Art of Procurement

Technology is an extremely broad spend category and it is expanding by the day because of our emphasis on digital transformation. Nearly every function and category has an IT software or services component to it. Technology truly forms the foundation, or “lifeblood” as Rene Mathis put it, of corporate initiatives. Rene Mathis is an Associate Director at Corcentric where he specializes in technology category spend. He is currently working side by side with companies that are reevaluating their IT contracts, redefining their uptime definitions and service level agreements, and attempting to put plans in place - despite the fact that no one knows what the next 6-12 months will hold. In this interview, Rene shares his point of view with Philip Ideson and Kelly Barner on: The current state of IT sourcing, including what has (and has not) changed because of the COVID-19 shutdowns The health of procurement’s relationship with in-house IT, and some suggestions for building collaborative bridges while still achieving spend-related objectives Trends in emerging technologies and automation that procurement should be prepared to address in cross-functional sourcing projects

For the rest of August, I’m taking a roadtrip across the United States, and so because I’m out of the recording studio, I’m going to dip into the archive all the way back to 2016 to share some of my favorite episodes from that year with you that are still just as relevant as today - and if you found the podcast after 2016, there’s a good chance that you haven’t yet heard these conversations. Today’s I rewind to a conversation that I had with Tim Jones, Head of Sourcing at Google.  Our conversation documents Google’s journey to become a trusted advisor. Google’s approach includes tactics around stakeholder engagement that I often recommend to procurement teams who are on their own journey from tactical to strategic, regardless of the size of your company.

For the rest of August, I’m taking a roadtrip across the United States, and so because I’m out of the recording studio, I’m going to dip into the archive all the way back to 2016 to share some of my favorite episodes from that year with you that are still just as relevant as today - and if you found the podcast after 2016, there’s a good chance that you haven’t yet heard these conversations. Today’s I rewind to a conversation that I had with Jack Miles.  There are few, if any, leaders in the procurement profession with the depth and breadth of experience as Jack.  Jack has enjoyed multiple CPO roles at some of North America’s largest companies and has served as Secretary of the Florida Department of Managed Services.  He serves, and has served, on a number of corporate boards, and has become a key advisor and friend to me personally, and to Art of Procurement. In today’s show, Jack shares seven of the key lessons that he has learned from his career in both the private and public sectors. If you have any interest in growing your procurement career at any level, this episode is a must listen!

For the rest of August, I’m taking a road trip across the United States, and so because I’m out of the recording studio, I’m going to dip into the archive all the way back to 2016 to share some of my favorite episodes from that year with you that are still just as relevant as today - and if you found the podcast after 2016, there’s a good chance that you haven’t yet heard these conversations. Today’s is a conversation with former procurement practitioner Sylvain Mansottee, now the CEO and Co-Founder of Whispli. It is a story about procurement fraud.   As a practitioner, Sylvain received the call from the newly appointed CPO of a large Australian based construction company to assist in building a new procurement function.   Within 2 months, he had uncovered a $20M fraud that spanned 12 years and led to the perpetrator admitting to the crime, and ultimately being sentenced to 15 years prison. Today’s Art of Procurement is Sylvain’s story.  Sylvain discusses how he uncovered the fraud, and the decisions he had to make in blowing the whistle. We then talk more specifically about procurement fraud.  Sylvain shares a number of fraud red flags and provides tips on how you can ensure you have an environment where a whistleblower feels safe in coming forward if they have information to share. Sylvain’s story is really absorbing, and also, for me, a wakeup call to realize that procurement fraud is real, and that any one of us in procurement may find ourselves in the same position as Sylvain given the nature of our roles.

For a long time, procurement has gotten feedback that our terminology - and, more specifically, our abbreviations - have a distancing or alienating effect on internal stakeholders and budget owners. But if language has the power to push people away, it can also be used to purposefully clarify, align, and collaborate. Steve Wills is the founder and Managing Director of Procurement Central and formerly served as the Procurement Advisor to the 2012 London Olympic Games. 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 and supply chain functions. In this interview, Steve outlines: Some of the ways procurement can use language and messaging to bridge the gap between ourselves and the other functions in the organization The more expansive notion of stakeholder management procurement should embrace if we want to build stronger relationships with the business What to do when circumstances call for pragmatism instead of our polished procurement processes

