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Book Review: The Technology Procurement Handbook
Kelly Barner
Book Reviews
“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 important one is the technology - big data, digital processes, and automation.”  - Sergii Dovgalenko., p. 4 The Technology Procurement Handbook: A Practi...
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Book Review: Digital Supply Networks
Kelly Barner
Book Reviews
“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 active partners throughout the lifecycle of the products and associated services.” - Amit Sinha, p. 205 Digital Supply Networks: Transform Your Supply Chai...
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Book Review: Integrating Blockchain into Supply Chain Management
Kelly Barner
Book Reviews
“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 transparent supply chain that, if the hype holds true, will usher in unprecedented levels of visibility, accountability, efficiencies, collaboration and trust. ...
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Book Review: Leadership by Storytelling
Kelly Barner
Book Reviews
Leadership by Storytelling: The Best Way to Learn Good Leadership Skills, by Dr. Tom DePaoli, is the latest in a long line of books that are firmly based in reality and provide advice that is easy to put into practice. I’ve read and reviewed many of Dr. Toms’ books and you won’t find the same kind of time-tested, easy to read books from many other ...
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Book Review: A Procurement Compendium
Kelly Barner
Book Reviews
“Because however brilliant our category strategies or engagement roadmaps, relationships still do matter, and nowhere more so than in how we interact with our critical internal stakeholders.”
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Book Review: The Self Determined Manager
Kelly Barner
Book Reviews
“Managing others is not for the faint-hearted or the inattentive.” (P. 147)   The Self Determined Manager: A Manifesto for Exceptional People Managers by David Deacon is exactly the kind of book busy fellow professionals tell me they like to read. It is straightforward, actionable, clear on a key central philosophy, and it is not so long that ...
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Book Review: Soft Skills for Hard Business
Kelly Barner
Book Reviews
“…we need to be prepared to think the unthinkable, even if we subsequently have no plan to deal with it now, as we may have in the future.” (p. 62) Soft Skills for Hard Business by David Loseby (FCMI, FCIPS Chartered, FRSA) calls to mind the difference between movies that are based on books and those that are based on original screenplays. Movies b...
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Book Review: A Guide to Positive Disruption
Kelly Barner
Book Reviews
A Guide to Positive Disruption: How to Thrive and Make an Impact in the Churn of Today’s Corporate World by Joanna Martinez delivers a striking combination of advice, tough love, and hope. With this one included, I have reviewed 87 business books in my time at Buyers Meeting Point, but I have never reviewed a book where I already knew the author so...
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Book Review: The Ultimate Showdown Sales vs. Procurement
Kelly Barner
Book Reviews
“The only time they don’t say ‘Drop your pants’  now is at the Christmas party.” (p. 10, Epstein on sales' common interations with procurement))   The Ultimate Showdown Sales vs Procurement: The Secrets Unveiled at the Negotiation Table by Elliot Epstein and Paul Rogers (2018) is an absolutely fantastic book. In addition to getting two op...
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Book Review: Third Party Risk Management
Kelly Barner
Book Reviews
“Efficient, effective, risk-centric, and risk-adjusted third party lifecycle and risk management is a new and distinct way of doing business. How your company approaches any major change like this one is up to senior leadership.” (p. 162)   Third Party Risk Management: Driving Enterprise Value by Linda Tuck Chapman (The Risk Management Associa...
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Book Review: Fundamentals of Risk Management (5th Ed.)
Kelly Barner
Book Reviews
“When considering any contribution that risk management can make to the organization, it is important to decide whether the contribution will relate to strategy, projects and/or operations. The decision will enable the risk management activities within the organization to be aligned with the other business operations activities and imperatives.” P....
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Book Review: Expensive Sentences
Kelly Barner
Book Reviews
“We can spot an Expensive Sentence by its impact. Expensive Sentences limit information. They end conversations. They create urgency and isolation. They reduce options. They steal choice.” (p. xviii) Expensive Sentences: Debunking the Common Myths that Derail Decisions and Sabotage Success by Jack Quarles (Ideapress, 2017) accomplishes two amazing ...
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Book Review: The LIVING Supply Chain
Kelly Barner
Book Reviews
“In the new global era, speed and velocity are more important than everything else!” (p. 12) The LIVING Supply Chain: The Evolving Imperative of Operating in Real Time by Rob Handfield and Tom Linton (Wiley, 2017) takes everything you know about ecosystems and Darwinian principles and applies it to supply chain management. One of the most telling s...
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Book Review: Mastering High Stakes Negotiations
Kelly Barner
Book Reviews
“I cannot guarantee whether you will be successful after a well-prepared negotiation, but I can 100 percent guarantee failure or finding yourself outsmarted and in a concessionary position if you choose not to do a thorough prep prior to a negotiation.” (p. 38)   Mastering High Stakes Negotiations: Both Sides of the Table by Mark M. Bilgin, Ph...
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Book Review: Supply Chain Construction
Kelly Barner
Book Reviews
“This supply chain is the bridge between the customer needs of a market segment and the value-added of a product. If we can’t connect the two, then we have a show stopper.” (p. 4) Supply Chain Construction: The Basics for Networking the Flow of Material, Information, and Cash by William Walker (CRC Press, 2016) is an impressive work that combines e...
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