Art of Procurement

January 2017 marks the first month of a new collaboration that I am very excited about.  I am co-hosting a new monthly show, imaginatively titled The Month in Procurement, with Mark Perera.  Mark is the CEO and Founder of Old St Labs, the Founder of Procurement Leaders, and as I have got to know him, I see how passionate he is about levering innovation and technology to help businesses really harness the power of their supply networks. The show is meant to be a conversation.  We’ll be bringing in other people to join us every month to just chat about the issues of the day and their impact on procurement, and, frankly, anything that we have on our mind! I’ll be leaving the edit button at home, so what we say, is what you will hear! This Month in Procurement will have its own podcast channel that you can subscribe to, and I’ll let you know when that is ready to go. However, for this month, I’m including our conversation in the Art of Procurement feed.  I hope you like it – let me know what you think. For more information, visit: http://thismonthinprocurement.com 

My guest on today’s show is Mark Webb. Mark is the Managing Director of UK based procurement consultancy firm, Future Purchasing. Following experience as a practitioner and then in consulting with PwC and QP Group, Mark co-founded Future Purchasing, and they have grown from strength to strength since their inception back in 2002. Future Purchasing undertakes what I think is the leading piece of industry research on the subject of Category Management. They just put the final touches on their 2017 Global Category Management Leadership Report, a research collaboration with Henley Business School. What I wanted to do in my conversation with Mark is to pick apart some of the key findings, and understand what differentiates the leaders from followers in terms of their approach to category management, and the subsequent results that they enjoy. Areas we cover include: Why Category Management should be a business process, not a procurement process. The background behind the development of the Category Management Leadership Report. What differentiates a leader from a follower. A summary of the key recommendations from the report, highlighting areas with procurement control, and those that require stakeholder engagement. For more information, visit: http://artofprocurement.com/fpsurvey  

Today’s guest on the Art of Procurement is Mark Trowbridge, the co-founder and Principal for Strategic Procurement Solutions, and the former Director of Sourcing and Contracts at Bank of America. Mark is a published author, and a regular presenter at procurement and supply chain conferences. In fact, it was at the recent ISM Indirect conference in December that Mark and I met. As I got to know Mark I knew that I needed to invite him onto the show, and fortunately he accepted my invite without reservation. The main topic of today’s conversation is the notion of procurement superheroes – what are their characteristics, how can procurement leaders best deploy, and retain them.  However, as you will hear in the interview, we discuss much more than that! Areas we cover include: Why procurement is making a shift back to full value procurement Why CPO’s are being replaced by business leaders, and what procurement leaders can do to stop the trend. Why e-auctions and competitive bidding events do not always lead you to the lowest cost, and what you can do instead. The 6 key attributes of procurement superheroes, and how they are changing as the procurement value proposition evolves. How can a procurement leader build an environment to help all employees act at a superhero level. Mark explains the concept of taking intelligence risks that has had a big impact on his thinking. What are the right ways and wrong ways to position savings reporting? Mark’s two resolutions for procurement in 2017. For more information, visit: http://artofprocurement.com/sps

Welcome to 2017!  In this first show of the year, I share details of Art of Procurement's publishing schedule in 2017, invite applications to a new AOP Circle of Experts, and share thoughts on facilitating innovation following a recent visit to a startup accelerator program. For more information, visit: http://artofprocurement.com/ep116  

So here we are: The Best of 2016 List. As the year comes to a close, I sat down to consider which episodes have been the most powerful and impactful in 2016.  Some of these have been my personal favorites, others determined by download numbers.  What I did try to do is to make the list as diverse as possible, and it features interviews with CPO's, CEO's, Founders, Educators and Consultants.  There should be something for everyone here!   For more information, visit: http://artofprocurement.com/bestof16

Pierre Mitchell was the first supply chain practitioner to become a procurement "industry analyst" with roles at AMR Research (now Gartner) followed by The Hackett Group, and now Spend Matters. There are few people, if any, that cover procurement than understand, and have such passion for, the growth of our profession. Both Pierre and I were together last week at the ISM Inside Indirect Conference 2016 in Las Vegas, and so we picked up the mic’s and hit record! So, today’s show is an informal chat covering a range of topics. Areas we cover include:  What challenges in procurement is Pierre motivated to try and help solve? Has procurement evolved over 2016 or as we still in the same position, with the same challenges and questions, as we were 12 months ago? How can we differentiate marketing hype with reality when it comes to potentially game changing technologies? What is the most overused and most underused procurement KPI? For more information, visit: http://artofprocurement.com/ismindirect 

On today's Art of Procurement, I answer a listener question. The question was: how do you make a supplier happy. Now, I’m going to assume that the right answer isn’t to give them riches for providing peanuts! So, I sat down and thought through 6 different ways that I think we can all put at least a half smile on the faces of our suppliers this Christmas! For more information, visit: http://artofprocurement.com/113 

I will be in Las Vegas this week at the ISM Indirect Conference, and with Las Vegas also known as Sin City, I thought it would be fun to look back at some old Art of Procurement episodes and come up with a list of 10 sins of procurement! Now, frankly, there are a lot more than 10!  However, I had to stop somewhere! These are inspired by my own experiences, and the guests that we have had on the show.  I kept them to what I think are our day to day dealings with suppliers and stakeholders rather than looking at it from an organizational design perspective. For more information, visit: http://artofprocurement.com/procurement-sins 

This week I welcome Gordon Donovan on to the Art of Procurement.  Gordon is a presently a member of the procurement leadership team at Metro Trains Melbourne, and he has a broad range of experiences as a practitioner including Head of Procurement roles, consultant and training. Gordon's career spans both the UK and Australia, and includes roles at organizations such as the UK National Health Service, Transport for London, Healthscope, ArcBlue and The Faculty. Today, we are going to discuss influence and I’m willing to say that there are few, if any, who have studied the topic of influence and procurement as thoroughly as Gordon.  He wrote a 20,000 word dissertation for his Masters Degree on the topic of the development of influencing skills within the Australian procurement community, and he frequently weaves the topic into his procurement learning and development programs. Areas we cover include: The need to demystify procurement The difference between functional influence and influencing skills. The importance of facilitation skills An overview of different influencing styles and how to determine which style you should use depending on who you are seeking to influence Why kids are the best influencers and what we can learn from them Key traits of a successful influencer The power of inspiration Gordon’s tips for building trust, which is the foundation of building influence. For more information, visit: http://artofprocurement.com/influence