Procurement 6 is a new short podcast from Art of Procurement that will be published in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode will have 6 short segments that summarize this week in procurement.  

 

Segments will range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that have captured our attention this week.

Procurement understands that suppliers offer critical opportunities for advantage and risk resilience - but does the rest of the company? A recent book, Profit from the Source: Transforming Your Business by Putting Suppliers at the Core, makes the case for more involvement and understanding from CEOs.

In this episode, Philip Ideson is joined by two of the four authors of that book, Daniel Weise, a Partner and Managing Director in Boston Consulting Group’s Dusseldorf office, and Dr. Wolfgang Schnellbächer, a Partner and Managing Director based in BCG’s Stuttgart office. Their combined expertise in procurement and game-theory-based negotiations are evident in the book, which was written with their colleagues Christian Schuh and Alenka Triplat.

Philip takes this opportunity to draw out addition thoughts from Daniel and Wolfgang about:

• Their firsthand experience working with some of the world's leading companies to drive bottom-line and top-line growth 
• How procurement leaders can help increase the profile of procurement across the C-suite and demonstrate the ROI for additional procurement investment 
• The importance of deliberately putting suppliers at the heart of procurement strategies

Procurement 6 is a new short podcast from Art of Procurement that will be published in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode will have 6 short segments that summarize this week in procurement.  

Segments will range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that have captured our attention this week.

If procurement were based upon comic book rules, sales professionals would be the arch nemesis. The funny thing is, sales feels the same way in return. If we could just achieve more understanding, everyone would benefit.

This week’s episode uses a roundtable format to dig into the timeless struggle between procurement and sales - more honestly and personally than we’ve ever done before.

Philip Ideson is joined by Donna Donato, CEO Americas at ChainIQ, in the ‘procurement corner,’ and in the ‘sales corner’ he welcomes Chris Donato, Founder & CEO of esellas, a revenue management company, and Megan Dimmer, CRO, esellas. 

And yes, Donna and Chris are married.

They explore procurement and sales alignment and discuss whether there are actually any opportunities to support each other.  As you might expect, they also had some interesting differences of opinion about the tactics and strategies sales and procurement use to make life more difficult for the other. 

Listen as they debate topics such as:

• Why sales needs to feel good about the relationship with their customers and prospects before they can advocate internally for competitive pricing
• How procurement can work with and through sales to gain entry to the buying process when the rest of the business is not actively engaging with them
• The importance of procurement and sales being able to come together to agree upon desired outcomes and what success will ultimately look like

Procurement 6 is a new short podcast from Art of Procurement that will be published in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode will have 6 short segments that summarize this week in procurement.  

Segments will range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that have captured our attention this week.

Although the challenge of managing supply chains and supplier relationships has compounded in recent years, most procurement teams are still over-reliant on fragmented internal information that slows their response in a negotiation. What procurement needs is an empowering source of insight that combines internal and external information in one place, providing optionality and agility so they can make changes in response to changing economic and geopolitical conditions.

In this episode, Philip Ideson speaks with Rajesh Kalidindi, Founder and CEO of LevaData, about his background in electronics direct materials management and why he decided to leave his position to start his own company.

• The opportunity that exists to augment existing human potential with technology that empowers faster decision making
• The requirement to do so at scale, so that procurement can strategically manage spend in all categories without adding headcount
• Why gathering insights alone isn’t enough without a way to ensure they are actionable

Procurement 6 is a new short podcast from Art of Procurement that will be published in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode will have 6 short segments that summarize this week in procurement.  

Segments will range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that have captured our attention this week.

There are multiple ways of looking at every business topic. Provider and practitioner are the ones procurement is most familiar with, but there are also third parties like researchers and academics. When we are trying to master a subject - especially one that we will have to manage cross-functionally - the more perspectives we can compare and synthesize, the better.

Art of Procurement recently had an opportunity to bring multiple perspectives together in one panel-based live event, an AOP Live session focused on connected planning. 

Philip Ideson was joined by three guests, each of whom shared examples from their experience demonstrating how procurement and finance can connect sustainability with financial planning, making everything measurable in the process.

Attendees heard actionable advice from:

• The Practitioner: Nick Wingbermuehle, Sr. Director, Capabilities and Continuous Improvement at Anheuser-Busch
• The Expert: Adrian de Groot Ruiz, Executive Director at the Impact Institute
• The Solution Provider: Bryan Baum, Head of Supply Chain Solutions, Sourcing and Procurement at Anaplan

Procurement 6 is a new short podcast from Art of Procurement that will be published in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode will have 6 short segments that summarize this week in procurement.  

