Last week, PA Consulting revealed that a memory stick holding the details of the UK’s criminal population, which it had been safeguarding for the Home Office, had escaped from its custody. And yesterday, an unsuspecting IT manager purchased a hard drive on Ebay (where else) containing the personal details of over two million customers of four of the UK’s major banks.

One of the companies involved, the Royal Bank of Scotland, said that the computer had been “inappropriately sold on via a third party.” All of which begs the question – how safe is your data? And do you know exactly who has access to it?

The banks in this instance appear to have got lucky, in that the hard drive fell into the hands of an IT manager and not a criminal mastermind. Your organisation might not be so lucky.

"We're trying to make the supply chain into a growth engine for the company," he says. "A lot of the time, supply chain management is reactive, or passive, cost control. But we think there's also an opportunity for us to have the supply chain create top-line growth as well as bottom-line performance."

A couple of points.

More of our practitioners should aim to be interviewed in the general business media like this. It shows how involved the profession is in the fortunes of their company, and so will help to attract talent in the medium to long term. Bright graduates want to make an impact in their place of work and they want an interesting, well-paid and diverse career. Purchasing and the supply chain can provide all of that, but we need to do more to let people know...

Second, you might wonder how improvements in the supply chain directly impact on top-line sales growth. Happily, Harrison explains, in refreshingly direct manner. "If I do something with my supply chain to reduce my customer’s inventories, I want more than just the 'supplier of the year' plaque," he says. "How do we get that value that we’ve created at least partially reinvested in growing our business? Do we get sharper pricing, better features, more display, better shelving?"
 
You might think that P&G has the clout to force its vendors into doing pretty much what it wants. But when you consider that 15% of its products are sold by Wal-Mart alone, which provides a simple insight into the dynamics involved...

In fact, speaking in today’s Financial Times, Jing Ulrich, China Equities at JP Morgan, reckons that the amount of money ploughed into China’s infrastructure to ensure that the Greatest Show on Earth runs smoothly, could even act as a catalyst for greater growth in the country.

“China’s economy is indeed slowing, but the timing is largely coincidental,” Ulrich says. “Buoyant domestic demand and an infrastructure boom suggest that the slowdown will be less severe than Olympics pessimists predict.”

China has already proved many doubters wrong by hosting one of the smoothest run and entertaining Olympics in modern times, now it looks as though the surprises might just keep coming.

Hardly what you’re looking for on a Monday morning in one of the coldest August’s we here at Procurement Leaders can remember, but a rather sombre reflection of the difficult times procurement finds itself operating in.

The BCC also became the first major body to stick its neck out and predict that Britain would fall into a recession – again, hardly what you want to hear after a relaxing weekend.

The question here, of course, is whether those job cuts the harbingers of doom at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) predict, will effect procurement.

Our sense is that procurement, possibly more than any other business area, should get off fairly lightly as companies place greater emphasis on cost cutting and supply chain efficiencies.

Whether we’re right, and whether this trend is reflected across the rest of Europe, only time will tell.

According to figures published today, manufacturing input costs fell in July, helped in no small part  by oil's slide, but producer prices rose 0.4 per cent in the last month.

This rise, which means that factory gate prices are now over 30 per cent higher than they were a year ago, comes as figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that the price of goods rose a further  0.8 percent to 10.8 per cent in the year to July. 

So, while oil prices fall, cost increases look set to continue as a top concern – and for procurement operations that stopped hoping for the best and began preparing for the worst a long time ago, the latest news will come as no surprise. 

Now, after oil fell below the $120 a barrel mark in Tuesday trading, the same procurement organisations will have a warm glow of satisfaction – the soaking palms and sleepless nights will have been transferred to those that jumped in to secure long-term pricing deals when the market was at its peak.

At the present time, most companies – particularly those in the aviation industry – are unlikely to be adversely effected if prices stay at their current level. Volatility, however, is still very much a watchword in the oil markets, and if the cost of crude continues to fall then there could be more casualties on oil’s battlefield as the year draws to a close.

Speaking of airlines in the US aviation industry, Brian Nelson, equity analyst at Morningstar told Reuters earlier this week that: “Given some of the hedging mechanisms they are using, they are going to be subject to significant losses on those portfolios. We've never seen such volatility on oil prices.

"They're going to see significant losses if crude oil continues to fall."

It’s a scenario that looked unlikely just a matter of weeks ago, but merely serves to illustrate procurement’s increasingly precarious position.

Just this week the UK’s flagship airline, British Airways, announced that it was in talks over a proposed merger with Spanish carrier Iberia.

Using Air France’s 2004 tie-in with Dutch airline KLM as its model, BA, and its Spanish counterpart, will doubtless be hoping that the “together we’re stronger” approach will bring rewards.

After chatting to a leading aviation analyst earlier this week, however, Procurement Leaders has some words of warning.

According to Peter Morris, analyst at aviation consultancy Ascend, consolidation is no panacea to the immense problems facing some of the world’s largest carriers.

“It depends if you’re joining up dinosaurs or race horses,” he said. “Join two dinosaurs together and all you end up with is a larger lumbering organisation. Get two race horses and you could easily produce a thoroughbred.”

So there you go – BA be warned, hurdles undoubtedly await.

Tad Davis, deputy assistant secretary for environment, safety and occupational health in the U.S., said that the eventual goal is to lower Army emissions by 30% by 2015.

"What I'm interested in doing is finding out what the greenhouse gas emissions, this carbon bootprint, are for the Army in two to three years at the latest," Davis told Reuters. "We want to emit less and do that, hand in hand with reducing energy consumption from fossil fuels."

Of course, lowering emissions does have huge advantages for a force that is currently stretched to almost unprecedented levels.

The Army’s long supply chain during the first five years of the Iraq conflict put the US Army’s many convoys – most carrying large quantities of fuel – in extreme peril. Davis now argues that cutting the amount of fuel required on the front line, a massive challenge for forces relying heavily on fleets of armoured vehicles, can cut both emissions and, more crucially, casualties.

"There's emerging technology that is providing lighter-weight armour, so I think at some point ... you're going to see more hybrid vehicles in the tactical military fleet," he said.

That day could yet be a long way off (like the US army’s withdrawal from both Iraq and Afghanistan), but Davis appears intent on ensuring that this latest initiative is more than just hot air.

This week’s fall in the price of oil has given every procurement organisation  some much-needed breathing space and, with oil dropping beneath that magic $125 figure during Friday trading (who would have thought we would be celebrating that this time last year), many CPO’s will have enjoyed this weekend just that little bit more.

“For all those who were talking about $200 per barrel oil, bite your tongue,” Busch says.

In this still uncertain climate, no-one is likely to be willing to predict how long they’ll stay silent for.

Or so says Dr Jem Bendell, who noted that once favourite brand of the stars - Dolce & Gabanna - was hardly a presence at this year’s Oscars.

Dr Bendell suggested that D&G had fallen from grace with the A-list because of alleged unethical supply chain issues. For example, last December, an Italian TV documentary 'Slaves of Luxury' had detailed cases of illegal Chinese immigrant labour in Italy allegedly making accessories for a number of brands, including D&G.

But perhaps the best example of the popularity of ethical fashion is the return of designer Katherine Hamnett to the fashion scene. Hamnett left the scene four years ago after she found it hard to push sustainable fashion. But today, as shoppers become more aware of ethical fashion, designers such as Hamnett are having the last laugh.

So supply chain directors, take note – as consumers grow more ethical, so must you.