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.

To support this need for balance, the Art of Procurement team brought together a broad range of experts to speak at Digital Outcomes 2023: one of our largest virtual events of the year. We heard about technical challenges and human growing pains… in addition to technical triumphs and human evolution.

In this episode of the pod, Philip Ideson and Kelly Barner share their combined takeaways from this fast-paced two day event:

• How to take new ideas from a relatively safe incubation phase to full scale corporate programs
• The risks that exist for procurement teams that are not able to successfully leave the status quo behind and embrace new ways of working and thinking
• The opportunity that exists for procurement organizations that use digital platforms as impact multipliers, delivering expanded forms of ROI

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.

Like most other companies, manufacturing companies have a problem with data. Many of them don't centralize much of the data they produce through regular transactions, and even when they do, they struggle to contextualize that information so that it becomes actionable. When procurement professionals in these companies sit down with engineers and supply chain planners, they need to be able to harness that data as the ‘common language’ for value.

Keith Hartley is the CEO of LevaData - and a passionate surfer, a brand new combination for the Art of Procurement podcast. Keith joined the LevaData team in 2022, but he isn’t new to procurement - and he has deep experience helping manufacturing companies drive better decision making through the use of data. 

In this episode, Philip Ideson and Keith discussed:

• The current state of direct material sourcing 
• How procurement and engineering teams can foster greater collaboration to everyone’s benefit
• How leading companies are using increased data visibility to differentiate their decision making - even in chaotic times

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.

All companies are works in progress, as are the many professionals dedicated to their operational performance and efficiency. Since today’s business conditions are far from being straightforward, having a better read of the macro landscape can represent a significant competitive advantage.

In this episode, based on an AOP Live session, Art of Procurement’s Philip Ideson was joined by Rujul Zaparde, Founder and CEO of Zip, and Colin Glazier, VP of Solutions Consulting at Zip. They regularly hear different perspectives on the challenges and opportunities that will be presented to all of us, as well as suggestions about what we can start doing now to make the most of the new year.

Rujul and Colin answered questions from the Art of Procurement community about three key areas:

• How macro-economic trends and pressures will affect providers and practitioners differently, and exhibit themselves in each group’s work
• The impact that no-code platforms and automation may have on user friction and compliance
• New approaches procurement can take to influence specific categories and relationships today and in the future

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.

The procurement job scene has been a wild ride for the last few years. Conditions are standing to change, and no one ever should have expected otherwise. As procurement begins to enter a new phase of recruitment under very different economic conditions, there are still plenty of op[portunities - but it may require a new approach to find them.

Mark Holyoake is the Managing Director of Holyoake Search, a recruitment specialist focused on procurement. Mark joined host Philip Ideson for a discussion about the general health of the procurement job market and how it has evolved over the past couple of years, along with his tips for any listeners who have been impacted by workforce reductions.

In this interview Mark and Philip discuss:

• How the spike in demand for procurement professionals during the pandemic caused years’ worth of overdue salary increases to hit hiring companies all at once
• Why recent news of mass layoffs, especially within the tech sector, should not be seen as a proxy for the market as a whole - and certainly not for procurement
• Why hiring managers and candidates all have to keep an open mind about which skills and experiences can apply to which open positions

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 often talks about being limited by others’ perception of them. But how is that perception created? In some cases, experience dictates what stakeholders expect from procurement. In other cases, it stems from procurement’s internal brand, the combination of voice, tone, and values they use when communicating with the business.

Katherine McCleery is a good friend of the Art of Procurement team. She is a marketing and branding expert who has significant experience working with procurement services and SaaS companies. She understands the power of a good brand as well as immediate opportunities for procurement to build one of their own.

In this conversation, Katherine and host Philip Ideson discuss:

• Why branding is important for procurement leaders to understand and invest in
• How to build and then scale an effective procurement brand
• How the efforts that go into building a brand could also make procurement a better partner to the business

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.

Could there be any better qualification to compete in Ironman events than a 20-plus-year career in procurement? 

We find out in this week’s podcast, as host Philip Ideson is joined by procurement leader turned Ironman Vytas Sliesoraitis. 

Vytas has a diverse procurement background that includes time in procurement at Intel in his native Brazil, leading procurement at Google X (Google’s R&D company), and Global Head of Procurement at Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite. 

In this conversation, Vytas and Philip discuss many of the lessons learned from his long and varied career in procurement:

• The balance he learned to achieve while in procurement at Intel, balancing global strategy with local nuance
• Building trust based partnerships while establishing the procurement function at Google X
• What made him want to train for Ironman competitions and the lessons he has learned that current procurement professionals can benefit from

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.

Do fish know they are wet?

Every creature on earth has a natural habitat. Procurement’s habitat is digital. And yet, the digital aspects of procurement’s work are so pervasive, they surround us like the air we breathe. It is easy to forget to look at the nature of digital business when we are focused on individual technologies… just like fish may not notice they are wet.

Digital Outcomes is an annual virtual event that creates a space for procurement to think about the macro trends associated with digital business. In this episode, Philip Ideson and Kelly Barner reveal the topics, speakers, and session scope featured in this year’s agenda.

