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Displacing Incumbent Suppliers

You’ve invested a lot of time and money. You may even have staked your reputation on backing a supplier. So when is it time to replace them? At a recent executive meeting, the subject of incumbent sup...

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The Importance of Vision, Messaging, and Alignment

Editor’s note: Scott Jancy is a multi-faceted professional, with experience as a historian, an architect, a Naval Officer, a planner, and a consultant. He blogs often on innovation, leadership, and de...

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The Secret of the Procurement Director

It had been a particularly hard week for the whole team. Factory audits had been going on with the accuracy of a Swiss watch (plane, factory, hotel, plane, factory, hotel...). That Friday night we wer...

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Bad Buying – Organizational Competence is Key to Avoiding It

Since I stepped back from running Spend Matters Europe at the end of 2018, I have had more time for cycling and my bass guitar (although if you heard me, you might not be convinced that I’ve improved ...

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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: The Moment of Clarity

The Moment of Clarity was a joint effort by ReD Associates founding partners Christian Madsbjerg and Mikkel B. Rasmussen. Their careers have focused on studying human behavior, problem solving, and in...

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Book Review: A Guide to Positive Disruption

A Guide to Positive Disruption: How to Thrive and Make an Impact in the Churn of Today’s Corporate World by Joanna Martinez delivers a striking combination of advice, tough love, and hope. With this o...

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Recommended Procurement Webinars Nov 9-13: Valuable Supplier Relationships, Seismic Change, S2P Digital Transformation

The shift from COVID response to recovery is clear to me in the events recommended below as well as the other events I’ve just added to the events calendar. Here’s an example, rather than supply chain...

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Webinar Notes: Change Management Done Right

This week’s webinar notes are from a Sourcing Interests Group webinar on Change Management Done Right. In this webinar, two speakers from Jones Lang Lasalle (Michael Jordan, Leila Lance) and the Former Head Sustainability for KeyBank (Jessica White) will discuss how KeyBank used change management practices to develop and implement a robust sustainability program.

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Webinar Notes: Become a Procurement Change Agent

This week’s webinar notes are based on a May 13th webinar presented by IASTA and Efficio, their European consulting partner. The event was recorded, and the on demand version is available on Slideshare. You can also download the presentation itself, which included quite a bit of data, directly from IASTA’s website.

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Can Appreciative Inquiry Work for Purchasing?

Most purchasing professionals have never heard of appreciative inquiry. It is a systematic discovery process to search for what is best or positive in an organization or its strengths. These strengths...

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Recommended Webinars December 2-6: The Business of Trust and the Psychology of Change

Procurement isn’t leaving anything on the table as we wind down the year. I added 8 new webinars to the calendar this week and all of them take place between now and the third week of December. If you’re planning your webinar schedule a little further out, I recommend “5 Key Procurement Trends to Embrace in 2020” on December 11th at 5am ET (10am GMT) from riskmethods and Sievo.

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.

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Recommended Webinars Oct 29 – Nov 2: Digital Transformation, Disruptive Innovation, ‘Steady Flow’ Risk Management

As we close the book on October, ProcureCon MRO is taking place in Fort Worth, TX this week on Monday and Tuesday. I’d also like to invite everyone to join me on Wednesday at 11am ET for a webinar I am presenting on a new way to approach talent development: a 3-Part Framework for Procurement Talent Transformation: Vision, Realism, and Accountability.

If you’re planning your webinar schedule beyond this week, I recommend "Understanding the Digital Procurement Transformation Journey" from SpendHQ and Bain & Co on November 15th at 2pm ET.

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.

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