The 4th of July holiday in the U.S. last week meant vacation time for many of us – and why not? Procurement and supply chains made our fair share of contributions to the founding of this country. If y...

What is procurement data? Procurement data includes vendor data, master data, contract data, bills of material, performance data, sustainability score cards, transaction data, purchase order details, ...

The procurement events schedule continues to be slow, so I’m going to give you another 2 weeks’ worth of recommendations in one post. Check out these great options if you’re in the office chugging alo...

After last week’s extremely busy schedule, the events this week we at least have a more even distribution! Tuesday at 12n ET is the June episode of Dial P for Procurement on Supply Chain Now. Join me,...

 Wouldn’t it be nice to know the future for certain? There are few fail-proof ways to see shifts in the business landscape before they occur, but there are ways to ensure your goals stay on the c...

“In other words, an effective management of a firm’s digital supply chain will have a positive impact on productivity and growth; ignorance will very likely result in the loss of competitive advantage...

Author: Nancy Jorgensen Editor’s note: This article is part of the MyPurchasingCenter content archive. It was originally published in 2015 and appears here without revision.   Microsoft Exce...

The events schedule seems to be picking back up this week, with 9 events taking place. I’ve also started filling up the November page, which promises to be busy since there is effectively one less wee...

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.

This week’s webinar notes are from a May 21^st event presented by ISM and Zycus, with main speaker Rob Handfield, a Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at North Carolina State University and Director of the Supply Chain Resource Cooperative. The event is available on demand on the ISM website.

This week’s webinar notes are from a March 5^th webinar hosted by Gartner. Douglas Laney, a Gartner Research VP, who made the presentation, was a strictly no-nonsense guy. He opened the webinar by introducing himself as not being either a tech/tools or Magic Quadrant guy.

That combination definitely benefitted the audience, as the following presentation on analytics, data, and information, was application or function agnostic and offered real insight for any team in an organization attempting to harness the power of data for competitive advantage. Not all companies display the same attitude towards information and its potential perhaps because, as Laney pointed out, information is not yet a balance sheet asset.

These notes are from a September 2^nd webinar presented by Alexander Linden, Research Director at Gartner. The event is available on demand and can be viewed here. You don’t have to be a hard core analyst to benefit from this event – the take aways were interesting and applicable to procurement even though it wasn’t a procurement-specific event.

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.

Spend analysis solutions have long been critical enablers of procurement organizations. Over the last couple of years, however, the term analysis has gradually been replaced by analytics. In order to gather information on this transition, I reached out to Rosslyn Analytics, a company that has operated under the ‘analytics’ label since their founding in 2005, long before it was the prevailing term. I'd like to thank them for their help in putting this post together.

Let me begin by giving working definitions for both terms. According to BigDataCraft.com,

“Analysis is the examination process itself where analytics is the supporting technology and associated tools.”

The schedule continues to be full of events, and I am noticing that they don't hit the calendar with as much lead time as I would expect under normal circumstances. The good news is that they are almost all available on demand. If you ever need helping tracking one down, don't hesitate to ask.

If you are planning your schedule further ahead, I recommend “Money in Hand How to Adapt Promptly and Conserve Your Cash” from JAGGAER on May21st.

If you’re thinking of attending a webinar any time soon, this is the week. Next week’s calendar is completely empty, likely due to the Fourth of July holiday in the U.S. Even the week after only has one event as of right now, so we may finally be entering the summer slowdown.

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This week’s webinar calendar is a busy one, with 9 webinars in 3 days. In addition to the events recommended below, I’m seeing a lot of focus on contingent workforce, blockchain, and customer value creation - so be sure to check out the full schedule!

If you like to plan further ahead, I recommend “FitBit’s Three-Factor Formula for Transforming Supplier Management” from SIG, Scout RFP, and FitBit on June 7th. Click on the title of each recommended webinar below to view the full description and register.

BTW: If you haven’t already, sign up for our mailing list to be sure you get my weekly recommendations in your Inbox each Monday.

There are four webinars on the calendar this week and three of them deal with different aspects of automation. Clearly we have reached the point where automation (AI, machine learning, cognitive computing, etc.) are far more than futuristic trends. Time to make sure you are educated for the conversations going on in your organization.

If you like to plan further ahead, I recommend a May 23rd webinar from Supply Chain Now Radio, APICS Atlanta and Talent Stream, “Business Intelligence & Advanced Analytics.” Click on the title of each recommended webinar below to view the full description and register.

BTW: If you haven’t already, sign up for our mailing list to be sure you get my weekly recommendations in your Inbox each Monday.

This is an incredibly busy week for procurement and supply chain webinars! The end of 2016 is filling up fast. In fact, there are only really 7 weeks left in the year once you subtract the weeks of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Click on the title of each webinar below to view the full description and register or visit the BMP events calendar to see what’s on tap for the rest of the month.

Below are my recommendations for this week’s best webinars. Just a reminder that September 26th is the start of The Procurement Revolution: a 100% free, online, global, interactive event designed to g...