The trend toward leanness and agility has plenty of companies looking to whip their procurement processes into shape. This week, Supply Management offered some excellent tips for boosting company compliance with procurement policies and maximizing the procurement process for everyone that comes in contact with it. Nearly every company could stand to reduce maverick spending, and streamlining procurement goes a long way toward reducing that budget liability. Improving interdepartment communication and taking buyer preferences into account are both excellent ways to limit disparate procurement and get everyone on the same purchasing page. Technology can positively impact procurement in ways that  some may not even suspect.

Warehouse management software can ensure warehouses in every industry are performing at their maximum potential, but WMS solutions are even more vital to the food and beverage industry. Storage facilities and shipping methods are required to meet higher standards due to both the highly regulated nature of the industry and the extremely limited shelf lives of the products that they handle. Here are just a few ways that WMS can help regular or cold storage facilities operate better:

Another case of invoice fraud is helping to make the argument for better controls and more secure invoice management for businesses. Last week, Eric Lee Chin Khuay, a director of security services for Gatekeeper Resources in Singapore, was sentenced to 18 months in prison after being convicted of invoicing 117 fraudulent delivery orders and sales agreements.

The speech rights that support social media, blogging and news organizations came under fire during a 2009 case involving Staples, a terminated employee and a rather blunt company-wide e-mail that announced the employee had been fired for violating the company's travel and expense policy. All true. All verifiable. Yet the employee in question filed a lawsuit against his former employer, claiming the mass e-mail was libelous.

Whether this election year proves to be full of change or a public request for staying the course, the up-and-down political wrangling involved in campaigning for president is sure to be a marathon that will consume the media for the next 6 months. Now, however, analysts are looking beyond the campaigns to the potential winners and considering whether the current trend toward updating the U.S. government's technology and transparency will continue.

In an attempt to boost the bottom line, companies in every industry are turning to e-procurement systems. These tools speed up the procurement process and reduce cost by maximizing volume discounts and preventing duplicate or unnecessary orders. Software that automates vendor catalog management, ordering and invoice handling can save your company money in several different ways:

As a part of the "Campaign to Cut Waste," the president has required that the Internet Payment Platform (IPP) go live for all government agencies by the start of the fiscal year. This means that as of October 1, 2012, businesses will have to use e-invoicing to send bills to the federal government. While these mandates are not new, having already been implemented in countries like Finland and Mexico, they present a great deal of incoming change for the United States. Although e-invoicing grew 20% in 2011, the flood of invoices that will transition from paper to electronic format to meet the new government requirements is expected spike even more growth.

Here are just a few of the many ways an asset management system can help healthcare providers:

While increasing labor costs in Asia are making headlines, a recent study has shown that U.S. corporations are more frequently opting to hire at home rather than outsource to a cheaper labor market. According to Procurement Leaders, the rate of outsourcing outside the United States has declined for the third year in a row. Whether due to quality or cost concerns, the trend toward backsourcing previously outsourced positions appears to be gaining momentum.

As China has risen to its current state of global economic power, so has scrutiny of supply chain operations in the Asia Pacific region. Over the past year, labor costs in some Chinese provinces have risen more than 20% and the increase is not expected to abate any time soon. Supply chain management is becoming somewhat trickier as companies reevaluate their sourcing and manufacturing. Decisions are being made as to whether it makes more sense to keep a foothold in China, return manufacturing to some U.S. states that are still known for lower cost labor, or seek out new labor sources in markets such as Vietnam, Cambodia and South America, all of which remain inexpensive for the moment, but seem to be experiencing an upward shift in labor costs as well.