Note: This post originally ran on Design News.

There’s an 800-pound gorilla in the room. It’s called Amazon. Yet not everyone sees it as inevitable that the e-commerce and distribution giant will dominate electronic component distribution.

In a recent interview with Tom Galligani, global vice president of supply chain for distributor Future Electronics, I asked for his views on Amazon’s invasion of the B2B space. Given the size and power of Amazon, you might expect distributors like Future Electronics to be prepared to be put out of business, but that is not the case. In fact, Amazon’s entry into the B2B marketplace creates a unique set of opportunities for buyers as well as suppliers or distributors.

Nevertheless, like others in the electronic components distribution industry and beyond, Galligani and his team are keeping a close eye on Jeff Bezos’ $90 billion e-commerce behemoth. Amazon may have gotten its start with an unbeatable B2C experience, but it has made inroads -- both organically and through acquisition -- into the B2B market.

The year may be winding down, but the webinar calendar is still going strong. There are quite a few events left in the year – this week included. I’m recommending two of the webinars scheduled for this week. Click on the title of each event below to view the full description in our events calendar and to connect to their registration pages.

This week’s webinar notes are from a November 19^th event hosted by BravoSolution and presented by Mickey North Rizza, their VP of Strategic Services and former AMR Research/Gartner analyst. As of December 2^nd, the event was not yet available on demand on their website. In the meantime, BravoSolution does have a whitepaper with the same title written by North Rizza if you are interested in more. Click here to download it.

Last week, we unexpectedly had a full slate of webinars – this week the topics and speakers are unexpected. Take this opportunity before the year runs out to attend one of these unique events.  Click on the title of each event below to view the full description in our events calendar and to connect to their registration pages.

I thought for sure that this week would be devoid of events – between last week’s early schedule and the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. on Thursday. To the contrary, there is a full slate of webinars on a series of hot procurement topics. Click on the title of each event below to view the full description in our events calendar and to connect to their registration pages.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Robert Mason and Barry Evans, co-authors of the book ‘The Lean Supply Chain: Managing the Challenge at Tesco.’ It was published in September 2015 and you ca...

With the Thanksgiving holiday ahead in the U.S. next week, this week is like two weeks of events in one. 11 events in three days provides plenty of options – and my three picks are below. Click on the title of each event below to view the full description in our events calendar and to connect to their registration pages.

These webinar notes are from a November 5^th event co-presented by Peter Smith from Spend Matters UK/EU and Daniel Ball from Wax Digital. The webinar is available on demand on Wax Digital’s site.

Peter Smith opened this event by offering up a powerful statistic from Wax Digital's own research: when asked, 44% of procurement teams said they have a close working relationship with the business. Unfortunately, only 18% of those business stakeholders agree. This amounts to a 25% ‘relationship leakage’ – or as Smith said in the event, self delusional procurement organizations. And that doesn't even touch on the 56% of procurement teams that DON'T think they have good relationships with stakeholders...

The idea of this event was to look at multiple kinds of integration that procurement has responsibility for. When Smith talked about the three models for procurement (see below), the focus was decidedly on information and communications flows rather than data and technology. In my opinion, that is fantastic because it expands the role and potential impact of procurement through our understanding of our own way of working.

This week’s picks are definitely for big thinkers. Big as in big challenges and big opportunity for the organizations that get it right. In addition to the webinars below, Directworks is running a live demonstration of their 2.0 solution on November 11^th from 2-3pm EST. Click on the title of each event below to view the full description in our events calendar and to connect to their registration pages.

I went into my review of Fashion Logistics: Insights into the Fashion Retail Supply Chain by John Fernie and David Grant (Kogan Page, November 2015) with pragmatic acceptance of the fact that it would...

I recently interviewed Magnus Carlsson, the author of Strategic Sourcing and Category Management: Lessons Learned at IKEA. You can listen to our conversation on demand on BMP Radio. Although the book ...

And… we’re back to a packed week of webinars. There is a little something for everyone - some risk, some contract management, and some analytics. Click on the title of each event below to view the full description in our events calendar and to connect to their registration pages.

This post was written by Michael Hinkley, an intern at Source One Management Services. If you are interesting in hearing his perspective on procurement as a career and as a part of the larger business...

I recently had the opportunity to interview Phillip Ideson, the founder of ProcureChange, a new Procurement-as-a-Service (PaaS) provider. You can listen to the entire interview on BMP Radio.

My first reaction to PaaS – one that I think is quite natural – is concern about what it will mean for today’s procurement practitioners if it catches on. Will we be outsourced the same way we have outsourced so many other formerly in-house capabilities?

As it turns out, however, the news is better than I expected. PaaS, far from being a threat to procurement, may be one way for us to achieve the strategic status we crave.

This week may not be as busy as last week, but the topics are as diverse as the presenters. And since so many companies ran events last week, this week’s hosts and speakers offer a fresh diversity of perspectives on procurement topics. Remember that we are in daylight savings time season, so double check the starting time of each event in its host country as well as your own. Click on the title of each event below to view the full description in our events calendar and to connect to their registration pages.

This post was originally run on Design News.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Mark Larson, the vice chairman of electronic component distributor Digi-Key Electronics. The company was founded in 1972, and Larson joined only four years later to what is now one of the largest such companies not only in North America but the world. He led the company as president for an astounding 39 years, just recently stepping down in July.

In the four decades during which Larson ran Digi-Key, there was considerable change -- in the electronics being sold, in whom the products were sold to, and in the supply chains the products traveled through. The other thing that has changed is the way Digi-Key interacts with different points of contact at each customer. Although it has always aimed its marketing efforts at design engineers -- and continues to do so -- it has had to adapt to the growing role of centralized procurement in managing purchases.

Since the interactions between engineering and procurement have not always been naturally easy, the insertion of a third party into the electronic component purchasing process has brought some benefits. When looked at from an outsider’s point of view, the two teams may have more in common than they realize.

In September, Procurement Leaders ran an article by Tyler Chamberlain, Coupa’s global head of spend management, on the benefits of getting a solid procurement function established earlier in a company’s growth curve.

As he stated in the article’s title, “If it ain’t broke, don’t wait until it is.” The premise is that making investments in procurement talent and technology before problems arise prevents many problems from ever arising. Supplier records that are managed well from day one never need a massive clean up. Processes that have been in place as long as anyone can remember don’t have to overcome compliance hurdles. Spend that is managed centrally never has the chance to break between direct and indirect.

Perhaps more importantly, and as I had an opportunity to discuss with Chamberlain (click here to hear the conversation on BMP Radio), procurement has control of their internal image from the outset and can build their brand around positive results rather than problem resolution. When we hear Chamberlain’s message from this perspective, all organizations and procurement teams benefit from his recommendations, not just the start-ups.

This week is ridiculously busy – there are 15 webinars taking place: five on Tuesday, one on Wednesday, and NINE on Thursday. Given the wide range of choices, it wasn’t easy to pick the best ones, but my recommendations are below. Click on the title of each event below to view the full description in our events calendar and to connect to their registration pages.

These notes are based on attending an October 13^th webinar hosted by HfS Research. The event can be viewed on demand here.

The panel included two HfS team members (Phil Fersht and Charles Sutherland) and two executives from Cognizant: Robert Hoyle Brown and Matt Smith. I listened to the event end to end twice – once live and once on demand. The topic of automation is fascinating and it was well covered and discussed in this webinar. My challenge was to figure out what this growing trend means for procurement.

Jonathan O’Brien, CEO at Positive Purchasing, has written a number of weighty books for procurement and supply chain professionals: Category Management in Purchasing, Negotiating for Purchasing Profes...