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Art of Procurement

Learn from Procurement Experts. Host Philip Ideson talks with thought leaders who share the trends, strategies and tactics that you can lever to elevate the role of procurement - and your career.
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Now displaying: Page 4
Feb 23, 2024

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes 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 has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement.

Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that capture our attention.

Feb 19, 2024

“Given all the things procurement is doing, it does seem that a lot of their work tends to go unnoticed or be undervalued or is boiled down to that one bottom-line savings number. The truth is that procurement is involved with a lot.” - Vishal Patel, VP Product Marketing, Ivalua

Even though big events like the pandemic, inflation, global supply chain disruptions, and geopolitical conflict have reminded everyone how relevant procurement is to the organization, the full value procurement offers is still often misunderstood and underestimated. 

Why is procurement so frequently undervalued when their impact can be felt across the business, not just to cost or risk management but also sustainability, product innovation, supply continuity, and business strategy? 

To understand how shifting mindsets around procurement’s value contribution are redefining their role in the business, Philip Ideson and Kelly Barner spoke with Chris Sawchuk, Principal and Global Procurement Advisory Practice Leader at The Hackett Group, and Vishal Patel, Vice President of Product Marketing at Ivalua. 

In the episode, Chris and Vishal discuss: 

  • New opportunities and approaches to performance measurement for procurement’s value contribution beyond cost
  • The deepening value of risk management and the need for nuanced approaches to risk beyond traditional metrics
  • The evolving role of generative AI and emerging technologies as procurement’s “co-pilots” in delivering value

 

Links:

Feb 16, 2024

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes 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 has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement.

Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that capture our attention.

Feb 12, 2024

“We have to incentivize the supplier to collaborate with us in a way that creates a different way of doing something – it might take us all out of our comfort zones, but it’s going to deliver a better outcome.” - Gordon Donovan, Vice President Research - Procurement & External Research at SAP

Services procurement makes up a large percentage of most organizations’ spend and it is a key driver of enterprise growth and performance. At the same time, a recent global study conducted by Art of Procurement and SAP revealed that this category presents serious challenges for procurement leaders and is primed for improvement.

To better understand these challenges and opportunities, Philip Ideson speaks with Gordon Donovan, Vice President Research - Procurement & External Research at SAP, about the research findings. 

In this episode, they discuss key findings from the study and one-on-one follow-up interviews:

  • Why ‘services procurement’ is a slippery term for some, and how it should ultimately be defined
  • How procurement can leverage services spend to move from a tactical or administrative role to one where they strategically partner with the business
  • The most egregious mistakes global procurement leaders are currently making when it comes to services spend (and how to correct them)

Links:

 

Feb 9, 2024

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes 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 has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement.

Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that capture our attention.

Feb 5, 2024

“I think a large part of the ESG model is about bringing each other up together – capacity building – and learning from each other.” - Adam Hunt, Global SVP Procurement & Subcontracting, Exyte

While ESG is becoming a top-line priority for the C-suite, the regulations, laws, expectations, and concepts underlying ESG are still relatively new – new to procurement and to the business as a whole. They can be challenging to pin down. 

ESG is broad and complex, with each region, industry, or organization defining and measuring success in different ways.  

Philip Ideson recently had the opportunity to speak with Adam Hunt, Global SVP Procurement and Subcontracting at Exyte, about the most important issues driving the current conversation around ESG and how procurement can evolve and elevate their ESG programs to meet the increasing interest coming from company leadership. 

Along with a discussion of AI’s role in all this, they also discussed: 

  • How to build a globally successful ESG program by understanding regional and cultural differences and regulations
  • How to use data to power your ESG program
  • The art of setting ESG targets that balance the attainable with the aspirational

Links:

 

Feb 2, 2024

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes 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 has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement.

Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that capture our attention.

