The Point

How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?
~ Dr. Seuss

This week’s featured webinar was presented by Denali Group and Sourcing Interests Group. Two members of the Denali Group team discussed four challenges procurement organizations face as they attempt to move away from tactical work and retool themselves for strategic category management:

• Strategic partnership
• Resource limitations
• Organizational expectations
• Skills gaps

Goldilocks came into the Three Bear's cabin while they were away looking for the perfect porridge, chair and bed. She was trying to find the one that was 'just right'. It had to taste good, be warm and fit.

The ISM-New York Report on Business is released on the second business day of each month at 9:45 AM Eastern. Buyers Meeting Point has been following the ISM reports on business for two years, helping you apply information from the indexes (which is collected from procurement professionals) to your own work. The most important thing to keep in mind when reading this report is that no one number represents the findings of the report; each piece of data only has value when considered as part of a trend - relative to the month(s) or year before.

We have all worked with some people and couldn't wait until they retired. It could not come soon enough. They were no longer engaged or capable of fulfilling their role as they should. Of course that is not always the case. There are plenty who will leave a BIG void when they leave.

In this week’s featured webinar, we heard from Ardent Partners Chief Research Officer Andrew Bartolini in an event presented by BravoSolution. Andrew shared a Category Sourcing Scorecard he and his team designed to support sourcing team efforts to build out pipelines that can help allocate team resources and prepare for opportunities.

The motto of the Three Musketeers was "All for One and One for All". What was good for one of them had to be good for all and vice versa. Successful buying groups act in the same fashion - the majority of the time. Not everyone every time but most of the time.

Clive Rich and Simon Horton, two experienced negotiators from the UK, have a series of podcasts called ‘Negotiation Natters’. Now, this is not a typo on my part. Although negotiation most definitely MATTERS, these podcasts feature Clive and Simon chatting about negotiation. While their style is casual, their content is not.

If you are anything like me, I was nervous about meeting new people or going to conferences where I would have to 'network'. I never knew how to get conversations started or mingle around the receptions. Until I discovered the secret: ASK QUESTIONS!

“Atlanta to Texarkana and back in twenty eight hours? That ain't never been done before.”

-- Cledus Snow, Smokey and the Bandit

There are many benefits to working as a team and therefore, a buying group is that for the procurement world. Just like anything else, examine the buying group in detail before you join. They will do the same to your organization before allowing you to join.

As procurement professionals make increasing use of social media and online collaboration, the associations we belong to are doing the same. Search for procurement in your Apple or Android app store and you’ll come up with more results than you might expect. Some of the best uses of the app format are companions to the conferences that take place throughout the year. Angry Birds they are not, but they provide access to location information and (more importantly) presentation materials whether you attended the event or not.

Growing up, we had limited opportunities for candy or chocolate. We could count on it on special occasions, holidays and vacations.  Every summer my grandparents would visit and take us to the candy aisle in the grocery store. We could buy a WHOLE BAG of candy - not just a single candy bar. Heavenly!! We always has a terrific visit with them - swimming, hiking and playing games. But the visit was ever so much better with the chocolate. A bonus of the whole thing was they often stayed two weeks so we got to repeat that joy in the candy aisle for two weeks!

This week’s featured event was hosted by the Next Level Purchasing Association and was presented by Tim Reis, a procurement manager with 10 years of experience, a regular columnist for Next Level Purchasing’s online magazine and a holder of the SPSM certification. Most importantly, he is an active practitioner.

Two years ago, we posted our review of ‘Common Sense Purchasing’ by Dr. Tom DePaoli. In September 2012 he published a new book that reflects a broader perspective on his experience and our profession. By taking a step up – or back – however you chose to see the difference between purchasing and supply management, Dr. Tom takes a new look at the challenges and opportunities in supply management and presents them by sharing many of his own experiences as an independent management consultant in 'Common Sense Supply Management'.

Parents are often very busy with car pooling children to various activities - sports, school. friends, music lessons and so on. It can be quite helpful to have a large group in your car pool to balance all the schedules and maintain some sanity - hopefully!

In this week’s Procurement on YouTube post, we we'll see Jamie Clarke: a Canadian adventurer, author, filmmaker, entrepreneur, and inspirational speaker who has summited Mt. Everest twice in four attempts. At first pass, you might not think that being able to climb Mount Everest would qualify him to work with procurement professionals, but in April of this year he will do just that – at Coupa’s INSPIRE event in San Francisco. I wanted to learn a little more about him, so I looked for and found a clip that shares a bit of his perspective on overcoming adversity, and, as you are about to hear, he understands the kind of challenges we face better than you would think.

We have deadlines for all sorts of things. Is it okay to be a little late? Does that only apply to social situations? What about the deadline for bids from your suppliers?

This week’s featured webinar had an interesting premise – for the first time this year, My Purchasing Center and ProcureCon Indirect have partnered to sponsor the Excellence in Purchasing Indirect Categories (EPIC) Awards competition – EPIC for short. This week’s webinar recognized the finalists for their achievements in indirect spend procurement by having them present.

In order to help procurement better position ourselves and communicate through all of the channels available to us, Buyers Meeting Point reached out to a colleague with a background in marketing and experience in the procurement space. Sheryl Johnson is the founder of BD-PRo Marketing Solutions and focuses on implementing creative marketing and business networking strategies for small and medium sized businesses, as well as a professor of marketing at the Community College of Allegheny County in Pennsylvania.

Click here to read more about the 'Marketing of Procurement' series of posts on Buyers Meeting Point.