European and North American buyers are expected to attend from a wide variety of segments: the trade fair will be visited by buyers from the retail trade, as well as by international representatives from the wholesale, import/export, and mail-order business. The second day of the trade fair will feature the “Buying Day” matchmaking programme, which will be organized by the Home Improvement Industry Presidents Council in cooperation with Koelnmesse. The event will bring together the DIY trade with the suppliers from Asia. One of North America’s leading chains of home improvement stores, Menards, has announced that it will be taking part in an online Buying Day at Asia-Pacific Sourcing. The ASDA supermarket chain (a subsidiary of Walmart) from the UK will also organize a Buying Day at Asia-Pacific Sourcing.

The Buying Day will provide exhibitors with the opportunity to talk to interesting customers in advance and in a targeted manner. At the same time the platform enables buyers to gain a rapid overview of which exhibitors’ stands are worth a longer visit with a view to purchasing new products for the coming season.

Under the motto “Best of China”, new quality products from the durable consumer goods segment will be presented in different categories for the first time. More than 40 Chinese companies participated in the tender “Best of China”, with around 100 innovations. The most promising and top-quality 50 products will be chosen for the special show by the China National Hardware Association (CNHA) and presented at Asia-Pacific Sourcing in Hall 8 at Koelnmesse. Partner of CNHA is Koelnmesse China which set up the programme jointly with the Chinese association of durable goods .

The fourth Asia-Pacific Sourcing will be open exclusively to trade visitors on 9th and 10th March 2011, from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and on 11th March, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Admission to Hall 8 is through Entrance North. Admission is free of charge for pre-registered trade visitors.

Figure: Impressions from the Asia-Pacific Sourcing trade fair at the booth of Ningbo Jintial Copper(Group) Co., LTD.
(Photo: Koelnmesse)

Nevertheless they are still 2.2% under the level Q2 2008. The significant increase in demand for transport services is one of the main drivers for the price increase. The capacity index, an indicator of available transport capacity, decreased by 44% in Q2 compared with Q1 2010.

Based on these volatile price developments traditional long-term sourcing strategies may not lead to the expected financial benefits that logistics managers are striving for. Experts recommend to adjust existing strategies for realizing benefits in the current market dynamics. The economic outlook as well as the issue of sustainability will lead to new, innovative sourcing strategies in transport.

Erwin den Exter, Principal Consultant at Capgemini Consulting, said: “We have seen a significant price increase during the second quarter, especially during the first months. The increase slowed down in June, but we still see an increasing trend”.

Peter Förster, Managing Director of Transporean GmbH, added: “Taking into account today’s market dynamics, traditional sourcing strategies may not bring the expected financial benefits that logistics managers are aiming for. In 2006 we had a similar situation, many tried to fix the prices for a longer period as they had expected prices to increase even more in the following year. In 2007 they realised the opposite: they were stuck in high 2006 prices whereas the market prices had decreased significantly in the meantime.”

Further Details: Transport Market Monitor (August 2010)

The latest release of SAP E-Sourcing integrates with the enterprise resource planning (ERP) application, SAP ERP, and contains an enhanced user interface and additional embedded best practices and on-demand services.

To date, over 300 customers have realized an average of five to 25 percent savings in most categories of spend – among them the specialist for climate control solutions Lennox International, according to the Walldorf-based software company.

To help sustain and expand its leading position in climate control solutions for heating, air conditioning and refrigeration markets around the world, Lennox International must drive margin expansion and support growth into other segments while still keeping costs under control. With the SAP E-Sourcing on-demand solution, the company was able to create a global sourcing process based on an open technology platform that supports SAP and non-SAP systems and has the ability to quickly deploy key solutions to drive immediate value.

“The flexibility of the SAP E-Sourcing on-demand solution lets our sourcing team use their own templates to quickly migrate meaningful data into our SAP infrastructure,” said Kathie Kelsey, manufacturing and supply chain IT manager, Lennox International. “The platform allows Lennox to have a lower total cost of ownership as well as enable a secure IT environment while providing the ability to begin leveraging additional functionality over time, as we are ready to adopt it.”

On-Demand-Software

Best practices are integrated in the new release of SAP E-Sourcing and play an important role for reducing cycle time and share knowledge among sourcing professionals.

Standard integration to the SAP backend enables customers to link their strategic source to contract process to their procurement execution systems, helping to ensure that they profit from agreed prices and comply with internal guidelines. On-demand services include customer on-boarding and optional value-added services inclusive of business process consulting, category sourcing strategy expertise and ongoing customer support.

“SAP E-Sourcing helps customers innovate faster and extend the value of their current investments in SAP Business Suite,” a SAP executive said. “The integration of data and processes helps ensure consistency with system and business configurations between SAP Business Suite and on-demand solutions from SAP. As a result, customers avoid the data sharing and integration issues that occur when dealing with disparate best-of-breed applications and obtain immediate impact on their business.”