How can we work collaboratively with our suppliers to manage and mitigate risk?  That is the question I put to today’s guests on the Art of Procurement, Margaret Gilbert and Anthony English.

Margaret is the Director of Corporate Contracts Management, where she works with buyers and suppliers in all areas of procurement and contracting. Anthony has enjoyed a long career as an IT consultant working as a supplier inside both large and small organizations, and together they are co-authors of ‘Contract Matters: Procurement and Risk: A practical guide for buyers and suppliers’. 

I invited Margaret and Anthony on the show because I wanted to understand the supplier perspective, and the unintended consequences of some of the decisions we make!

Tania Seary is passionate about raising the profile of procurement, and is a master connector, and networker.  She is the Founding Chairman of Procurious, The Faculty and The Source, and in 2016 was named “Influencer of the Year” by Supply Chain Dive magazine.

I was delighted to invite Tania back onto the show for what is now her third appearance.  I wanted to dig deeper into her success as a networker – with a focus on how to balance our online and in-person networking in an age where “connecting” is as easy as a click of a button.  What can we do to make meaningful relationships out of those connections that we make online?

We caught up on the progress that Procurious has seen over the past 12 months and their plans for the future – if you are a Procurious member, or have interest in joining, you’ll enjoy this behind the scenes look!

My guest today is Chandar Pattabhiram, the new Chief Marketing Officer at Coupa. We sat down and recorded this podcast during the SIG Fall Summit in Carlsbad, California, which explains all of the interesting background noises you may hear. I took that opportunity to get his fresh perspective on how procurement can elevate its role in the organization.

My guest today is Lawrence Kane, a Fortune 50 strategic sourcing and functional excellence lead. Lawrence and I sat down to talk at the SIG Fall Summit in Carlsbad, California, where our conversation focused on what he has learned during his three-decade career.

Hi there everyone, and welcome to this week’s Art of Procurement interview, which is powered by SIG.

My guest today is Kate Vitasek, a member of the graduate faculty in executive education at the University of Tennessee, and the creator of the Vested model. Kate and I have recorded several podcasts together, but in this case we connected in person at the SIG Fall Summit in Carlsbad, California. We took that opportunity to discuss the Vested model and how procurement (after long delay) is embracing the mindset.

We started our conversation by getting caught up on what has transpired in the world of Vested since the last podcast.

Hi there everyone, and welcome to this week’s Art of Procurement interview, which is powered by SIG.

My guest today is Chris Camejo, the Director of Product Management and Threat Intelligence at NTT Security - probably the scariest sounding title I’ve ever had here on Art of Procurement. Chris and I connected in person at the SIG Fall Summit in Carlsbad, California, where we had an opportunity to talk about what threat intelligence means and what role procurement can play in strengthening a company’s security risk level.

Welcome to today's Art of Procurement interview powered by SIG.

Today's show is part of a mini-series of six different episodes that I recorded live at the recent SIG Fall Summit in Carlsbad, California. Being a live recording, you'll hear background noises like baristas making coffee, venue employees taping wire to the carpet, and lots of other little sounds in between. We actually had a booth set up in the main corridor of the conference venue, so you're sure to get the atmosphere from the event from those interviews.

Today I'm delighted to be joined by Alan Holland, the founder and CEO of Keelvar. Given that Alan has a degree in computer engineering, a PhD in artificial intelligence, and has worked as a research fellow and a lecturer, he is probably one of the most qualified people in procurement to answer my first question, “What really is AI?”

My guest this week on the pod is Tim Cronin, the CPO of GuideWell, a not-for-profit mutual holding company in the healthcare industry. Tim and I connected live at the SIG Fall Summit in Carlsbad, California, where we had an opportunity to talk about his journey with Sourcing Business Models in a presentation with Kate Vitasek, founder and lead researcher for the Vested business methodology.

What I really enjoyed about our conversation is that Tim shared putting the theory of ​​Sourcing Business Models into practice - what worked, what didn't, and what lessons were learned along the way.

You will notice from the title, that this is not an ordinary Art of Procurement podcast.  In fact, it is not an AOP podcast at all.

As regular listeners will know, I have been working very closely with Kelly Barner – we partnered on The Procurement Revolution, co-founded Palambridge, and Kelly helps me behind the scenes to keep the wheels on here at Art of Procurement.

Kelly has been hosting a procurement and supply chain podcast for over six years, and in fact it was one of my inspirations behind starting Art of Procurement. We announced yesterday that Kelly’s show – Buyers Meeting Point – or BMP Radio – will be produced by, and hosted on, the Art of Procurement Network.

Today, as an introduction to BMP Radio, I am including today's episode in the AOP feed.

Kelly's guest is Jonathan O'Brien.  Jonathan is the CEO and Owner of Positive Purchasing, an international procurement consultancy and training provider. He is also the author of four books, the most recent of which was just released this year, titled ‘The Buyer’s Toolkit: An Easy to Use Approach for Effective Buying.’