Segments will range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that have captured our attention this week.

One of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development goals is to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls, for their own sake and for the sake of economic growth and development. The UN has a number of specific targets that address violence, discrimination, and other harmful practices and there are other third party organizations doing work in this area as well.

Is there something procurement can do to move companies towards global gender equality goals?

That is the topic of this conversation with David Latten, Head of Global Indirect Procurement at Logitech. Not only is he convinced that there is a lot procurement can do to support gender equality, he feels that we are particularly well positioned to do so.

• How a consumer-focused effort to evaluate how “Gender Fair” companies are became his cause internally with B2B suppliers
• The organizations helping with measurement and monitoring of individual companies’ relative gender equality
• His advice for starting a procurement-led effort to emphasize gender equality in your company

Procurement 6 is a new short podcast from Art of Procurement that will be published in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode will have 6 short segments that summarize this week in procurement.  

Segments will range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that have captured our attention this week.

Procurement currently finds themselves at the intersection of many challenges. The war in Europe, inflation (possibly recession?), sustainability, diversity, and the Great Resignation are just a few. All of these need to be balanced with the core deliverables of cost and risk management, making data, digital experiences, and measurement more important than they have ever been.

SAP has recently commissioned a number of research studies with The Economist, IDC, and Harvard Business Review, all looking at different opportunities for procurement to impact the business. In order to get some idea of their findings, Philip Ideson recently interviewed Baber Farooq, Senior Vice President of Product Strategy, Procurement Solutions at SAP, at SAP Sapphire in Orlando, Florida.

In this conversation, Baber shares his perspective on:

• Why initiatives like sustainability will struggle to have an impact without the measurement and reporting that procurement is already well-suited to provide
• The importance of SAP sponsoring studies on the topics of greatest importance to procurement, and not to support a specific product or functionality rollout
• The two top findings that stood out to him from all of the data and research he has had the opportunity to review

Procurement 6 is a new short podcast from Art of Procurement that will be published in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode will have 6 short segments that summarize this week in procurement. 

Segments will range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that have captured our attention this week.

Diversifying your supplier base is most likely near the top of your organization’s highest priorities this year, but is it enough to really make an impact outside of the four walls of procurement? How are we addressing the challenge of creating equity for diverse business owners, and are we truly taking an inclusive approach to sourcing?

A corporate initiative to increase diverse spend needs depth in purpose from the people and teams working to achieve it. Whether your organization has a dedicated DE&I team leading and supporting company-wide projects, or it’s on you and a small group to implement new processes to hit diverse spend targets, understanding who you are impacting and why it matters is essential for success.

In this week’s episode of Procurement for the People, show host Katherine McCleery explores the challenges of both the buy and sell side of supplier diversity programs with special guest Jason Roberts, CEO and Founder of Kaleida. In addition to sharing some of his personal experiences that shaped and motivated him, Jason takes us on a deep-dive to teach us:

 

• Why accessibility is the catalyst for increasing equity for diverse business owners
• How diverse businesses can overcome unconscious bias in the sales process
• Three ways to ensure a successful diverse spend initiative: executive buy-in, public communication, and working with a technology partner to identify diverse suppliers
• Why making stereotypical diverse supplier selections actually perpetuates discrimination and how to avoid it in the tender process

Why do so many P2P implementations fail or fall short of ROI expectations?

The majority of these failures are the result of three problems: 

1. Procurement selects and implements solutions they believe are best fit without seeking input from the business.                   

2. Procurement works with the business to implement a solution, not for what it was designed to do, but for what they want it to do.

3. Procurement forgets to address the supplier experience: enablement, onboarding, messaging, and everyday usability. 

During this AOP Live based episode hosted by Kelly Barner, Joe Payne, Jennifer Ulrich, and Tom Pellescki from Corcentric answer questions about why procurement’s ability to lead a successful change management initiative is so critical and how procurement can overcome the common P2P implementation challenges of the past.

Procurement 6 is a new short podcast from Art of Procurement that will be published in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode will have 6 short segments that summarize this week in procurement.

 

Segments will range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that have captured our attention this week.

There has been an explosion of startups and investment interest in the digital procurement space over the last few years. As companies with new and diverse perspectives tackle shared problems in unique ways, the type and variety of ‘best of breed’ options available in the ecosystem broadens as well.

