The Point
Buyers Meeting Point attends many sales AND procurement webinars/webcasts. One of the interesting things about consistently reading content from quality sources is that you start to notice trends. It is amazing how often the same topics arise at the same time in different places. We use this blog as a way to help you stay on top of the major themes in procurement and supply chain management.
« Jon Hansen's Remote Keynote Speech at eWorld 2011
A Master Data Management Primer for Procurement »
Jon Hansen's Remote Keynote Speech at eWorld 2011
A Master Data Management Primer for Procurement
Event Coverage: eWorld Purchasing & Supply 2011
Kelly Barner
Kelly has a unique perspective on procurement from her experience on both sides
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Despite the fact that this is prime conference season, not all of us have the time or budget to attend all of the events we would benefit from. We were lucky to have eyes and ears on the ground at this year’s eWorld Purchasing & Supply conference in London. I would like to thank BMP community member Bernard vanHaeften of Variations Procurement Consultancy for his willingness to help make the content and discussion topics from the event accessible to the rest of us. He secured permission for us to share the event presentations with you, and in true Buyers Meeting Point style, his notes are below so you can get through the highlights quickly.
All of the available presentations can be downloaded directly from eWorld's webaite by clicking here. Across all of the sessions, there were some common themes that emerged:
- Centralised data management across systems / platforms is being hosted 'in the cloud' by a number of different providers at varying price points.
- Restricting information to local intelligence is no longer sufficient, incorporate RSS feeds, blogs etc. to remain informed.
- Social Media, specifically Facebook and Twitter, are set to become mainstream business tools not just advertising space.
PricewaterhouseCoopers Partner Bernhard Raschke opened with "Procurement at a crossroads: back office utility or strategic weapon?"
During his career at PwC, Bernhard Raschke has seen procurement evolve into a profession in which technology has been the enabler. Despite this, in the majority of organisations, the procurement team has failed to gain recognition at the top table. In between the question of Strategic Weapon, Back Office Utility or BPO opportunity, Bernhard observed that:
- 'Delivery' is paramount at senior levels, whether that be ROI, Cost Management, Systems or Processes.
- It's too early to move the focus from bottom line costs.
- Risk Management will 'Win out' over Risk Aversion.
- Must do more with less; work more intelligently.
- 'CFO' should be your new best friend and ally.
- 'World Class' or 'Best in Class' - what's appropriate for your organisation?
- Centre led not Centralised.
- Procurement needs to know the business more than the business needs to know procurement.
- Procure with confidence, focus on value and focus on your customers.
Top 3 Tips
#1 - Deliver tactical savings whilst preparing the organisation for a broader and more exhaustive approach to strengthening its corporate wide procurement capability.
#2 - Put your customers first in everything you do, set up a marketing and PR team for your function.
#3 - Conduct independent customer satisfaction surveys and address areas for improvement.
Moving on to Oracle and Philip Gunn's presentation, "Keeping the Tiger in the Cage"
The key theme to Philip's presentation was the importance of Master Data Management, in particular how technology has evolved to the extent that data doesn't have to reside in one source, it can be held on different legacy systems, as may be experienced after a merger or acquisition, and exported 'to the cloud' to create Master Data which draws from - and feeds - multiple streams.
- The trend towards supplier rationalisation increases the organisation's exposure to supplier risk - whether caused by insolvency or acts of nature such as the Japanese earthquake,
- Internal information is no longer sufficient, the latest ERP systems are drawing from Dun & Bradstreet / Experian and other credit agencies plus RSS feeds and Social Media trends.
- Business systems are moving towards the integration with Facebook / Twitter and the feel of these social media sites.
- Supplier accreditation should not be a one-off activity, the CPO should ensure that there is a process for review and re-validation.
- Procurement should look to develop 'early warning' systems to de-risk supplier rationalisation.
The presentation also provided an opportunity for an interesting insight into the scoring of the 'Traffic Light System' employed by Oracle, which looks at both individual and overall scores.
Jon Hansen, author of Procurement Insights and host of the PI Window on Business Radio Show delivered "The Changing Face of Procurement" via video link
- Are you still relevant to your enterprise?
- Procurement needs to be more innovative.
- As a generalisation, procurement has a record of 'poor utilisation of existing resources' (which is not good for a function focused on value for money and the elimination of waste).
- Generation Y has grown up with the Internet and Social Media and expect that sort of functionality with business applications.
Dr. Brian Farrington, managing director of Brian Farrington Ltd. presented "Getting More From Your Suppliers with Effective SRM"
- Trust has to be both ways - don't demand Open Book Costing if your organisation isn't prepared to make the information available.
- Encourage suppliers to offer value engineering proposals by recognising their effort in gain share - 70:30 - to the supplier is much more attractive than 30:70 or even 50:50.
- Deal swiftly and thoroughly with contractual non-compliance.
- Work with each supplier to jointly identify the top 10 risks attributable to the supplier, the buyer and jointly.
- Evaluate the cost of those risks (contingency fund) and jointly develop a mitigation strategy.
- The British and Irish Legal Information Institute website, www.bailii.org, is a useful resource for legal issues.
- « Jon Hansen's Remote Keynote Speech at eWorld 2011
- A Master Data Management Primer for Procurement »
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