The Point

The preface to The Procurement Game Plan by Charles Dominick and Soheila Lunney starts with the question, “Why another procurement/supply management book?”

Good question.

Earlier this week, we discussed the Many Hats a procurement professional wears. With that comes the many skills that are needed. I know the breadth of it can seem daunting. You need to be a good analyst, negotiator, influencer, presenter, and communicator. How does anyone fit all those talents into the same resource? And how do you begin to try to train existing staff as they want to develop in their career?

Everyone loves the path of least resistance. How can we get to that restaurant easier, without crowds or lines?  Is it possible to get my 2-year old to bed at a reasonable hour with or without a bath? Can I publish this RFP today - but it is Friday and I want to start my weekend. 

If any of these are too difficult, we will avoid them all together. Stay home, order pizza to be delivered, delay the baby's bedtime routine and wait until Monday for the RFP. So why does this week's blog pick help you out?   

This week’s eSourcing Wiki-Wednesday topic is barriers to success – and those barriers are specific to strategic sourcing organizations. Broken down into the main categories of leadership, team and project issues, these nine barriers are a who’s-who list of worst case scenarios that should help you diagnose the root cause of the challenges you are facing in your organization.

There are (at most) twelve business days left in 2011. If you have a generous employer or some vacation time left, there are a lot less. There isn’t any time to waste if you want to make 2012 your year - professionally that is. January 1^st is just a heartbeat away, and if you haven’t given thought to your goals for the year yet, now is the time. Below is a quote from a Next Level Purchasing Association white paper, titled "The Evolution & Future of Procurement & Procurement Skills" to give you something to think about. I'll also include Rosslyn Analytics' Five Predictions for Procurement and Supply Chain Executives in 2012.

If you’ve spent any time on our site this week, you’ll see that we are having a customer-service centric week. It all started when I attended last week’s Next Level Purchasing Association webinar where Peter Nero of Denali Group shared his thoughts on what is next for procurement. The answer was better customer service.

As a follow up, we spoke with The Sales Guy about the kinds of internal customer service he thinks procurement can provide, and this morning we read the Wikipedia article on customer service. We’re not looking to turn procurement into a transactional call center, but some of the traditional wisdom about how to keep your customers happy applies to the relationship between us and our internal stakeholders.

This week, our webinar notes are on ‘What’s Next for Procurement”, the monthly Next Level Purchasing Association member call featuring Peter Nero from Denali Group.  If you are not a member of the NLPA, I encourage you to join – it is easy and free.  Click here for more information.

While this presentation is not available as a recording, you can read a whitepaper by Denali Group on their Procurement Innovation Research for 2011.

“The second step to cure procurement's PR ills is to bring more big personalities and aspiring leaders into the ranks -- folks who aren't afraid to create controversy and manufacture a ruckus internally. It's precisely these types of larger-than-life personalities who previously might have gone into sales, corporate development or finance that our function needs to continuously call attention to itself and shame the business into prioritizing changes that save money. -– Jason Busch, Spend Matters: July 10, 2009

Last week I attended an excellent supply chain risk management webinar sponsored by the Next Level Purchasing Association and featuring a global supply chain manager from a Fortune 500 company. The event followed the story of this particular corporate supply chain through the 2010 tsunami in Japan (you can click here for my notes).

One of the lessons this particular company learned was about finding the right place for addressing the human side of a very complicated business issue. I was impressed with the efforts they had made, particularly for such a large company. A thought started to form in my mind: what contract clauses were put aside in order to have an appropriate response to the devastation while not creating serious business continuity issues?

Before I even begin my notes, let me just point out that if you are not a member of the Next Level Purchasing Association, you are missing out. Next Level Purchasing offers the SPSM (Senior Professional in Supply Management) certification program. Joining the association is absolutely free and comes with a number of benefits, such as members-only webinars, newsletters, and networking opportunities. If you want to get your feet wet with the kind of programs they offer, there are several mini-courses they offer, completely online and for less than $20! Interested? Good for you! Click here to learn more by clicking on the NLP logo on our partner page. That way Buyers Meeting Point gets credit for your purchase and a portion of the proceeds go to charity.

Has anyone found a blog they found worth sharing with others this week? Let us know so we can review and highlight it as well. I was reviewing several blogs and found that I could not just pick one and call it the blog of the week...

It is impossible to turn on the tv, check a news site or pick up a newspaper this week without being confronted by a wave of bad economic news. Here are just a few example headlines from August 10th:

"Stocks Dive on Europe, Economy Fears" - WSJ.com

"Shares Plunge as Eurozone Woes Return" - FT.com

"Discovering the Real reasons for the Market Plunge May Take Time" - TheEconomist.com

So despite the fact that you feel a little queasy each time you check in on your 401K, what reaction are you supposed to have - specifically in your role as a procurement or supply chain professional?

Okay, so you know how every week in my PI Window on Business radio update on the coming week I say that you just never know what to expect? This week is the perfect example. I attended three webinars, and the one that I didn’t even know about until the day before it happened was the best of all. Read on!

Yesterday afternoon Charles Dominick and Next Level Purchasing ran a webinar on Procurement Ethics: The Obvious and Not So Obvious Challenges. They aren't making the recording available long term, so you'll have to trust me on this (or take the express course on ethics they are planning to offer on demand this summer). There was probably a way to record it on my laptop, but then that wouldn't be ethical!!

One of the best procurement groups on LinkedIn, Strategic Sourcing & Procurement - 28,000 members strong, sponsors a monthly member conference call. In early May, the speakers were BMP partner Charles Dominick (Next Level Purchasing) and Paul Mallory (IACCM) and the focus was on continuing education. We recently caught up with the replay.

We've done out best to capture the heart of the conversation below, but you don't have to take our word for it. You can listen to the recording here, and if you are not already a member, we recommend you join the SS&P LinkedIn group.

Last week, BMP attended the Next Level Purchasing webinar on their procurement salary survey. This week we caught up with Charles Dominick, President and CPO of NLP and asked him a few follow up questions.

This week we attended a webinar that intriguingly attempted to answer the question "How well am I paid?" with regard to procurement professionals. Our notes are below. The webinar was sponsored by Next Level Purchasing, SPSM certification providers and a BMP partner. You can access the event recording directly by clicking here, although we highly recommend that you join the Next Level Purchasing Association - it is free and you will gain access to a number of valuable resources - including the full length report that inspired the webinar.