Art of Procurement

Leading procurement organizations are constantly reimagining their processes and operating models, but in today’s unpredictable and fast-changing world they are under more pressure than ever to deliver a high-level roadmap to building the procurement function of tomorrow.  In TRANSFORM - a thought-provoking new podcast series from Art of Procurement in partnership with Globality - we spotlight the agenda-setting procurement leaders and companies who are changing the game and redefining the Future of Procurement.  For the first episode in this special series, host Philip Ideson talks with Dr. Elouise Epstein, a partner at Kearney and the acclaimed author of Trade Wars, Pandemics, and Chaos: How Digital Procurement Enables Business Success in a Disordered World. She is surely at the forefront of driving the procurement profession to an elevated future. Dr. Elouise shares her honest perspectives on: How she thinks most procurement leaders need to change their thinking about the profession How technologies like AI can enable companies to achieve their ESG goals and tap into new sources of innovation, growth and enterprise value The traits that distinguish the companies that have best positioned themselves for long term success

The State of the Procurement Profession report, one of the largest studies of the profession, is now in its fourth year. Among the key takeaways is data that suggests cost-related objectives remain dominant, with sustainability initiatives far down the list of priorities, despite discussions and content that suggest more progress has already been made. The silver lining is that the entrepreneurial procurement movement seems to be taking hold, and may usher in a time of accelerated change.   In this episode, host Philip Ideson is joined by Dr. Marcell Vollmer, Partner and Director at Boston Consulting Group, and Christoph Bode, Professor at the Business School of the University of Mannheim and Endowed Chair of Procurement. They recently collaborated, with the assistance of ISM, to survey the procurement profession, and have published their findings in the newly released report “State of the Procurement Profession 2021.”   The key findings of the research focus on entrepreneurial orientation, digitization, and ESG, as well as considering procurement reporting structures: Early indications that the first ‘big wave’ of procurement digitalization may be coming to an end Why recent concerns about supply chain risk are changing how companies approach sustainability, and why this shift plays to procurement’s strengths The mindset and risk tolerance that are observed in entrepreneurial procurement teams - who also appear to be outperforming their peers

In a recent Art of Procurement survey, access to market insights was cited as the second most pressing challenge for procurement professionals. Even when procurement is able to access the insights they need, they still have to ensure that they are up-to-date, harder than ever given the level of uncertainty and unpredictability in today’s business climate. In this week’s episode, Host Philip Ideson is joined by Ashley Cruz, Manager of Client Services at ProcurementIQ, and Thomas Lawson, their Product Development Manager. Starting by providing an honest look at procurement’s legacy relationship with market intelligence, they share some of their best tips for making insights actionable and provide a behind the scenes look into how ProcurementIQ builds their market intelligence reports. In particular, Ashley and Thomas answer questions about: Why the time has come (or passed) for procurement’s market intelligence to move beyond supplier discovery and cost/price benchmarking The value of incorporating market trends and dynamics as well as models into the negotiation and bid review process The most frequently asked questions they hear from procurement teams when it comes to accessing and acting upon market insights and intelligence

The high number of low-cost transactions is just the beginning of the challenges with tail spend management. Spend often finds its way into the tail through multiple ‘wrong turns,’ each of which requires a different approach by procurement and a correspondingly different resolution. There is no one ‘cause’ of tail spend and therefore there is no one solution.  In this episode, which is based on an AOP Live session, host Philip Ideson speaks with Jean-Baptiste Anne, Head of Enterprise Sales and Professional Services Teams for Amazon Business, and Vishal Patel, VP of Product Marketing at Ivalua about all things tail spend. How do they define it, how to integrate self-service models, and ways to look at the ROI of your tail spend program. Jean-Baptiste Anne and Vishal Patel answer audience questions about: The differences between a dedicated tail spend solution and integrating that same capability into a platform How to know that you are making the right investment to deliver a tail spend ROI for your company The criticality of understanding what is in your tail spend to being able to direct it through self-guided buying options such as Amazon Business, new procurement-led sourcing projects, or incorporation into existing contracts

Procurement has been working hard to expand our value proposition beyond savings for a long time, and the current conditions in service-based industries may provide a perfect opportunity. Many service and people-based industries are being hit hard by what is being called ‘The Great Resignation.’ Managing these categories on cost alone will definitely not be enough. In this episode, host Philip Ideson speaks with ​​Amy Fong, Vice President of Sourcing and Vendor Management at Everest Group. Amy has had a front row seat to procurement transformation as both practitioner and an advisor, and she is currently focused on services categories. This interview was recorded as part of PASA’s (Procurement and Supply Australasia) ninth annual PASA Premier Confex. Amy answers service-specific questions about: The roles and industries where labor shortages are the greatest - and therefore the potential price increases are the highest Evidence that companies may be pre-buying digital services the way they were hoarding toilet paper in 2020 The trends she sees with regard to service providers integrating technology and automation into their delivery models

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: 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  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.

Procurement, treasury and accounts payable have one set of shared objectives when it comes to supplier engagement and management, but all too often they operate in silos. This complicates supplier management and does little to improve their experience while working with a company. Restructuring how these groups work together through procurement transformation can create opportunities to support each other’s goals and therefore better deliver against business expectations. In this episode, Host Philip Ideson is joined by Joe Payne, SVP, Source-to-Pay at Corcentric, and Jennifer Ulrich, Senior Director of Advisory at Corcentric. They are both return guests on Art of Procurement and are two of four authors of the recently released book: Managing Indirect Spend. This conversation is based on a recent AOP Live webinar titled, “Bridging the Gap Between Procurement, AP, and Treasury through Procurement Transformation.”  In that session Joe and Jennifer answered questions from a live Art of Procurement audience about: Where procurement, treasury, and accounts payable tend to fall out of sync and why How fragmented processes not only negatively impact suppliers, but reduce the ROI to the company from those relationships  The additional benefits - such as reduced overall effort and improved data quality - that result when all three groups work collaboratively