Attendees to the live virtual event on February 15th and 16th will discover:

• Why procurement can only improve their results by making the user experience frictionless
• The context and terminology required for procurement to address cybersecurity concerns with stakeholders and suppliers
• The upsides, downsides, and disruptive complexities of today’s robust procurement startup landscape

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.

Category management has its fair share of supporters and detractors - and that is just within the procurement community. But rumors of its pending demise may be premature. Rather than rejecting category management because circumstances and strategies are constantly changing, procurement should embrace category management because circumstances will always change and strategies must adapt accordingly.

In this episode, Philip Ideson welcomes the first guest of 2023: Stephane Morel, a Global Process Owner within Strategic Procurement at Novartis. He is responsible for advancing, aligning, alleviating, accelerating, and automating strategic procurement processes. He also had the opportunity to lead Novartis’ highly successful stakeholder mapping exercise in 2016, an experience which shaped many of the perspectives on stakeholder partnership he shares in this interview.

Philip and Stephane take this opportunity to discuss and debate:

• When and where category management should be applied, and how this connects to the future trajectory of the procurement operating model
• Whether digital maturity can address procurement’s previous failed attempts to engage the business in category management efforts
• The five essential workstreams that may make it possible for procurement to navigate the combined challenge of the economy, aggressive ESG targets, supply chain risk, and ever-evolving automation

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.

Over the course of the year, the Art of Procurement team is privileged to speak to a LOT of people from across the procurement ecosystem. In 2022, we created almost 200 podcasts, three multi-day events, ran a monthly webinar series, and facilitated a number of roundtables and CPO dinners. I personally traveled to eight procurement and supply chain conferences across North America. We see and hear a lot - the vast majority of it in candid, off-the-record conversations that can never be shared verbatim, but that inform our perspectives and opinions. 

Based on these experiences, I want to share three key messages for procurement leaders to consider at the beginning of this new year.

In addition to being the Head of Content and Brand Partnerships at Art of Procurement, Kelly Barner is also the host of The Sourcing Hero podcast, a collaboration with Una. New episodes air every Wednesday at 6am ET and they cover a wide range of topics… everything from soft skills to sales, and category management to digital transformation.

In this specially curated podcast, Kelly shares excerpts from three recent interviews featuring authors:

• Simon Horton, a negotiations expert, talks about persuasion. 
• Tim Hughes provides a lesson on Social Selling for procurement 
• Jonathan O’Brien talks about the challenge of sustainability - and how procurement can rise to meet that challenge.

So get in your most comfortable book position, grab a cup of tea or coffee, and join us to hear Kelly’s selected highlights.

Art of Procurement is best known for our podcast, but did you know that we also host a number of virtual conferences each year as well? These longer form events allow us to have in-depth discussions about the opportunities and challenges procurement professionals face.

All of those opportunities and challenges can be met with a combination of digital solutions, data, and powerful relationships - and we get to hear real world examples of how that works from our event speakers. 

In this specially curated podcast, Helen Mackenzie shares her most memorable excerpts from this year’s virtual events:

• Melissa Drew, Associate Partner at IBM, speaking about how AI can elevate procurement's focus from tactical to strategic
• SpendHQ Chief Operating Officer Doug Van Wingerden talking about how technology is changing the ‘game’ of category management
• Tanya Manning-Grant, CEO of TMG Professional Services Consulting Firm, focusing on driving supply chain value in disrupted times

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.

Digital procurement is no longer a ‘next level’ approach to spend and supplier management. Digitized procurement processes have fast become the table stakes for any procurement team that hopes to become a true business partner. 

And yet, procurement often still struggles to ‘connect the dots’ between multiple strategic and technical considerations - a business-wide effort. In a recent LinkedIn Snap Poll, Art of Procurement community members told us that alignment with the business is the most important input to digital transformation. That in and of itself is an important indication of procurement maturity.

This episode features a recent AOP Live session where Philip Ideson was joined by Alpar Kamber, Julie Brignac, and Chris Eyerman from WNS Denali. They took the opportunity to dig deeper into the connection between alignment with the business and procurement’s digital transformation goals.

They discussed:

• What the concept of a digital ecosystem really means - to procurement and to the rest of the company
• How procurement should perceive the connections between digital transformation and their own maturity journey
• The important role that experienced and objective third parties can play in accelerating both transformation and maturation

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.

In challenging economic times, each company has to eke the most value out of every contract. But are there limitations to that?

A recent article from CIPS’ Supply Management Magazine, How the Actions of Procurement Teams Are Contributing to Insolvencies, brought this question to the forefront.

In a LinkedIn Pulse Poll, Philip Ideson asked, should procurement be responsible for what they ask for in situations where they hold a high amount of leverage or is it up to the supplier not to offer what they cannot afford?

In this episode of the podcast, Philip is joined by Kelly Barner to discuss the results of the poll as well as some related ‘ethical’ questions that procurement teams may be facing today:

• How can procurement ‘protect’ suppliers from bankruptcy if those suppliers are not fully transparent about their cost model?
• Who should decide what it means to make a ‘fair profit?’
• Could holding a supplier’s feet to the fire lead to brand damage for the buying 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.