In this week’s episode, we bring you a session from our recent AOP Digital Outcomes 2022 virtual event. Philip Ideson was joined by Jack Freeman, a Partner at PeakSpan Capital, to talk about the tech trends he is seeing - and how lasting he thinks they will be.

Key takeaways from the interview include:

• The pace of change within procurement, and how well that matches the pace of change in enterprises and markets
• How he sees the battle to be the ‘single source of truth’ playing out
• Ways that today’s technology is pushing processes to adapt, and improving the user and supplier experience in the process

Procurement 6 is a new short podcast from Art of Procurement that will be published in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode will have 6 short segments that summarize this week in procurement.

Segments will range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that have captured our attention this week.

Procurement has a troubled relationship with the notion of ‘best in class’ practices. On the one hand, all teams want to be considered best in class. On the other hand, how procurement teams align with their organization as a whole is very nuanced, and should vary company by company. What should procurement strive to be?

Rendi Miller is the Vice President of Strategic Sourcing and Procurement at Zendesk and a passionate supporter of the procurement community as a whole. Rendi and host Philip Ideson recently connected in person at the ProcureCon Indirect West event in Phoenix, AZ. 

They took that opportunity to discuss

• Her experience working to build a procurement group in a high-growth tech environment 
• What the procurement experience should look and feel like and how she and her team make that vision a reality
• How she is working to future-proof procurement’s strategic role in times of significant change and disruption 

Procurement 6 is a new short podcast from Art of Procurement that will be published in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode will have 6 short segments that summarize this week in procurement.

Segments will range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that have captured our attention this week.

Contingent workforce spend is often seen as a risky, cost-based category. While lowering cost and risk is important, there is a whole range of strategic benefits available to companies that take a broader approach. 

Procurement needs to think bigger and take the category to the next level so they can deliver value beyond savings. 

In this episode, Philip Ideson is joined by Morten Petersen, the co-founder and CEO of Worksome, as well as James Nicholls, Worksome’s Head of Enterprise, about contingent workforce trends and best practices.

They discuss a number of audience-driven topics, including: 

• How contingent workforce is changing, 
• Procurement’s role in helping organizations think about talent more broadly, 
• How contingent workforce spend can deliver a lot of value and innovation, 
• And finally, how to avoid doing more harm than good!

Procurement 6 is a new short podcast from Art of Procurement that will be published in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode will have 6 short segments that summarize this week in procurement.

Segments will range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that have captured our attention this week.

Far more teams talk about category management than successfully carry it out, but is the challenge one of talent or scale? It is certainly one of the more creative processes procurement engages in, which opens the door to more value creation - as long as procurement has the right metrics and KPIs guiding their work.

In this week’s episode, we bring you a session from our recent AOP Digital Outcomes 2022 virtual event. Kelly Barner was joined by Gary Levitan from WeWork and Remko Van Hoek from the University of Arkansas to discuss whether or not category management initiatives can be executed at scale.

Key takeaways from the interview include:

• Category management can facilitate stakeholder collaboration when products, services, and/or suppliers overlap
• How the automation of rote and even ‘boring’ procurement tasks can make it possible for procurement to invest more time and effort in strategy 
• Why it is important to consider automation part of a process or a subset of spend categories instead of waiting to include 100% at the same time

Procurement 6 is a new short podcast from Art of Procurement that will be published in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode will have 6 short segments that summarize this week in procurement.

Segments will range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that have captured our attention this week.

We all know what digital transformation is, right? The two words together sound simple enough, but it has become an increasingly complicated process that might start with the intention to improve the business but ends up as a band-aid for problems that never see the light of change. So where have we gone wrong?

Don’t worry, it’s not all on you! Dr. Epstein reveals from a consultant’s point of view the many missteps she’s seen at the executive level that have perpetuated a cycle of inept transformations. But there is hope – in the data flowing through the enterprise and the people working together to use it.

But, Dr. Epstein reminds us – there is no magic button. It takes work. There’s a new skill set that requires a general digital literacy, but it also requires working with people that perhaps have been the roadblock for a long time.

Show host Katherine McCleery takes listeners on a journey through Dr. Epstein’s comprehensive view of where procurement’s gone wrong and a closer look at the path she sees ahead: 

• How procurement leaders can build a business case for better data and what it takes to close the gap with CIOs 
• Why open-sourcing data analysis and business strategy is one way to move procurement and supply chain forward
• Predictions on the state of the supplier experience and where we can expect to see new investment in 2022