Marketing is one of those spend categories that procurement often has a hard time breaking into. They are less concerned with cost than their counterparts in other functions, and most of the services they contract are not only complex, project-based efforts, they are usually evaluated from a highly subjective point of view. Kathleen Jordan is an Associate Director at Source One, a Corcentric Company, where she has been focused on the marketing category for years. She is familiar with the opportunities in marketing spend as well as the common disconnects that may prevent procurement from bringing marketing spend under management and cost marketing professionals the ability to make their budgets go further. In this interview, Kathleen shares her point of view with Philip Ideson and Kelly Barner on: Some of the most effective sourcing strategies for marketing spend and which specific categories should be looked at by procurement as good starting points The trends and implications hitting the marketing industry and consumers of B2B marketing services as the world transitions from traditional to fully digital marketing Tips and best practices procurement can use to bridge gaps in understanding or priorities between their team and their marketing colleagues

It has been well established that having a diverse and inclusive workforce increases results and employee satisfaction, so why wouldn't’ the same be true for companies that invest in building a diverse supply chain? That question is the one that started Jaime Crump down the path to become a supplier diversity expert and consultant. Jamie is the president of The Richmond Group where she provides consulting and coaching services to corporate and certified diversity-owned businesses in the areas of strategic sourcing and procurement strategies, supplier diversity initiatives, and optimizing the leverage of a diversity certification. Although supplier diversity programs are well-intentioned, they also have to be good for business, and as Jaime points out, there is a lot of research highlighting the correlations between a more diverse supply base and quantitative business improvement. The American Sociological Review, Harvard Business Review, and McKinsey have all studied the issue and found strong evidence to support true supply chain diversification.  In this interview, Jamie explains: Why the majority of diversity spend is associated with indirect suppliers. How stakeholders (or distributed buyers) are ultimately the ones with the power to make the greatest difference in supplier diversity. The fact that the effort to ensure supplier diversity is never done, and why it can’t be put on ‘cruise control.’

In last week’s podcast, Host Philip Ideson described the concept of the flywheel, a consistent pattern of small but deliberate actions designed to build momentum and deliver business results described in the book Good to Great by author Jim Collins.  This week, we apply that idea to procurement directly to ensure our strategies and tactics become (and remain) aligned with the goals and objectives of the enterprise as a whole. This focus has to permeate every effort we are involved in and the benefit can drive competitive advantage through cost optimization, risk mitigation, revenue growth, regulatory compliance, or operational agility.  Listen to Part 2 of this series on the flywheel to learn: How procurement can apply the flywheel to reposition procurement at the organizational level  How we can harness the flywheel principles to help build more adaptable project management processes for efforts such as category management and strategic sourcing How it is possible to turn seemingly tactical efforts into full strategic alignment with high-level business decision makers

At Art of Procurement, we believe that helping procurement teams effectively align their capabilities and outcomes with the goals of the businesses underpins the transformation of a team from transactional to strategic. In this podcast, we discuss a concept that is a big part of our Procurement, Inc approach and a core part of how we manage the Art of Procurement business itself: the flywheel. Because this concept may be new to many of our listeners (it was new to us when we discovered it), we’re going to cover the idea in two episodes. This week we provide the broader business context of the flywheel concept, and in part two (next week) we will contextualize the flywheel for procurement teams and discuss ways to put it into practice. In this podcast, you will learn about the following from Art of Procurement Founder and Host Philip Ideson: What is a flywheel and what value does it generate for a business? The sub-elements of the flywheel concept and where you have likely seen one in action as an individual consumer (whether you received it or not) Why it is the accumulation of smaller efforts, executed consistently, that is more important to success than one ‘big bang’ moment

Due to the risks posed by the coronavirus, procurement teams responsible for managing facilities services are currently experiencing quite a change. Services such as janitorial have quickly gone from transactional contracts established based upon cost to highly strategic relationships that must be in place and meet a new high standard for a facility to operate or even open. Arthur Piszczor is a Consultant at Corcentric, where he has been helping organizations manage their facilities services spend since long before our current elevated requirements went into effect, and he has helped a number of clients manage not only the transition, but the process of planning for the future. In this interview, Arthur shares his point of view with Philip Ideson and Kelly Barner on: Whether smaller localized or large national players are more commonly used, and how a company’s existing supplier base and contracts affected their ability to respond to the COVID-19 shutdowns The combined involvement of HR and procurement in cases where employees not only need to be kept safe by third party janitorial and sanitation providers, but need to feel safe as well. How the elevated standards that we expect to be in place going forward may be restructuring not only facilities services markets, but also the relative leverage of the buyers and suppliers in those relationships.