Art of Procurement

“I'm going to change your mindset. You're going to want me to help you. You're going to want my team. You're going to want more procurement and you're going to advocate for us. I love watching it shift.”   Many procurement leaders have been tasked with building the first procurement organization at their company. It is always a challenging journey, with many unexpected twists and turns. For fast-growth companies with a global footprint, establishing formal procurement is absolutely critical, but it has to be done in a way that does not impede the growth trajectory.   Sarah Kaye is the Director of Procurement at Spin, a part of Ford Mobility, an electric scooter and bike-share company. She is combining her passion for marketing with the procurement experience she gained working at organizations such as Target, Radisson Hotel Group, and WeWork.   Sarah’s responsibilities at Spin began at the beginning; building and growing the company’s very first procurement team.   In this conversation, Host Philip Ideson and Sarah discuss how she is building procurement capabilities that truly align with the needs of the business, and how she is leveraging her marketing skills to build and sell the procurement value proposition: The level of sophistication she is able to bring to procurement’s internal relationships by making personal connections aimed at delivering long term value Why the best problem she has is too many contracts to negotiate and execute The importance of procurement taking programs like diversity and inclusion or sustainability and moving beyond tracking and reporting to full advocacy with the business

Corporate travel is one of the most complex spend categories that procurement has management responsibility for. For almost two years now, business travel has been in a state of flux resulting from the global COVID-19 pandemic, leaving most companies and procurement teams with a whole series of unanswered questions:   How should your corporate travel policy change to reflect new realities? How do you negotiate deals when volumes are uncertain? How do you account for traveler safety? And how do you integrate sustainability into your travel program? In this four-part special series brought to you in partnership with Egencia, the world’s business travel platform, we will cover all of these pressing issues and more. In the final episode of the series, host Philip Ideson speaks with Kristina Zdrilic Siljedahl, Global Account Manager and Sustainability Ambassador at Egencia, to discuss the tactics and metrics that companies can use to integrate sustainability into their travel program.

Corporate travel is one of the most complex spend categories that procurement has management responsibility for. For almost two years now, business travel has been in a state of flux resulting from the global COVID-19 pandemic, leaving most companies and procurement teams with a whole series of unanswered questions:   How should your corporate travel policy change to reflect new realities? How do you negotiate deals when volumes are uncertain? How do you account for traveler safety? And how do you integrate sustainability into your travel program? In this four-part special series brought to you in partnership with Egencia, the world’s business travel platform, we will cover all of these pressing issues and more. In the third episode of the series, host Philip Ideson speaks with Caitlin Deegan, Senior Director of Strategy at Egencia, to discuss the elevated responsibility organizations have to protect traveler safety, and what actions they can take to minimize risk as much as possible.

Corporate travel is one of the most complex spend categories that procurement has management responsibility for. For almost two years now, business travel has been in a state of flux resulting from the global COVID-19 pandemic, leaving most companies and procurement teams with a whole series of unanswered questions:   How should your corporate travel policy change to reflect new realities? How do you negotiate deals when volumes are uncertain? How do you account for traveler safety? And how do you integrate sustainability into your travel program? In this four-part special series brought to you in partnership with Egencia, the world’s business travel platform, we will cover all of these pressing issues and more. In the second episode of the series, host Philip Ideson speaks with Delphine Boulton, Director of Consulting at Egencia, to discuss different approaches procurement teams can take to negotiate travel deals when traveler demand is uncertain.

Corporate travel is one of the most complex spend categories that procurement has management responsibility for. For almost two years now, business travel has been in a state of flux resulting from the global COVID-19 pandemic, leaving most companies and procurement teams with a whole series of unanswered questions:   How should your corporate travel policy change to reflect new realities? How do you negotiate deals when volumes are uncertain? How do you account for traveler safety? And how do you integrate sustainability into your travel program? In this four-part special series brought to you in partnership with Egencia, the world’s business travel platform, we will cover all of these pressing issues and more. In this first episode of the series, host Philip Ideson speaks with Ann Dery, Director of Global Travel at S&P Global, and Rob Fodor, Global Account Manager at Egencia, about the changes companies are making to their travel policies in the short term and their perspective on when different types of travel will resume.

