Last week, we ran the first episode of season 2 of The Sourcing Hero podcast. This is a collaborative effort between Una and Art of Procurement – one that will bring forward new stories and perspectiv...

Today, most supply chain and procurement software solutions rely on value added resellers as part of their go to market strategy. ‘Resellers.’ as the name suggests, act as the sales, solutioning, impl...

This content was made possible by a collaboration with the team at JAGGAER. Category management requires procurement to ‘rise above’ the level of understanding traditionally associated with strategic ...

“Naturally, Industry 4.0 requires a new procurement. The factors driving the change are the hyper-competition, globalization, supply chain risks, resource scarcity and many more. But the most importan...

“The advent of new technologies – most notably blockchain – has the potential to radically transform how transactions are recorded, stored and used throughout supply networks. The result: a transparen...

Talk to any procurement leader in an international company and you’ll hear some common issues being raised. The lure of technology (especially big data and AI) and dangled carrots of opportunity to digitally transform the whole procurement function are all great but hard facts are getting in the way.

This week and next week are busy, with 8 webinars currently scheduled for each. One thing I’ve noticed since starting back up in January is that webinar hosts are posting events with a bit less lead time than usual – sometimes less than a week – so make it part of your routine to look at our full calendar each Monday (or Friday afternoon) if you’d like to see a complete list.

If you are planning your webinar schedule further in advance, I recommend The Future of Procurement: Apps, Talent, & Innovation from Ardent Partners and Tradeshift on February 28th at 1pm ET.

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The last full week of September is going to be a busy one. There are 12 webinars taking place in three days and ProcureCon Indirect West will take place Monday through Wednesday in Scottsdale, AZ. A few of our good friends will be there, including Greg Tennyson, Michael Shaw, Joanna Martinez, Phil Ideson, and Bill Michels.

If you’re looking to plan your webinar schedule beyond this week, I recommend RPA -  The BIG Picture 2018 from IRPA AI and Virtual Operations on October 10th at 12n ET.

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After a slow couple of weeks, the calendar is once again buzzing with activities. In addition to the webinars recommended below, ProcureCon Pharma is happening in Zurich on the 13th through the 15th and Procurement Leaders’ World Procurement Congress is happening in London on March 15-16. If you like to plan further ahead, I recommend “Applying B2C Strategies to Corporate Procurement” from BuyerQuest on March 28th. Click on the title of each recommended webinar below to view the full description and register.

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Another week, and another ten new webinars are added to our calendar for January and February. My recommendations for this week are below, but if you’d like a ‘long shot’ event worth considering, I recommend ‘How Much Data Accuracy is Enough?’ from S&DCE, Oliver Wight, and the SAS Institute on January 31st. Click on the title of each recommended webinar below to view the full description and register.

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Happy New Year! We’re off and running – I added 11 new webinars to the calendar in January and February this weekend. Of all the new year’s resolutions, Ardent Partners’ were apparently the most resolute! They aren’t missing a beat, and as a result they dominate this week’s recommendations. 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.

If you have heard a lot about blockchain but don't really know what it is, you're not alone. The success of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has given blockchain a major leap forward. But cryptocurr...

Sourcing managers with a Microsoft enterprise agreement (EA) that is about to expire face an important decision and may have many questions. Should they renew their next EA along the same lines as the...

Organizations that are not leveraging a managed service provider (MSP) and vendor management system (VMS) may be paying too much for contingent talent and are at risk of noncompliance with various lab...

As I mentioned in Achieving World-Class Procurement Part 1, today’s increasingly competitive market landscape is driving organizations to reinvest in their procurement and strategic sourcing departmen...

The principle of a North/South divide has been around for as long as mankind has organized itself into societies. It is a term often used within politics to define the ‘North of the country from the S...

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 picks are definitely for big thinkers. Big as in big challenges and big opportunity for the organizations that get it right. In addition to the webinars below, Directworks is running a live demonstration of their 2.0 solution on November 11^th from 2-3pm EST. Click on the title of each event below to view the full description in our events calendar and to connect to their registration pages.

In September, Procurement Leaders ran an article by Tyler Chamberlain, Coupa’s global head of spend management, on the benefits of getting a solid procurement function established earlier in a company’s growth curve.

As he stated in the article’s title, “If it ain’t broke, don’t wait until it is.” The premise is that making investments in procurement talent and technology before problems arise prevents many problems from ever arising. Supplier records that are managed well from day one never need a massive clean up. Processes that have been in place as long as anyone can remember don’t have to overcome compliance hurdles. Spend that is managed centrally never has the chance to break between direct and indirect.

Perhaps more importantly, and as I had an opportunity to discuss with Chamberlain (click here to hear the conversation on BMP Radio), procurement has control of their internal image from the outset and can build their brand around positive results rather than problem resolution. When we hear Chamberlain’s message from this perspective, all organizations and procurement teams benefit from his recommendations, not just the start-ups.

Click here to read this post on the Social Contracting blog.

The Finance team manages the finances of the enterprise. Marketing people market services and solutions to the purchaser (or customer). Human resources manages… well humans.

Given those examples, you would think that Procurement handled procurement. In an ironic twist, this is becoming less and less true—especially as technology evolves and blurs the line between Procurement as an entity and procurement as a process.