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Kelly Barner creates the content procurement professionals are looking for, earning the trust and loyalty of thousands of procurement industry professionals and solution providers. Because she has held different roles in purchasing and procurement leadership since 2003, she understands what they need to grow their careers and help their organizations succeed. To learn more about Kelly, click here.

Webinar Notes: Leveraging Information to Develop Sound Risk Management Strategies

This week’s webinar notes are from a November 7th event hosted by ISM and presented by IASTA and LexisNexis. The full details of the event can be seen on ISM’s site.

Any company that has implemented a spend analysis solution knows first hand the difference between data and intelligence. IASTA and LexisNexis did an excellent job laying out a framework for bridging that gap in Supply Market Intelligence (SMI). Many SMI programs have grown out of the need to get better risk mitigation from supplier performance management programs already in place. The highest priority risk categories include supply chain continuity, cost, and reputation – the implications of which hit both revenues and stock returns.

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Webinar Notes: Farming Supplier Relationships: Learn to Drive Value More Effectively

This week’s webinar notes are from an October 29th event hosted by Sourcing Interests Group and presented by David Jungling from Denali Sourcing Services. If you are interested in the content, but aren’t a member of SIG, Denali also recently published a whitepaper on the topic, which can be downloaded here.

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Is the Should Cost Model Obsolete?

Q: Does anybody still use the “should-cost” model?

A: Yes, and if they don’t, they should start.

 

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Webinar Notes: Maximize Cost Savings Through Analytics

This week’s webinar notes are from an event hosted by ISM on October 15, 2013. ‘Maximize Cost Savings Through Analytics’ was presented by James Anthony, President of Enrich, an Oracle Platinum Partner and the result of a merger between e-Three and enrich IT. The webinar is available on demand on ISM’s site.

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Webinar Notes: Creating Shareholder Value from Supplier Relationships

 

This week’s webinar notes are from a recent Directworks webinar titled ‘Creating Shareholder Value from Supplier Relationships’. The webinar and slides are available on demand on Directworks’ site or you can download a whitepaper with the same title that builds on the content of the webinar.

 

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Webinar Notes: Herding of Cats: A Strategic Approach to Enterprise-wide Procurement

This week’s webinar notes are from the October Next Level Purchasing Association members-only webinar, and featured Donald Jean, CEO of Focused Buyer, a purchasing and trading website that also provides payment services and financial records support. If you are not already a member of NLPA, we highly recommend that you sign up. Membership is free and includes benefits such as their monthly webinars.

 

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Webinar Notes: Negotiating Across Cultures


This week’s featured webinar notes are from a recent IACCM event called ‘Negotiating Across Cultures: Understanding the Differences, Avoiding the Pitfalls’ which was hosted by Tim Cummins and Karen Walch. If you are an IACCM member, you can view the event on demand after logging in on their site.

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Book Review: Sustain Your Gains

Sustain Your Gains, by Michael McCarthy, is ultimately a guide to human behavior in the face of change. Although the initial sections of the book serve as a primer to Lean and Six Sigma methodologies,...

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Webinar Notes: Understanding the Link between Supply Chain and Corporate Performance

This week’s webinar notes are from an August 30th event hosted by Supply Chain Insights on the link between the supply chain and overall corporate performance. The webinar can be viewed on demand on their website.

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Webinar Notes: Procurement Operating Models

This week’s featured webinar was hosted by Sourcing Interests Group and presented by KPMG with a case study from Greif, Inc. on Procurement Operating Models.

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Webinar Notes: Designing a Procurement Transformation Program for Best-in-Class Performance

This week’s featured webinar was a joint effort between ISM, Zycus, and Ardent Partners. It was presented in advance of a two part research series that will be published later this month. The research was “designed to help procurement organizations develop a transformation "blueprint" — a holistic view of the source-to-settle process and the underlying architecture required to support sustainable business process improvement.” (ISM event description).

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Book Review: Supplier Relationship Management in the Supply Chain

Supplier Relationship Management in the Supply Chain by Stuart Emmett is accurately titled – it is in fact a book about the importance and execution of supplier relationship in the supply chain. But b...

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Book Review: Getting to We

For anyone who has read the other books in the Vested Outsourcing series, Getting to We (published in August 2013) is the logical next step in the pursuit of more collaborative, value-based relationsh...

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Webinar Notes: 20 Ways To Create The Perfect Negotiation First Impression

This week’s featured webinar was the monthly event run by the Next Level Purchasing Association on 20 Ways To Create The Perfect Negotiation First Impression. If you missed the event, you can read a related blog post by Association President and CPO Charles Dominick.

You can also learn more about negotiation (among other topics) at the first Next Level Purchasing Association Conference in Pittsburgh, PA September 12-13, 2013.

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Webinar Notes: How a Strong CFO-CPO Alliance Can Command Top Performance

This week’s featured webinar was presented by Ardent Partners: ‘Game of Thrones: How a Strong CFO-CPO Alliance Can Command Top Performance’. I’ve only seen one episode of the HBO series Game of Thrones – I didn’t have the nerves or the stomach to watch another – but luckily for me there was no violence or bloodshed involved in this webinar.

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Webinar Notes: Learn Why Top CPOs are Guardians of the Bottom Line

This week’s featured event was hosted by Sourcing Interests Group and presented by IBM's Institute for Business Value or IBV. IBM just released the largest, most comprehensive Chief Procurement Officer Study ever conducted, with participation from 1,128 CPOs from organizations with annual revenue in excess of US$1 billion.

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Are You Elastic Enough to Be a Top Performer?

IBM's Institute for Business Value (IBV) just released the largest, most comprehensive Chief Procurement Officer Study ever conducted, with participation from 1,128 CPOs from organizations with annual revenue in excess of US$1 billion. According to the study, “Companies with high performing procurement organizations have profit margins 15 percent higher than the average company and 22 percent higher than those of companies with lower performing procurement organizations.”

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Webinar Notes: Going Deeper and Broader for Borderless Procurement

This week’s featured webinar was hosted by ISM and presented by Chris Sawchuk, Principal and Global Procurement Advisory Practice Leader at The Hackett Group. In ‘Key Procurement Issues in 2013: Going Deeper and Broader for Borderless Procurement’ we heard the application of Hackett’s ‘Borderless Business’ concept to the world of procurement, focusing on the priorities being set by leading organizations for performance and capability building.

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Happy Independence Day!

As we celebrate the July 4th holiday with grilling, ice cream, and fireworks, we also pause to appreciate the freedom we enjoy and those who served to protect it.

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Are You Leveraging Your Myers-Briggs ‘Type’ for Maximum Success?

Many of us have taken the Myers-Briggs personality test, either in school or on the job. One of the core principles is that there are no bad personality types. Taking the test is supposed to help you know yourself better, understanding your natural inclinations. That way, when you are under stress, not only will you be able to predict how you are likely to react to different situations, you may be able to alter your reaction to reach a desired result.

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