Hi there everyone, and welcome to this week’s Art of Procurement interview, powered by SIG.

My guest today is Christian Lanng, the co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Tradeshift.

I’m really happy to welcome Christian back to the show. He first joined me in August of 2016, all the way back in episode 80! It was one of my most enjoyable interviews because Christian has strong views on the future of procurement, and the intersection of technology and supply chains.

In today’s conversation, I wanted to follow up to see what, in his mind, has changed since we last spoke – is technology evolving as fast as predicted? How does Christian see organizations starting to adapt? I was also interested to learn how Tradeshift determines which ‘future technologies’ to invest in, and why they recently became members of the Hyperledger project, a global, open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies.

Today, I am joined by Gene Zaino, the founder and CEO of MBO Partners. MBO Partners are at the forefront of the gig or the project economy. I was delighted to welcome Gene onto the show to discuss a little bit more about the gig economy - particularly in the context of knowledge-based workers.

We discussed how organizations can start thinking about taking advantage of an on-demand workforce. And if they already are, what are some of the things that they can do to take it to the next level?

So, my first question for Gene was if he could share a little bit more about what MBO Partners actually does.

I am joined today by Antonio Humphreys, the Senior Manager of Global Procurement at Adobe Systems based in California.

I’ve actually seen Antonio speak before, and he has always been high on my list of practitioners that I wanted to interview and so I’m delighted we were able to make it happen.  We were connected by the team at ProcureCon, as Antonio will be speaking at the upcoming ProcureCon Marketing conference in New Orleans at the end of November.

Antonio has enjoyed a career that, after an internship with NASA, actually started in sales before he jumped over to the other side of the table and joined procurement.  He worked for organizations such as Shell, Hewlett-Packard, and Gap before joining Adobe.

He has a deep background in procurement organizational development and marketing, and those two topics were the focus of our conversation.

I started by asking Antonio what keeps him in procurement after spending time in both sales and procurement...

I am joined today by Julienne Ryan, Principal of J Ryan Partners. Julienne is a former Executive Director of ISM-New York but the majority of her career has been in the world of HR, recruitment, and organizational development.

Her keynote was focused on effective communications, and so I invited Julienne on the show to talk about the art of storytelling and how we can use that technique in our careers and to influence our stakeholders.

I am joined today by a repeat guest and friend of the show David Hearn.  David is a long time procurement executive for companies such as Juniper Networks, Kaiser Permanente and Sun Microsystems.  Today, he is the CEO and Founder of advisory firm CPO Advisement Services.

I caught up with David at the recent ProcureCon Indirect West conference in Scottsdale where he was talking about Machine Learning and its impact on procurement. Our chance to talk came in the midst of the hotel’s garden, surrounded by birds, waterfalls - and a construction site!

With this natural backdrop, we started our conversation about machine learning - the opportunities for procurement and the long term value proposition.

I am joined today by two guests, Jen Warner and Eric Martin.

Jen Warner is the Vice President of Compliance and Chief Development Officer of Ashe Legal Group (a member of the Palambridge ecosystem). Prior to joining Ashe, Jen served as the Chief Compliance Officer of a Fortune 500 multinational company and, in that role, oversaw the company’s global data privacy compliance program.

Eric Martin is the Associate General Counsel and Global Privacy Officer for JELD-WEN in Charlotte, North Carolina. He is responsible for all labor and employment and privacy matters, including GDPR compliance.

Our conversation today is on the topic of GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation, an EU-based regulation that takes effect on May 25, 2018. Once that date arrives, all organizations - regardless of their location - that collect personal data in the EU (including consumer data, customer data, employee data, other third party data) must demonstrate that they are in compliance or face strict penalties.

Today I am joined by Fraz Baig, a long time listener and friend of the show who is a Senior Manager at Ace Hardware, managing all of Ace’s corporate spend including IT, Marketing and Supply Chain.

As Fraz and I have got to know each other, I learned about the successes that he and his team have had at Ace in build strong partnerships with their stakeholders.  One of the fundamental pillars to that success is a Collaboration Model that explicitly lays out the roles and responsibilities of both the procurement team and their stakeholders as they engage in category management and sourcing projects.

And so I invited Fraz onto the show to explain a little bit more about the model, and his learnings from its implementation and evolution.

Today on the Art of Procurement, I welcome back David Bush, the Chief Revenue Officer for SpendHQ.

David joined me back in Episode 139 to share his advice on the steps that procurement leaders can take to gain greater visibility into supplier spend, which is the foundation of robust procurement strategies.

Today we continue the conversation with a look to the future - how will spend analytics evolve, and what impact are emerging technologies likely to have in the way we understand and gain visibility into the products and services that we buy.

We are in for a treat this week on the show.  I am joined by Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, the inventor of the personal computer, and a serial entrepreneur.  Steve really needs no introduction!

