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 exer...

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, un...

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...

As we turn the corner into March, we have a whole new set of economic numbers to look forward to – and hopefully they’ll give us good news. The ISM Manufacturing Report on Business will be out on the ...

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.

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.

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 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 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 I attended a webinar by Ariba and ISM on collaborative sourcing. And in this case, the collaboration ended up being not with the competition or others in the supply chain, but with between procurement and internal stakeholders. Not what I had thought (thanks a lot, Google. We'll talk later...) but still a valid topic and just as tricky.

The following are some of my notes on the webinar. Click here to connect to the archive.

When I was planning out this week's content, covering Master Data Management as our Wiki-Wednesday topic seemed like such a good idea. We were already looking at the subject through Philip Gunn's presentation from eWorld and I didn't know as much about it as I would have liked. Then Tuesday came and I found myself less jazzed about the idea than I had been. The irony of that feeling is that many of you probably feel the same way when it comes to tackling your own master data challenges. But you can't escape the fact that if you don't have a solid foundation of clean, current data, you can't be effective or accurate. So the mutual attitude adjustment starts...  NOW.

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 7^th – 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.

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 (although there won’t be an email on August 26^th).

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. (!)

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 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.

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, 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.

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.