We have observed a huge surge in investment in procurement technology startups over the last 12 months, and many of them are leveraging new ‘cognitive’ technologies to be smarter and more intuitive than the procurement technology of years past. In order to truly understand the value proposition of these solutions, procurement needs to have a solid grasp of what cognitive technology is and how its introduction will impact current technology, processes, and talent.

​​In this episode, host Philip Ideson speaks with Melissa Drew, an Associate Partner at IBM. Melissa has 27 years of procurement and supply chain experience, from both an industry and consulting perspective. She collaborates with organizations to reimagine how companies should look in order to remain competitive and was recently recognized as a global leader in consulting in the ‘Excellence in Influence’ category.

Since most procurement organizations are in the early stages of thinking about cognitive technology, Philip asks Melissa questions about:

• What is cognitive technology really versus what we might read and hear in ‘hyped’ product marketing literature?
• Where should companies be looking to apply the advantages of cognitive technology to their current procurement processes?
• The critical need for procurement leaders to invest in the data literacy of their organization

Everyone who works for the Clorox Company is encouraged to lead ‘with their head, heart and guts.’ For procurement, this meant boldly accepting - and even driving - change by reimagining their indirect procurement operating model. 

Art of Procurement was recently joined by Kathy Thrasher, a Senior Procurement Manager at The Clorox Company, and Mike Caldron, Senior Group Manager at WNS Denali, for an AOP Live session all about their transformation journey. When asked what made the greatest difference in their success, Kathy knows the answer offhand, “Communicate, communicate, communicate.” 

Clorox transformed their indirect P2P - half of their total spend as a company - in the middle of the pandemic, during a time when they were ‘all hands on deck’ trying to support the global spike in demand for antibacterial products. They were able to move from operating without any purchasing system to empowering distributed buyers and suppliers to meet their own transaction and information needs.

In this episode, host Philip Ideson speaks with Kathy and Mike about:

• The role of IT in the transformation of Clorox’s indirect procurement
• How the team revisited their talent and staffing to ensure that skills and system-related changes were addressed
• The investments they made to improve the supplier experience, enabling their external partners in very challenging business conditions

News of supply shortages and price increases seem to be everywhere. For consumers, that means their dollar doesn’t buy quite as much as it used to, but for procurement, it means every supplier email or call is likely to be a request for a price increase. What is procurement to do?

In this crossover episode from The Sourcing Hero podcast, produced in partnership with Una, Host Kelly Barner flips the tables to interview AOP Founder and Managing Director Philip Ideson. His advice on how to address supplier price increase requests is timely - as is his input on how procurement can avoid being ‘re-pigeonholed’ as a cost-only team.

If you enjoy this interview, subscribe to The Sourcing Hero podcast for weekly conversations on topics of interest to procurement with a wide-ranging group of guests.

In this conversation, Phil shares his perspective on:

• How procurement should respond to a supplier that reached out with a request for a price increase
• What options procurement has for mitigating the increase once it has been determined to be a valid request from the supplier
• If procurement needs to worry about getting TOO GOOD at protecting the bottom line in challenging times

It isn’t often that procurement has the opportunity to hear the sales perspective on our work, but that is precisely what we bring you in this episode of the Art of Procurement podcast.

Chris Mele is the Managing Partner of Software Pricing Partners. In this interview, he provides an outsider’s perspective on two topics that are important to procurement:

1. How pricing works in the software industry: whether suppliers are being fair and how to negotiate when you feel like you’re examining a ‘black box,’ because the pricing is value-based rather than input cost-based 
2. What the typical RFP process looks like to sales reps. You won’t just hear Chris’ perspective on RFPs - he solicited input from other sales professionals as well. 

Before hitting play, we would like to offer a special listener’s caution on this conversation... 

There are two ways to listen to this episode. You can either hear a salesperson advocating for process changes that might make his job easier (not recommended), or you can hear honest input that will help you design your sourcing strategy to better deliver what the business needs from its supply partners. Which way you listen is entirely up to you.