If you are following my LinkedIn Creator Accelerator project, last week brought a new slate of insights, updates, and opportunities to engage. This article summarizes the week’s content and includes t...

The following question and response are in the ISM – Purchasing & Supply Chain Professionals group on LinkedIn. If you would like to join either the group or the ongoing discussion, click here. &n...

Sometimes a post on social media connects with people such that it takes on a life of its own. That happened this week in the wake of the Ivalua NOW event in Paris.

Philip Ideson shared a picture of Duncan Jones from Forrester Research sharing a striking statistic about procurement’s self-assessed v. actual maturity. You can see the image above, but here are the raw numbers:

• Procurement organizations who self-assess as at the beginning of their maturity curve: 4%
• Procurement organizations who are actually at the beginning of their maturity curve: 60%

• Procurement organizations who self-assess as advanced: 65%
• Procurement organizations who are actually advanced: 16%

While it is fair to ask questions about the Forrester methodology and maturity framework that might explain away some of the discrepancy, the fact remains that procurement’s perception of our own maturity is significantly skewed from reality. As a profession, we are significantly overestimating our organizational maturity by a huge margin.

We have some active discussions in the Buyers Meeting Point Group on LinkedIn, most recently, an exchange about what makes a good buyer. Ironically, it was asked by someone who is not a buyer themselves.

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

 -- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

It is not unusual for me to get an email from a colleague asking me to read an article or post and then share my two cents. It is unusual that following through on such a request would take me on the wild ride that it did this week.

Let me retrace the steps – starting at the very beginning…