This week we are running a “2 for 1” special with our weekly coverage of procurement industry webinars. The following events take place in the last 2 weeks of August. If you happen to be planning a little further out, I’m going to be onsite at NESCON (the New England Supply Chain Conference & Exhibition) on October 7th – so look for more about that event in the coming weeks. If you’re planning to attend, let me know so we can connect!
If you are planning your webinar schedule beyond this week, I recommend “Virtual Procurement and the C-Level CPO” from Tradeshift’s Roy Anderson on September 10th.
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The uncertainty surrounding Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) can be frightening for all employees involved, but often overlooked is the potential a merger can bring for procurement to hit the “RESET” button – both with their internal procedures and with their suppliers. With common M&A buzzwords like “increasing shareholder value” and “synergies” thrown around by management, procurement is provided with an abundance of short term cost-saving opportunities.
In this post, I’ll outline the steps, tips, and strategies procurement can use to generate cost savings during M&A activity and boost that ever sought after shareholder value.
If last week was sleepy, this week is slammin’! 5 webinars and 4 live events provide plenty of opportunities to learn, share and network. Of course, all of three of this week’s recommended webinars are on the 16th at either 1 or 2pm ET, so make your choice wisely.
If you are planning your webinar schedule beyond this week, I recommend ‘Disrupting Finance and Procurement: A Conversation with lululemon athletica About Digital Transformation’ from Coupa on June 19th. I love an opportunity to peek behind the curtain at well-known brands, and even though it is a webinar, I never give up hope that someone will figure out a way to offer free samples. (!)
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Metrics are a critical aspect of measuring the success of any business function. The importance of quantifying progress against goals and objectives cannot be overstated. Without a metrics program, underperforming organizations are unable to target functional areas that require improvement, and growing organizations are unable to set goals or scale resources to align with the changing state.
Because procurement organizations are often challenged by stakeholder resistance and a lack of executive-level sponsorship, metrics are key to demonstrating value. Sourcing efficiencies, cost savings, stakeholder satisfaction, and overall procurement ROI are just the starting point for capturing bottom line impact. While these are often viewed as the foundation for a metrics program, the final structure can’t be established without being certain of data quality and availability.
This week is really busy – there are no signs of a year-end slowdown yet! In addition to the webinars taking place, ProcureCon Marketing is happening in New Orleans, LA and Procurement Leaders DITX is happening in London. Click on the title of each recommended webinar below to view the full description and register.
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This week, ProcureCon Indirect West is taking place in Scottsdale, AZ. Two of the keynote speakers are good friends of BMP: Jules Ryan and Joanna Martinez. Be sure not to miss their presentations! As for my recommended virtual events, click on the title of each 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 week's webinars will give you access to a variety of strategies and approaches to scale your impact. As procurement's role in the enterprise shifts and evolves, we need to be able to combine perspectives on the organization, processes, and the disruptive technologies of the future. This week's events include all three. Click on the title of each 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.
In addition to the webinars I’ve recommended below, ProcureCon Pharma is running in Philadelphia from Wednesday through Friday. If you’re going, be sure to stop by and say hello to our friends SAP Ariba, Source One, and tealbook! 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.
And… just like that… it’s October! In the shadow of The Procurement Revolution the calendar looks a little light this week. That being said, there are two interesting webinars taking place. Click on the title of each event 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.
After a drought last week, webinars are back with a vengeance! There are 9 this week and 12 already scheduled for next week. Having so many events to choose from doesn’t necessarily make it easy to pick just a few to recommend, but it does ensure that if you make the time you will learn something new. Click on the title of each event 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.
As a procurement professional, I am frequently tasked with conducting a spend analysis on behalf of current and potential clients, but for those outside of the industry, this may be an unfamiliar exercise. In this post, I will attempt to provide a crash course on spend analysis, answering some of the most commonly asked questions about the topic: What is a spend analysis? Why should I do one? And finally, how do I do it?
A spend analysis is a very broad term that refers to… you guessed it! Analyzing the spend of an organization with the objective of understanding where money is being spent and where there may be opportunity for cost savings or process efficiencies. Spend analyses are conducted by procurement professionals in an attempt to get a comprehensive view of all of an organization’s expenditures and they are frequently the starting point for beginning the strategic sourcing process. There are a number of benefits to conducting a spend analysis, but the most important is transparency. A spend analysis provides a holistic view of all spend (indirect and/or direct) in a given time period, typically during a fiscal or calendar year. By doing this, you are able to gain visibility into where spend is being allocated, who the top suppliers are, how many suppliers you use for certain services, and areas of opportunity. For decentralized organizations, a spend analysis may reveal potential service redundancies across departments/brands and provide insights into areas of consolidation across supply bases. Along the same lines, a spend analysis provides organizations with the information needed to increase spend control by showing where and how spend/budgets are being allocated. Although there are many reasons why an organization would conduct a spend analysis, the benefits are consistent.
This week’s recommendations are all focused on the very latest in procurement technology, and – more importantly – what it allows the organization to accomplish. 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 event picks come from a fresh variety of hosts – all looking at data, intelligence, and insights that procurement can use to improve decision making and results. 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 events represent a wide range of topics as well as some of the companies we don’t hear from quite as often. Interestingly enough, I’m starting to see the old players of Ariba (now SAP) and Emptoris (as IBM) making a comeback in events and marketing. One thing all these topics have in common is the idea that imagination is a key component to a sustainable vision for the future. Click on the title of each event below to view the full description in the events calendar and to connect to their registration pages.
This week’s featured event was hosted by SciQuest and featured Spend Matters Lead Analyst Thomas Kase and a case study by German Torres of FMC Technologies, a $6B oil and gas company. You can view the event on demand here or register to download the accompanying white paper.
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.
In this week’s webinar notes we’ll feature two webinars that addressed the idea of empowering CPOs through data or business intelligence: ISM with the Aberdeen Group and IASTA with Forrester Research.
Both events addressed the need for procurement to have sufficient analytical capabilities to support the CPO’s efforts to develop strategies for improvement and risk mitigation, and acknowledge that even the best analytics are not actionable without external benchmarks. As a result, best-in-class companies are making investments in the technology solutions and services needed to improve procurement’s capabilities.
This week’s featured webinar was presented by CPO Agenda: ‘Practical Steps to Strategic Sourcing’. Their selection of this topic has interesting timing, as Strategic Sourcing was just crowned as the ‘champion’ in the CPO Rising March Madness tournament.
This week’s featured webinar is ‘Tail Spend Management: How to Squeeze Savings from the Most Fragmented 20% of Spend’ by Proactis. If you are interested in more after reading our notes, you can access a white paper on Proactis’ site.
