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Kelly Barner creates the content procurement professionals are looking for, earning the trust and loyalty of thousands of procurement industry professionals and solution providers. Because she has held different roles in purchasing and procurement leadership since 2003, she understands what they need to grow their careers and help their organizations succeed. To learn more about Kelly, click here.

NESCON 2020: A Reimagined Conference for a Restructured World

Like nearly all other in person industry events, the organizers of the New England Supply Chain Conference and Exposition (NESCON) were faced with a challenge this year. An inability to hold large, in...

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Recommended Procurement Webinars Sept 28 – Oct 2: Driving Risk Culture and Building Resilience to Catastrophe

As another month comes to an end, we can expect the schedule of events to pick up. There are 8 webinars and 1 virtual event taking place this week, including our next AOP Live session on Tuesday, feat...

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Recommended Procurement Webinars September 21-25: The New Reality, Industry 4.0, Efficient Supplier Performance Evaluations

Last week, I ‘worked the switchboard’ for an AOP Live session with Christopher Sawchuk from The Hackett Group and Vishal Patel at Ivalua. EPSNews did a fantastic write up on the event, and they captur...

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Recommended Webinars September 14-18: Post-Crisis Procurement, Customer-Driven Digitalization, Food Supply Chains

I’m continuing to add new events to the calendar, both webinars and virtual conferences. While a virtual conference might not typically be your ‘thing,’ keep in mind that most of them are free to atte...

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Recommended Webinars September 7-11: AI for Contract Analytics and Chasing Tail Spend

Now that it is September, the fall conference season is upon us. Even though few will have the opportunity to gather in person, we can still make the most of these virtual chances to connect and learn...

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Book Review: The Technology Procurement Handbook

“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...

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The August 2020 ISM-New York Report on Business: Not July, But Still an Improvement

The August ISM-New York Report on Business was released on September 2nd at 9:45am Eastern and is available for download here: 2020_ISM-New_York_August_ROB_v02.pdf. Please see the end of this commenta...

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What drives the difference in direct spend management?

This content was made possible through a collaboration with SAP Procurement “Direct and indirect spend management are not the same thing, nor should they be treated as such. Anyone who ...

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Recommended Webinars August 31-Sept 4: Automated S2C, Procurement 2020, Unexpected Joy

Although we don’t necessarily have much more of a visibility horizon than we’ve had for months, things at least seem to be stabilizing. Events are starting to focus on next year, and they provide a sense of what is within our control. That is far more productive and positive than continuing to focus on everything that is out of control.

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Book Review: Digital Supply Networks

“Customers are the key to any business, the prime reason for a company to exist! In the current digital era, customers are no longer passive buyers of products at the end of the value chain, but activ...

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WARNING: Handling Dangerous Cargo

This content was posted on the ATSC blog on August 24, 2020 On August 4th, 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate – equivalent to approximately 6 million pounds – that were being stored in a facility at Bei...

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Recommended Procurement Webinars August 24-28: Agile Networks, Lost Transformation, Rebooting the Enterprise

August hasn’t been as busy as June and July were, but the pace of new events is already picking up for September. There are already 12 events on the calendar for next month, half of which I added this week. If you are also a fan of Art of Procurement, run by my colleague Philip Ideson, you’ll want to SAVE THE DATE for AOP Mastermind Live: October 6-7.

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Recommended Procurement Webinars August 17-21: Digitizing the Supply Chain, Document Understanding, and CSR Sourcing Strategies

I get a lot of questions about what events I list in the BMP calendar and how I decide what to recommend. I have always believed that the calendar needed to be an industry resource, not a revenue source. BMP receives no money for any of the webinar listings, does not guarantee that any events will be recommended in advance, and does not (knowingly) list demo events. If you have any questions about our listing and recommendation policies, feel free to reach out. Similarly, if you have a thought leadership-based webinar that you think the procurement community would like to know about, please send it my way!

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Recommended Procurement Webinars August 10-14: Contract Analytics and Competing in the Age of AI

It would seem that we are going to have a summer slowdown after all. There weren’t enough events to pick from last week, so I skipped my recommendations post, and there are only a few for this week but they are worthwhile. On the bright side, I already know there will be event recommendations for next week as well.

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The July 2020 ISM-New York Report on Business: The Rebound Continues

The July ISM-New York Report on Business was released on August 4th at 9:45am Eastern and is available for download here pdf2020_ISM-New_York_July_ROB_v01.pdf. Please see the end of this commentary for additional information about the ISM-New York Report on Business.

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Dear Procurement… I need to make a profit!

This content was published on the Thinkers 360 member blog on July 23, 2020 If you’re a small business owner, you’re certainly not alone in being fed up with “us” – meaning corporate procurement. That...

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Re-establishing the Enterprise’s Risk Appetite

This content was published on the ATSC Blog on July 27, 2020 Since risk is a reality in business, and ‘certainty’ is an extremely expensive proposition, an enterprise’s appetite for risk has always be...

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Recommended Webinars July 27-31: Autonomous Procurement, Leadership Time, Managing Risk and Resiliency

As we close out the end of July, webinars are just starting to post for August. If you look at all of this week’s webinars, there is a clear note of defiant optimism with the focus returning to supply resiliency, leadership, and automation over necessary but fatigued coverage of the pandemic. Next week also marks the release of the July ISM-New York Report on Business, so we’ll get another look at how the professional services economy is recovering from the various shutdowns.

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The Critical Importance of Contingent Workforce Post-COVID-19

This content was made possible by a collaboration with SAP Procurement Strategic management of contract and contingent workforce resources will be essential to business recovery in the aftermath ...

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Recommended Procurement Webinars July 20-24: Team Contracting, Insourcing, and Protecting Cash and Revenue

Following is a list of the upcoming webinars that are worth of an hour of your (scarce) time. Some I recommend for the topic, others for the speaker, but all of them will give you something new to think about – and goodness knows, we can all use more good ideas to stand up to the challenges 2020 has handed us.

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