Jan 29, 2024

“There is this misconception that procurement pros are paper-pushers – that we are not strategic, or we are not business partners – and we are just there to move things from one place to another.” - KR Barron, Principal Product Marketing Manager at Productiv

Sourcing and purchasing software, especially SaaS solutions, is often a source of major friction for procurement. Tight timelines, complex stakeholder networks, difficult collaborations, and entrenched misconceptions can lead to missed opportunities not only for procurement but for the business as a whole. Fortunately, many of the challenges associated with software purchasing are rooted in commonly held myths that, when looked at more closely, are easily busted, paving the way for procurement to elevate their role in the process. 

In this episode, based on an AOP Live Session, Philip Ideson and Kelly Barner engage in some much-needed myth-busting with Aubrey Zimmerman, Procurement Analyst at Lattice, and KR Barron, Principal Product Marketing Manager at Productiv. They also share insights from recent research on software procurement that explores how procurement can simplify software decisioning and better align with the business. 

In this episode, they discuss:

  • Common myths surrounding procurement’s role in software purchasing and how these myths can negatively impact the business as a whole
  • How procurement can build a single source of truth for software decisioning and utilization
  • How procurement can start to change negative perceptions about the role they play in software purchasing and demonstrate their full value

Links:

Jan 26, 2024

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes 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 has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement.

Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that capture our attention.

Jan 22, 2024

“In procurement, we have a perception of the world we’re in, and we put boundaries around ourselves. But we have to explore beyond those boundaries and think about what we can do that will be different and better.” - Stephen Ashcroft

A seismic shift is underway in procurement. Teams are adapting to a rapidly changing global business landscape and new technological realities. The best procurement leaders will take advantage of this transformational period to develop new strategies, tactics, and tools that will elevate their impact and position procurement as an invaluable partner for the business.

In this episode, Philip Ideson goes one-on-one for a second time with global procurement thought leader, entrepreneur, and influencer Stephen Ashcroft, founder of the innovative new procurement professional development program Map & Territory. Steve, the former Head of Procurement for the African Development Bank, shares the greatest lessons he learned from his procurement experience in over 40 countries.

They discuss: 

  • The 3 most valuable skills every procurement leader needs to succeed today
  • Where procurement is most underrated, and how to turn that around
  • How a different approach to professional development and community building, like Map & Territory, can help procurement rise and adapt to new global realities 

Links:

 

Jan 19, 2024

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes 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 has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement.

Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that capture our attention.

Jan 15, 2024

“Once you have clean data, it becomes a business asset. You can now answer questions from it. When it’s sitting there in a data swamp – it’s not even a data lake – you cannot leverage any type of insights from it.” - Robert Birch, Director, Data & Analytics, SpendHQ

Without a strong foundation of reliable, clean, and accessible data, it is difficult for procurement to achieve and sustain success, and it may also expose the business to increased risk, waste, and missed opportunities. 

Data underpins every decision procurement makes, and it should never be an afterthought. So how should procurement approach some of their most common data quality problems, and what kind of resources and approaches do they need to create the ideal data environment that will support differentiated decision making? 

To answer these questions and more around procurement’s complicated relationship with data, Philip Ideson recently spoke with Andy Moir, Director of Product Marketing, Mitchell Couper, Vice President Delivery and Business Intelligence, Robert Birch, Director, Data and Analytics, all from SpendHQ.

In this episode, they discuss:

  • The importance of prioritizing, improving, and maintaining data quality
  • Assessing your data maturity and the value of data enrichment
  • Where AI can (and can’t) support data hygiene and management

Links:

 

Jan 12, 2024

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes 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 has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement.

Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that capture our attention.

Jan 8, 2024

“If procurement wants to have an outsized impact, they need to provide value in a way that alters how decision making happens.” - Philip Ideson, Founder and Managing Director of Art of Procurement

In this episode, Philip Ideson, Founder and CEO of Art of Procurement, welcomes the procurement community into 2024 by continuing an annual tradition of sharing his perspective on the most important issues, challenges, and opportunities procurement is likely to face in the new year.  

