.

Join us as we discussed the critical success factors for a successful strategic sourcing project.

Negotiation Strategies for Economics Claw Back – Webinar

With some commodity prices retreating buyers have an opportunity to claw back price increase granted in the past few years. As with most endeavors, success will favor those who take the time to prepare and execute well planned strategies.

Join us as we present the successful planning and negotiation strategies that purchasing organizations and buyers implementing.

Understanding Resin Prices – Webinar

Learn the most important resin price drivers you need to understand to effectively negotiate savings on the resins you buy.

Most buyers are at a disadvantage when negotiating with resin suppliers for several reasons. First, resin producers do not share their cost structures or formulations. Consequently, buyers find it very difficult to apply the fact-based price negotiations that work well for other commodities, and are left with positional bargaining techniques.

In this webinar we’ll discuss the most important factors that drive resin prices and how to add to your knowledge base for more effective resin price negotiations.

Overcoming Objections & Intransigence in Negotiations – Webinar

In this webinar we discussed why buy/sell negotiations get stalled and how to get them moving again.

One of the training topics that is of most interest to training participants is how to unstick stalled negotiations. Our collaborative negotiation approach is largely based on Ury’s “Getting to Yes”. However, it’s in his subsequent book, “Getting Past No” where Ury explores why negotiations get stuck and methods for getting them moving along again.

In the webinar we discussed Ury’s approach and provided practical tips for how to apply it to buy/sell negotiations.

Coming Out of Chaos – Seven Steps to Achieving Strategic Priorities in 2023

Learn 7 methods purchasing leaders and buyers are using to come out of the chaos of the past three years to deliver strategy, savings and better supplier relationships to their companies.

During the past 3 years purchasing teams have been consumed with Urgent firefighting tasks requiring immediate attention. At the same time, we changed how we work going from in-the-office to work-from-home and then back to the office or a hybrid of the two.

These factors have taken the focus away from Important activities like employee training and commodity strategy development and execution.

Saving on Indirect Spend – Webinar

The U.S. supply economy is at an inflection point – after a prolonged period of shortages and price increases, some areas have already reversed to overcapacity and cost decreases while many others will soon. Those indirect categories that have the characteristics of a “commodity” – many available suppliers and low strategic impact to the business – are the fastest and easiest to implement cost savings while improving service levels.

In this webinar, we discussed key points for achieving savings in three “commodity” areas of indirect spend where we’ve had the greatest success:

• Factory supplies
• Packaging
• Freight

Moving Beyond Should Be Costs to Predictive Pricing

There are many methods for developing cost models to try and determine what purchased component and services costs should be. All the methods have one thing in common; they produce estimates that turn out to be wrong. The results can be disastrous and include missed new business opportunities because the models provide estimates that are too high and margin losses when the models provide estimates that are too low.

Using predictive pricing methods, we can move beyond should be costing to determine the probability a supplier will quote a specific price. Using the methods, we can improve the capture rate on new business opportunities and the margins on the awards.

Reducing Corrugated Packaging Costs – Webinar

After 18 months of rapidly rising costs, companies are taking a harder look at their corrugated packaging spend. Supply and demand dynamics appear to be improving. Is it time to market test packaging?

During this webinar, we shared lessons learned from a recently completed strategic sourcing project that achieved 9% savings on top of 10% cost avoidance on corrugated packaging.

Finding Suppliers in Mexico – Webinar

Finding suppliers in Mexico has become much more difficult with the rapid surge of nearshoring activities in the past 18 months. Manufacturers are reporting that they are finding it very challenging to identify suppliers who:

• Are capable to meet their needs (technical, quality, delivery, financial health)
• Have capacity to support their production requirements
• Are willing to take on their business (especially low mix, high volume)

In this webinar, we shared lessons learned from successfully identifying capable and willing Mexican suppliers for eight different companies in 2022 for commodities ranging from aluminum castings and extrusions to steel stampings and forgings to plastic injection moldings.

5 Critical Processes for a Successful Cost Year – Webinar

Purchasing has always been about balancing urgent supply chain issues and important strategic initiatives to make purchasing and the supply chain a competitive advantage for companies. For almost 3 years Covid has required purchasing to put aside strategic initiatives and processes to handle a myriad of supply chain issues. This has created another urgent issue, margin erosion. Savings programs have dried up while the material, transportation costs and expenses have increased.

Our client engagement, thought leader roundtables and industry involvement have given us keen insights into the issues being faced and how different companies are working them.

In this webinar shared what leading companies are doing to recover lost margin through supply chain initiates in 2022.

Negotiating and Costing in the Market’s New Reality

Advanced Purchasing Dynamics hosted a webinar to discuss Negotiating and Costing in the Market’s New Reality.

