This week started out looking kind of bleak, and then at the last minute there were several excellent additions to the events calendar. I’ve recommended what I see as the best below, but you can look at the full calendar to see what else is scheduled this week and into March.

If you are planning your webinar schedule further ahead, I recommend “Top 10 Supply Chain Risk Trends in 2020 – The Big Reveal” from Supply Chain Now and Resilience360 on March 5^th at 11am ET.

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The following are our webinar recommendations for the coming week – selected based on topics and speakers. If you are planning your webinar schedule further ahead, I recommend “Managing Supply Ecosystems“ from IACCM on March 2 at 11am ET.

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For anyone in the Atlanta, GA area who wants to meet an amazing group of procurement professionals, you’ll want to check out the ProcuremenTalks event this Wednesday from 6-8:30pm: Procurement Nightmares, Trainwrecks & Meltdowns: Tales of Lessons Learned.

If you are planning your webinar schedule further ahead, I recommend “Southwest Airlines Gets Jiffy With Automation: An Underdog RPA Tale Driven By Cultural Fit And Ease Of Use” from HfS Research and Jiffy.ai on February 20^th at 11am ET.

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The January ISM-New York Report on Business was released on February 4th at 9:45am Eastern and is available for download here: 2020_ISM-NewYork_January_ROB_v02.pdf. Please see the end of this commentary for additional information about the ISM-New York Report on Business.

In January, New York City purchasing managers reported Current Business Conditions that - while improved - still failed to reach the breakeven point.

In addition to the webinars listed below, this is the first week of the month – meaning all of the economic reports come out. The ISM Manufacturing Report on Business comes out today, followed by the Non-Manufacturing Report on Business on Wednesday. ISM-New York’s Report on Business is in between on Tuesday, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) monthly jobs report will be out on Friday. 

If you are planning your webinar schedule further ahead, I recommend Supply Chain Now’s Interactive Global Forum on March 25th at 3pm ET. They are holding an open-door session to discuss the key trends and developments taking place across the global end-to-end supply chain community.

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If you’ve been a long time follower and reader of the Buyers Meeting Point blog, you know that economics is a key part of the coverage we provide. As the Business Survey Chair for the ISM-New York Report on Business, I have the responsibility for taking the monthly surveys completed by purchasing managers in the New York Metro area and interpreting them, looking for insights and trends on demand for professional services. This report, along with the other regional and the national ISM manufacturing and non-manufacturing reports, are often based on data collected for one purpose and then leveraged for another.

One commonality that I’ve noticed in webinars, blog posts and discussions recently is that digital transformation is getting REAL this year. No more nonsense. We’re over the hype, past the buzz and bored by the generalized razzle dazzle (jazz hands!). Expect to see more of this in 2020… as procurement gets smarter, service and solution providers will have to overcome our skepticism and critical thinking, focusing on the reality of digital transformation and the hard work required to make it successful.

If you are planning your webinar schedule further ahead, I recommend ‘Supporting C-Level Digital Initiatives with Business Spend Management’ from Coupa and Mickey North Rizza, IDC’s Vice President of Enterprise Applications Research.

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In addition to the virtual events listed below, I added a big ‘IRL’ event to the calendar this week. The Atlanta Supply Chain Awards are being hosted in part by our friends at the Supply Chain Now podcast. They are now taking registrations as well as nominations for multiple award categories. Click here to learn more.

If you are planning your webinar schedule further ahead, I recommend ‘Trends and Innovations in Print’ from Sarah Scudder and the team at Procurement Foundry on February 5th at 1pm ET.

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Data analysis has an image problem. Despite the fact that data collection is priority one, regardless of how common “big data” buzzwords have gotten, and setting aside all the calls for data-centric decision making… The boots on the ground, those of us who manage this analysis daily, have a problem.

Happy new year everyone! We’re officially back after a holiday break that was far busier than I would have expected. Not only are there quite a few events listed for January, I’ve already been adding events to February.

If you are planning your webinar schedule further ahead, I recommend ‘Managing Risk in the Next Decade’from riskmethods’ General Manager of North America Bill DeMartino on January 21st.

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The December ISM-New York Report on Business was released on January 3rd at 9:45am Eastern and is available for download here. Please see the end of this commentary for additional information about the ISM-New York Report on Business.

“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...

This content was made possible through a collaboration with SAPAriba   “Our process was about intentionally forgetting how we had done business in the past. The Ford team wanted to leave our lega...

In part 1 of this series, we explained SOW management and described the common challenges currently face with it. In this post, we will describe the benefits of outsourcing SOW management to the organization as a whole and to the many individual stakeholder groups.

Well, believe it or not, this is the final set of weekly webinar recommendations of 2019. We listed 239 webinars on the calendar, which – if there would be 1 per day – would cover 65% of the days of the year, and 92% of the weekdays. As of right now, I believe my first recommendations of 2020 will be released on Monday, January 13^th. 

This content was originally published on the Determine blog. If procurement wants to succeed in 2020, we need to measurably improve all of procure-to-pay (P2P). Of course, in order to do that, we have...

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 is an incredibly busy week – 10 webinars in four days. Looks like 2019 is going to go out with a bang! So put on your cozy socks and dig out your mug Snuggie (see how I did that, tying everything into the image above?) and settle in for a webinar by a warm fire.

The first 2020 events are starting to go up as well, so don’t hesitate to keep an eye on January. Speaking of which, if you are planning your webinar schedule beyond this week, I recommend “The dos and don’ts of stakeholder engagement & collaboration” from Proactis and Peter Smith on January 21^st.

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Billions of dollars are spent annually on Statement of Work (SOW) projects. Yet, despite this considerable financial investment, many organizations are attempting to manage this area through overburdened internal resources and/or ill-fitting ERP, SMS or HRM systems – if they’re capturing the details of SOW spend at all. 

The November ISM-New York Report on Business was released on December 3rd at 9:45am Eastern and is available for download here. Please see the end of this commentary for additional information about the ISM-New York Report on Business.