Technologies like AI are now changing the face of the profession we love and today’s uncertain macro environment shows no signs of abating. Collaboration between procurement, supply chain, finance, HR, operations, IT, and all other business functions are more important than ever before. 

Amid all of these changes and existential reckonings, Philip encourages procurement to look inward and think deeply about 3 key questions in 2024:

  1. What is the purpose of procurement in your organization?
  2. How can you create a true competitive advantage, and what are you doing to achieve that?
  3. How are you driving differentiated decision making in 2024?

Links:

 

Jan 5, 2024

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes 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 has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement.

Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that capture our attention.

Jan 1, 2024

“I think it is really important not to assume that just trying to tie everything to revenue is the right answer … I think we should tie everything to the value and the outcomes perceived by our stakeholders. - Dan French, CEO at Consider Solutions

Procurement has long struggled with feeling as though they are an underappreciated or undervalued function that receives less support, advocacy, and budget than other areas of the business – especially revenue-driving areas, like sales or marketing. 

As Dan French, CEO at Consider Solutions, said in the opening session of Mastermind LIVE 2023, not only is this perception a little misguided (and likely not doing procurement any favors either), but it also can lead to an over-reliance on revenue contribution as procurement’s key performance metric. 

Instead, he says, procurement has to understand that their existential angst is not unique. Every business unit is fighting for relevance (and resources) and delivering real value requires procurement to look at more than just cost savings and create a more “balanced scorecard” of what success looks like.

In this episode, Dan talks with Philip Ideson about:

  • How to build a balanced performance measurement framework that reflects procurement’s real value contribution
  • The importance of aligning with the business versus going rogue when it comes to goals and KPIs
  • What procurement keeps getting wrong about their own role in the business

Links:

Dec 25, 2023

You can’t build a community based on the power of a podcast if you don’t love listening to them yourself. All year long, the Art of Procurement team is interviewing, producing, and promoting podcast interviews with some of the most interesting people in the field.

In this episode, Helen Mackenzie, Head of Sales and Community at Art of Procurement, takes over hosting responsibilities to share the five interviews she thinks of as 2023’s chart toppers. She also enlists a bit of help from our Procurement 6 announcer to count them down.

Listen in for a recap of Helen’s picks of the year:

  • Stephane Morel and his category workbench, a place where all the tools procurement needs are in one place, making work so much easier.
  • Advice on shifting priorities and procurement’s ability to adjust from Matt Reddington and Mu Wagh from Procure Analytics 
  • Vendr’s Emily Campbell and Nick Pinkman digging into the darkness to address the topic of shadow spend
  • Katherine McCleery, a B2B brand marketing expert, on how important procurement’s brand is to getting engagement and making an impact.
  • And her #1 pick - A powerful example of using procurement as a force for good: Tim Nelson, CEO of the charities Hope for Justice and Slave Free Alliance, talking about how we can help combat slavery in today’s supply chains 

 

Links:

Dec 18, 2023

Long time listeners of the Art of Procurement podcast will know that the team hosts a related podcast, Dial P for Procurement, every Thursday. The show, which is hosted by AOP Head of Content and Operations Kelly Barner, is part of the Art of Procurement family, but runs in its own podcast feed. 

Episodes air every Thursday and they have a different format than Art of Procurement. Most of the topics are pulled from the headlines and are covered as heavily researched solo pods. Don’t worry though - there isn’t a dull moment. Dial P for Procurement provides up to the moment storytelling about trending supply chain and general business news.

Looking all the way back to the beginning of the year has a way of putting everything into perspective. In this episode, Kelly does just that - following the lead of the listening audience:

  • Going back to the beginning of the year to see which Dial P for Procurement episodes had the greatest number of downloads.
  • Taking some of the ‘honorable mention’ episodes topics and running a LinkedIn pulse poll to see which one the procurement social media community thinks best represented the general tone of 2023. 