The pandemic, geo-political issues, and other supply chain challenges have created supply chain chaos. The resulting shortages and inflation are challenges we have not experienced since the 1970’s and have drastically changed the way we should do business. Jeoff Burris, APD’s Founder and Trainer, will present methods and skills critical for success in the new marketplace.

We were honored to have two guest speakers share how they are using negotiation and costing methods and skills to successfully manage in the Market’s New Reality: Lucas Poy from a Purchasing perspective and Angelo Bruno from a Business Development perspective.

How to Jumpstart Employee Productivity for 2022

Advanced Purchasing Dynamics hosted a webinar to discuss How to Jumpstart Employee Productivity for 2022. Denise Mattern, Director of Training Sales & Marketing for APD and Mike Betz, APD’s CEO and Managing Partner, discussed challenges in the current market, such as price increases, part shortages, and urgent issues demanding focus on the short-term. Mike provided first-hand insight on how to increase productivity during these turbulent times.

Top Skills to Drive Successful Negotiations

Advanced Purchasing Dynamics discussed the Top Skills to Drive Negotiation Success. Jeoff Burris, APD’s Founder and Trainer, detailed top negotiation skills, and we are honored to have had our guest speaker Angelo Bruno from WHB Automotive International join the webinar.  Angelo has completed APD’s Training Courses on negotiation and he provided first-hand insight on the top negotiation skills discussed in the webinar.

APD Introduces Price Increase Mitigation Service

APD executives Jeoff Burris and Mike Betz along with Lisa Smith (Independent Executive Consultant) hosted a webinar that discussed an overview of how APD’s Price Increase Mitigation Services works.

Price Increase Mitigation Service:
• Takes workload off the buyer and ensures all requests are captured and aggregated to understand the overall financial risks to the company
• Is a methodology to obtain cost detail required to analyze validity of the request, negotiate effectively, and adjust pricing downward when commodity prices recover
• Provides the buyer with a cost and market view of the increase request and data for successful negotiation

APD’s Price Increase Mitigation Service is designed to reduce the risk of price increases, provided data for successful negotiations, and track the request to recover the price increase when prices rebound.

Strategies to Mitigate Supplier Price Increase

APD executives Jeoff Burris and Mike Betz hosted a webinar that discussed 5 mitigating strategies for dealing with supplier price increase requests.

In today’s environment, purchasing departments are bottlenecked with managing price increase requests from the supply chain. Many times, price increase requests are set aside while purchasing deals with more critical day-to-day issues. When they are finally dealt with, suppliers attempt to institute retroactive price increases which cause havoc for company financial reporting.

As a best practice, supplier price increase requests must be handled in a timely manner to understand the overall financial risks to the company. As a spoiler alert, one strategy that will be discussed is the need to obtain cost details required to analyze validity of the request, negotiate effectively, and adjust pricing downward when commodity prices recover.

Investing in Procurement Makes Manufacturers Resilient

Advanced Purchasing Dynamics hosted a webinar with executives Jeoff Burris and Mike Betz as they discussed the value for manufacturing companies to invest in procurement. In the webinar, Karelia Saravia of Litens Automotive and Lisa Smith, an Independent Executive Advisor, shared how digital transformation is transforming supply chains into resilient powerhouses and adding value to manufacturers today. The importance of procurement has never been more highlighted than in the past 12 months, and leading manufacturing companies have recognized the strategic advantage they gain by deploying the right digital technologies to support a resilient organization.

5 Ways Cost Management Certification Benefits Your Career

Advanced Purchasing Dynamics hosted a webinar to discuss 5 Ways Cost Management Certification Benefits Your Career.  Attendees from the Cost Management Certification Program acquire costing skills with positive impact to career advancement.  Jeoff Burris and Michael Betz of APD were joined by Eric Donadebian, Global Category Manager at Clarience Technologies to uncover the five ways in which this course could benefit your career going forward and will provide insight into the Certification Program.  Eric shared his input as someone who is currently completing his certification.

The Value of Cost Management Certification for Injection Molders

Hear from Carrie Munger, Owner, Munger Technologies LLC, how Cost Management Certification provided valuable costing insights to increase value in her career. With 30 years in plastic injection engineering, purchasing, program management, sales & supply chain, Carrie will share why she thinks the content and tools in the program will benefit anyone in sales, purchasing, cost estimating and supply chain along with strengthen your supplier relationships.