Steve recently keynoted the Coupa Inspire conference in San Francisco that I attended a couple of weeks ago.  Coupa arranged for Steve to spend 15 minutes with me after he got off stage, and so fresh off his fireside chat, we sat down and I recorded the conversation.

As I considered what kind of questions to ask to maximize our 15 minutes together, I focused on areas that have been a key part of Woz’s experiences as an innovator, and from his first-hand experience building the Apple brand with Steve Jobs.

At the Art of Procurement, we get many press releases - usually detailing client wins, technology updates, or company acquisitions.  However, there was one that came across my desk recently announcing the launch of an Indirect Procurement Standard.

With my interest piqued, I reached out to the author of the Standard - Sime Curkovic - to learn more. Sime is Professor of Supply Chain Management at Western Michigan University, and joins me on the show today to share more details about the Indirect Procurement Standard - what was the need, how was it developed, and what does the final output looks like.

There was a time, not long ago, when the only procurement professionals who bought software had responsibility for IT sourcing.

Today, with the explosion of SaaS, and the use to SaaS technology to deliver tradition labor based services, buyers across many categories must now negotiate software licenses, either directly or with the help of their peers in IT.  At the same time, IT sourcing professionals are faced with the increasing supplier requests to move from on-premise to cloud based solutions.

My guest on this episode of Art of Procurement is Randy Roth, the President of Seprio.  Randy helps me unpack the world of software licensing, while providing tips to help procurement build stronger relationships with IT, navigate the move to the cloud, and negotiate with the big boys.

As a procurement leader, how do you balance the needs of your stakeholders with your responsibility to be guardians of third party spend?

That is the challenge being addressed head on by today’s guests on the Art of Procurement.  I’m delighted to be joined by David Natoff, the Head of Procure to Pay at Google, and Dr Bernd Huber, the Head of Google’s Sourcing Center of Excellence.

We focus our conversation on how Google Procurement continues on their journey to become a trusted business partner in a complex and agile organization, while ensuring that they remain strong corporate guardians.  Balancing these two objectives that are often in conflict with each other is Google Procurement’s greatest challenge – one that they are solving through their journey to move their sphere of influence.

I am joined today by Shaz Khan, the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Vroozi, a leading cloud-based business purchasing platform.

Shaz has a deep background in procurement technology, with a particular focus on SAP.

As long time listeners will know, I learn more and more every day about the nuts and bolts of procurement technology, while tending to spend more time looking for trends that I think will impact our profession.

One of those trends is self-service sourcing – empowering the organization to buy directly the vast majority of products and services they need, one the frameworks and governance structures are in place to support it.

And so, the main topic for today’s conversation is that of self-service sourcing.  Is it a threat, or an opportunity for procurement?

Joining me on the show today is Dave Quillin, the manager of procurement for Alliant Credit Union, the seventh largest credit union in the United States.

Dave has specialized in technology procurement with organizations such as Orbitz and Groupon before taking on a new opportunity at Alliant to build a procurement and vendor management office from the ground up.

In today’s Art of Procurement, Dave shares his journey at Alliant.  What I really like is that Dave built his organization by first listening to the needs of the business, and by focusing more broadly on value rather than cost savings alone.

Dave shares the importance of balancing process with agility, particularly in regulated industries such as financial services, along with lessons learned along the way.

For his work at Alliant, Dave was recognized by Supply & Demand Chain Executive as a member of their 2017 Pros to Know.

Back in my days in the automotive industry, supplier led innovation played - and still plays - a key role in the development of new innovative products. Procurement organizations have been set up for a long time to facilitate this process. However, on the Indirect side of things, we still struggle to integrate supplier innovation - certainly at scale.

If you are a long time listener, you will have heard me share my thoughts about the importance of innovation as a key component of the new procurement value proposition. But, where do we start, and how can we enable innovation at scale?

Today’s guest answers those question. I am joined by Jon Washington, founder of The Innovation Garage. Jon help clients increase their profitability through innovation design encompassing products, processes and delivery models.

I think it is fair to say that you can’t move for reading Blockchain related articles today. But to be honest, I have always been a little confused by them in terms of understanding what Blockchain actually is.

In today’s show, I attempt to demystify Blockchain, and its impact on procurement.

Helping me understand the potential of Blockchain is Jack Shaw. Jack is a business technology futurist who has spent his career leading companies in numerous industries to lever technology to find better, more efficient ways of conducting and operating their businesses.

Jack has authored three critically acclaimed books and numerous articles and is a prolific keynote speaker, including the recent ProcureCon Indirect East. He also is the co-founder of the Blockchain Executive and American Blockchain Council.

In today’s show we go down to the very basics to understand what Blockchain actually is, so that we can then begin to understand what are some of the technologies that can be built upon it. We then discuss usage cases and their impact within procurement and supply chain.