Listen to this week’s episode to find out the social media ‘business sentiment’ pick as well as the top 3 downloaded episodes of the year.

Links:

 

Episodes and newsletters referenced:

 

Dec 15, 2023

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes 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 has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement.

Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that capture our attention.

Dec 11, 2023

“ESG… should be integrated as much as possible into existing processes, structures, and policies because there are so many synergistic effects to be gained.” - Alexander Hellwig, Editor Sustainability & Compliance, IntegrityNext

Historically, regulatory requirements drove most of the momentum and investment in ESG. It was another, albeit critical, corporate box to tick, but rarely considered in relation to revenue-driving areas of the business. 

Pressure from consumers, investors, and business leaders is causing a shift in this mindset, and ESG is quickly becoming a top-line business priority, one that cannot and should not be ignored. 

To learn more about how to build and scale a strong ESG program, Philip Ideson recently spoke with Alexander Hellwig, Editor Sustainability & Compliance, and Jared Ridgley, Head of Sales US, both from IntegrityNext. 

They also discussed:

  • Perceptions and misconceptions around what ESG really means today
  • The most important ESG topics everyone should be aware of in 2024
  • How to leverage emerging technology to build supply chain transparency and integrate ESG into every facet of the business

Links:

 

Dec 8, 2023

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes 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 has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement.

Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that capture our attention.

Dec 4, 2023

“Purchasing has always been finally responsible for quality, cost, and delivery, but with some of the global challenges we’ve had in the last five years, purchasing has mutated into supply chain, and we have taken over a lot of those responsibilities.” - Stephen Tonks, Chief Supply Chain Officer, Fujikura Automotive Europe

Procurement and supply chain are usually designated as two separate functions within organizations, each with different lines of reporting and operational structures. As procurement’s role has evolved and the value they bring to the business has expanded beyond sourcing or cost and into strategy, purchasing and supply chain are becoming more intertwined than ever before.

To understand the relationship between purchasing and supply chain and what this means for the evolving role of procurement as a key strategic partner and relationship facilitator for the business, Philip Ideson spoke with Stephen Tonks, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Fujikura Automotive Europe. 

Stephen emphasizes the importance of purchasing and supply chain being constantly aligned and focused on the overall goals, challenges, and needs of the business as a whole. 

In this episode, he discusses: 

  • How purchasing and supply chain can support each other and find greater alignment to deliver more value for the business
  • The importance of relationships, both internal and external, to supply chain health and transparency
  • How procurement can leverage customer insights and relationships to drive business value and optimize the supply chain

Links:

 

Dec 1, 2023

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes 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 has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement.

Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that capture our attention.

Nov 27, 2023

“The most successful procurement teams have a strong ability to articulate what they’re doing in the context of overall business objectives.” - Aaron Addicoat, Senior Manager at Deloitte 

We live and work in a time characterized by global supply chain disruptions, inflationary conditions, the pandemic, and a war for talent. As a result, procurement has come under increasing pressure to “do more with less,” and deliver value in areas where they have not traditionally made direct contributions. 

To better understand the evolving nature of procurement and, in particular, what distinguishes the highest performing teams or, “Orchestrators of Value,” from the rest of the pack, Deloitte made this the focus of their 2023 Global Chief Procurement Officer survey. 

Philip Ideson recently spoke with Aaron Addicoat, Senior Manager, and Ryan Flynn, Principal, both from Deloitte, about Orchestrators of Value and how procurement teams can adapt their strategies to increase performance and drive more impact. 

In the episode, Aaron and Ryan discuss: 

  • How procurement Orchestrators of Value outpace their peers in terms of savings, performance, and relationships
  • How communicating procurement’s value proposition increases their reputation and influence within the business 
  • Key areas of focus for procurement moving forward, including operating models, talent strategies, and digital maturity

Links:

Nov 24, 2023

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes 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 has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement.

Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that capture our attention.

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