Regardless of how you might choose to describe your journey through 2020, it is finally coming to an end. And while some of its effects will be with us for a long time, we have reached the point where it is not just appropriate to start thinking forward to 2021, it is absolutely necessary.

Christopher Sawchuk, Principal and Global Procurement Advisory Practice Leader at The Hackett Group, and Vishal Patel, VP of Product Marketing at Ivalua, joined us for an AOP Live session on September 15th.

As they pointed out during the live event, the preparations procurement originations make now will determine their readiness to succeed in the ‘next normal.’ Making good decisions now about digital transformation, agility, and supply chain risk will pay dividends later on.

In a podcast based on the AOP Live session, Christopher and VIshal answer audience questions about:

• How they think procurement actually performed during the spring and summer of 2020, now that we’ve had an opportunity to gain some perspective
• Making the transition from mid-crisis to post-crisis, including the changes that are likely to remain a part of procurement’s priorities for the foreseeable future
• The actions we can start taking today to position procurement for success in 2021 and beyond

After months of planning, weeks of preparation, and days of sleepless nights, Mastermind LIVE 2020 is officially in the books. We had set an extremely high bar for ourselves: to run the most unique and meaningful event in procurement. From the session engagement and participant feedback, we believe we achieved our goal.

Our speakers spanned a number of industries and disciplines, and our attendees joined us from around the globe. Everyone walked away with a new idea, and we laughed together more than once as well.

In this podcast, Host Philip Ideson shares his primary take-aways from the two-day event, and shares what is to come next!

For many years, Peter Smith wanted to write a book that was fundamentally about procurement but would appeal to a wider business audience, One that would peel back the onion on the role of procurement, with tales of what happens when good buying practices are not followed.  Following a career as a practitioner, and most latterly leading Spend Matters in the UK, Peter got to work.  The result: Bad Buying – how organizations waste billions through failures, frauds, and fk-ups. 

In this interview, Peter discusses:

• Examples of bad buying from across both the public and private sectors
• Whether the growth of the procurement function has become a double-edged sword
• Learnings that procurement professionals can apply to turn “bad” buying into “good buying”

Telecom has been on an interesting and unique journey as a spend category. Gone are the days when all that was needed to deliver significant savings was a professionally conducted third-party audit or service rationalization/optimization. Today, most organizations are several years post audit, looking for new efficiencies in a category that is not only evolving, it is also encroaching on other categories of spend.

Dave Pastore is a Senior Director of Sourcing Operations at Corcentric where he specializes in telecom spend. It was his analytical background that led him to specialize in this category, plus a noticeable gap in procurement ownership over telecom, a traditionally siloed category.

In this interview, Dave shares his point of view with Philip Ideson and Kelly Barner on:

• How the line between IT and telecom has blurred over time, and why this is likely to continue
• Why telecom is simultaneously like the ‘Wild West’ from a new entrant perspective and also a rapidly consolidating industry
• The opportunities that exist to nurture collaboration between team members and between companies and third parties, and the value procurement can deliver by supporting these opportunities