Technology and automotive supply chain managers beware: Thailand’s Energy Minister Pongsak Raktapongpaisarn is predicting a major energy crisis, with hours-long power outages anticipated after April 4.
It’s possible the country may even declare a state of emergency, though Raktapongpaisarn is asking the public and civil service to take measures designed to ensure the industrial sector is unaffected.
Reverse auctions have been around for a while with the practice itself originating about couple of decades ago. During the internet boom of mid-late nineties a number of start-ups set out to revolutionize B2B procurement. One of the strategies for improving procurement was the concept of reverse auction.
For those who may not be familiar with the term ‘reverse auction’, it is a mechanism where the buyer opens the bidding process and the suppliers compete for business by bidding low against each other and at the end the lowest bidder wins the business. Its ‘reverse’ of the typical auction (think eBay), hence the name ‘reverse auction’.
For years, UK focused on the services sector while ignoring business-to-business (B2B), manufacturing and supply chain management. But some high profile politicians and businesses people are pushing for a new focus on infrastructure and manufacturing.
Richard Close, CEO of Briggs Equipment, even went to the press last week to express his support for investing in the manufacturing supply chain.
It’s amazing what technology can do: Share a thought across the globe in seconds, pin-point your location through your cell phone, even operate with a tiny laser incision.
But despite technologies many advances, it’s not always widely embraced. The B2B sector seems particularly slow to change: EDI has been around since the 1970s, and yet, paper and email still play a significant role in the day-to-day operations between businesses.
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