5 Cost Reduction Successes from Cost Management Certification Participants

Advanced Purchasing Dynamics hosted a webinar to discuss 5 Cost Reduction Successes from Cost Management Certification Participants.  Attendees from the Cost Management Certification Program have achieved amazing results from their course project.  Jeoff Burris, APD’s Founder and Managing Partner, along with Denise Mattern, Business Development and Account Manager, uncovered the five most valuable cost reduction successes and provided insight into the Certification Program. We were honored to have our guest speaker Carol Chiodo, a Commodity Manager at Grupo Antolin, join the webinar.  Carol shared her input as someone who took the course while obtaining her certification.

Trends in Costing

Moving from multiple quotes to predictive supplier pricing

APD executives discuss the impact of Industry 4.0 technology on sourcing new products in the Automotive Supply Chain and demonstrate how increasing cost knowledge not only impacts your career but plays an important role in overall company performance.

As part of the discussion, APD introduces you to our Cost Management Certification program designed as a step-by-step approach to increase cost knowledge for purchasing, sales, engineering, finance, and other cost focused stakeholders in the organization

4 Purchasing Imperatives for Navigating Troubled Waters

The Covid-19 supply chain impact will be greater than the ‘08/’09 financial crisis where supplier financial, quality and production issues persisted for over 3 years. APD’s team successfully led OE and Tier 1 purchasing teams though the ‘08/’09 financial crisis. They called on their vast experience to develop 4 imperatives for navigating the current crisis and a stepped plan for achieving them.

Why You Can’t Trust Your Suppliers’ Quotes

Are supplier quotes grounded in reality or a product of fiction? Doug Hicks has spent his career helping manufacturers understand their cost structures so they can quote with a clear understanding of their actual costs of production.

Cost and Collaboration in the Automotive Industry

In partnership with the Original Equipment Suppliers Association we surveyed sales and marketing professionals to get their perceptions of how their OEM and major Tier 1 customers are negotiating when it comes to cost. Who is perceived as negotiating competitively and collaboratively?

6 Ways to Improve Your Team’s Savings Pipeline

It’s not too late to take a couple of different approaches to identify and implement cost savings. In our on-demand webinar we will present 6 methods we have used with clients (and you can use without us) to achieve savings. All can have a positive impact on this year’s savings.

2019 Resin Outlook

Over the past year APD has helped clients achieve 8-10% savings on $80 million of resins spend.  This on-demand webinar will provide an update on trends likely to impact resin availability and pricing in 2019 and an understanding of how others are using feed stock cost models to understand and manage pricing.

Is it time to start worrying about inflation?

Inflation has not been a problem that Motor Vehicle Parts has had to face in the last 90 years. With shortages and some pricing clearly on the move, should we be prepared for inflation that cannot be offset by productivity?

Using Should-Be Costs Models in Price Negotiations

A fast-paced webinar for purchasing professionals who negotiate with suppliers to achieve the best pricing possible. Learn best practices for analyzing supplier quotes against should-be cost models, understanding supplier cost structures and steps for successful price negotiations.

What to Do if Your Purchasing Practices Are Not Providing Should-be Costs

Learn how to deal with customers pushing sales people for fast and accurate quotes for new programs and potential design changes. These compressed time windows do not provide adequate time for purchasing to obtain quotes from suppliers

Adding Value on New Programs

70-80% of product costs are determined in the design phase of a component – learn how to add value during this phase of the product life-cycle.

Implementing Should-Be Costing

Jeoff Burris explores how should-be costing can be utilized to increase value from the supply chain.

How to Free Up Buyer Time to Drive Bottom Line Value

Jim Price enlightens us on how to improve efficiency in your purchasing organization to drive bottom line value

Metrics that Matter: How to Drive Bottom Line Value through Metrics

Jeoff Burris explains the three types of metrics and how to translate into bottom line value for purchasing organizations.

Purchasing Can Have it All: How Collaborative Cost Processes Deliver Results and Build Alignment

Jeoff Burris explains how industry leaders are using collaboration to improve results and alignment.

Building Alignment with your C-Suite, Stakeholders and Suppliers

Hear from APD Leaders about improving alignment with your C-Level team and the associated impact.

Creating an Effective Negotiating Culture in your Purchasing Team

Mike Wynn, Senior Director of APD joins Jeoff Burris to discuss ways to improve negotiations within your organization.

Winning the War for Purchasing Talent

Jim Price joins Patience Hitchcock to explore ways to obtain top purchasing talent.

Leveraging Raw Material Forecasts

Learn five simple things that purchasing organizations can do to leverage forecasts.

Moving Beyond Price – The Critical Steps to Strategic Sourcing

In this webinar, we review the critical steps that need to be taken in a robust strategic sourcing process and key elements for completing them.

Die Casting- Top Tips to Achieve Optimal Costs

Learn top methods that will move your company towards those optimal prices your company has been longing for.

Stampings- Top Tips to Achieve Optimal Costs