Anyone who has worked in procurement for more than a year or two has probably found themselves in a situation where they suspect that they are overpaying on a supplier contract. How can you be sure and what should you do if you uncover overpayment? In some cases overpayment issues are based on billing errors, and in other cases, agreed upon contract terms are not being adhered to by suppliers. Either way, third-party compliance audits can be essential. Ben Evans is the President at Auditech Solutions, a company that provides accounts payable and contract compliance audits to help companies determine whether they are overpaying on invoices. He points out that not only may audits need to be done when a company suspects something is wrong with a set of invoices, but that it may be advantageous to include an audit clause in certain contracts. In this conversation, Ben and host Philip Ideson:  Discuss the value of inserting audit causes into supplier contracts, what they should look like, and how to negotiate them.  Take a deeper dive into compliance audits and how to make them a regular part of a supplier governance program.  And cover the ‘nuts and bolts’ of updates, including the different types of commercial models for hiring and compensating an audit firm.

Procurement has been working to digitally transform spend and supplier related processes for years, but even the companies that have succeeded can always do more. Each procurement process connects to other enterprise processes, functions, and systems. The more integrated all of those components are, the better positioned the company is to respond to disruption and seize competitive advantage. In this conversation, Tony Harris, Global Vice President, Global Business Network Solutions at SAP, and host Philip Ideson discuss what today's integrated business networks actually are and what use cases he has seen. In addition to sharing his detailed thoughts about data models, spot buying, and business networks, Tony also shares some tips for procurement leaders that want to start on their own business network design and implementation journey. For example:  Looking for ways to speed up the typical RFP process so that it supports the business instead of hindering progress Ensuring that third party services and contingent workforce providers are included in distributed sourcing and buying platforms Opportunities for supplier value creation associated with leveraging global business networks

Since Philip Ideson started Art of Procurement almost six years ago, a broad range of executives, practitioners, academics, and more have shared over 3.2 Million words of wisdom through our podcasts, webinars, virtual events, and long-form writing. Regardless of their focus or point of view, each person shared our singular goal of helping forward-thinking leaders change the game for their company by elevating procurement’s impact.  In this week’s episode, Philip Ideson delivers a solo show update on the year to date, looking at everything we’ve all been through and how it has changed our lives, our work, and our perspective on the future.  Listen in to hear his opinion on: The overall impact of COVID on procurement as a result of how it has affected supply markets, talent availability, investment in technology, and socially-driven initiatives. How the Art of Procurement team is working to make sure that we never get too comfortable, remaining open to feedback and inspiration and continuing to raise the bar on ourselves Purposeful changes we are making to the availability and delivery of our content and events to ensure that we remain aligned with what you need most

Procurement professionals are always plagued by the fact that no one seems to understand what we do. While this is often blamed on language barriers and the fact that procurement is always evolving, at the end of the day it comes down to one harsh reality - procurement does not have a well-established, recognisable brand. Steve Wills is the Founder and Managing Director of Procurement Central, a specialist training provider based in the UK. Steve formerly served as the Procurement Advisor to the 2012 London Olympic Games’ organizing committee. He has extensive business experience with blue chip organizations and has worked with leaders in industry and commerce as a CPO to transform complex procurement functions.  In this conversation, Steve and Host Philip Ideson discuss procurement’s brand and how function is positioned strategically. This is a topic that is central to procurement executives and leaders, and will only become more so as procurement pushes to change how they are perceived internally and externally. Steve provides the following thoughts and examples to make the case that procurement should purposefully invest in their brand: Whether procurement’s brand should be across the professional community or defined specifically within each company The lasting damage that can be done when procurement prioritizes short term goals and objectives over their longer term vision The difference it can make when the CEO or executive team ‘gets’ what procurement can do and why they are so valuable on the journey to organizational success

In this week’s episode, which is based on an Art of Procurement Mastermind Community Category Briefing, Philip Ideson and Kelly Barner ask J. Grant Caplan, President of Procurigence, Inc. and Chairperson  of the GBTA Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, detailed questions about the current state of the meetings and events to better understand the conditions companies are dealing with and possible steps they can take to restart their meetings programs without incurring unnecessary risk. He shared his knowledge and experience regarding: The nuanced differences between ‘meetings’ and ‘events’ and how procurement needs to manage them How companies can navigate the complex web of policies and guidelines that help meeting and event planners decide how much to spend on what elements of their gathering Why he believes travel is a service sold as a commodity, and how that should influence procurement’s handling of the category