You have just been appointed to a new CPO position. Your executive leadership team is looking at you to make an immediate impact while setting up procurement as a driver of sustainable, long term value. You know that your first 100 days in the role may make or break your career. What do you do? Where do you start? In this special 5-part series, made possible through a partnership with Efficio, we will provide you with the roadmap you need to hit the ground running. In the fifth - and final - epi...
Oct 25, 2019•13 min
You have just been appointed to a new CPO position. Your executive leadership team is looking at you to make an immediate impact while setting up procurement as a driver of sustainable, long term value. You know that your first 100 days in the role may make or break your career. What do you do? Where do you start? In this special 5-part series, made possible through a partnership with Efficio, we will provide you with the roadmap you need to hit the ground running. In this fourth episode of the ...
Oct 24, 2019•17 min
You have just been appointed to a new CPO position. Your executive leadership team is looking at you to make an immediate impact while setting up procurement as a driver of sustainable, long term value. You know that your first 100 days in the role may make or break your career. What do you do? Where do you start? In this special 5-part series, made possible through a partnership with Efficio, we will provide you with the roadmap you need to hit the ground running. In the third episode of the se...
Oct 23, 2019•16 min
You have just been appointed to a new CPO position. Your executive leadership team is looking at you to make an immediate impact while setting up procurement as a driver of sustainable, long term value. You know that your first 100 days in the role may make or break your career. What do you do? Where do you start? In this special 5-part series, made possible through a partnership with Efficio, we will provide you with the roadmap you need to hit the ground running. In the second episode of the s...
Oct 22, 2019•20 min
You have just been appointed to a new CPO position. Your executive leadership team is looking at you to make an immediate impact while setting up procurement as a driver of sustainable, long term value. You know that your first 100 days in the role may make or break your career. What do you do? Where do you start? In this special 5-part series, made possible through a partnership with Efficio, we will provide you with the roadmap you need to hit the ground running. For the opening episode of the...
Oct 21, 2019•14 min
I’ve been spending a lot of time the past few months working with procurement teams on their transformation journey from being a tactical function to a strategic one. This journey must begin by inspiring people on the art of the possible. This often has to be members of your procurement team - to rethink the possibilities of what they can achieve - and also senior executives and stakeholders - on what they can expect from a fully functional procurement team. Today, I’m going to share a few appro...
Oct 14, 2019•19 min
In this episode, AOP Host Philip Ideson and Kelly Barner (AOP Content Director and Owner of Buyers Meeting Point) discuss their major take-aways from September’s news, industry topics and podcast interviews. In September, we heard four diverse interviews: NBA CPO Joe Postiglione started the month by reminding us of the importance of self-empowerment as well as how powerful a truly engaged manager can be. Mahmood Shah, Director of Global Procurement at MetLife, brought the continued importance of...
Oct 07, 2019•44 min
“If you were to ask me what the ‘Art of Procurement’ is, I would say it is bringing together the right people and the right partners.” In this week’s podcast, we get to listen in on a conversation about digital transformation on a global scale that was recorded at Ivalua NOW in Paris earlier this year. Hakan Cakir is the Procurement Digitalization & Analytics Product Owner of Sourcing Solutions for Deutsche Telekom AG, one of the world's leading integrated telecommunications solutions with 178 m...
Sep 30, 2019•15 min
“How do I get from where I am today to where I would like to be?” In the age of digital transformation, it goes without saying that change is on everyone’s mind. But despite all of the energy we are putting into thinking about change, we may or may not be seeing that change come to pass. In this week’s podcast, host Philip Ideson speaks with Chris Sawchuck, Principal and Global Procurement Advisory Practice Leader at The Hackett Group. They recently released a new research report titled “World-C...
Sep 23, 2019•50 min
“We have to be able to talk in a language that the business understands, and they have to see the actual value of what [procurement is] bringing to the table over and over, above any type of savings, I think that's the key for me.” In this week’s podcast, host Philip Ideson speaks with Mahmood Shah, Director of Global Procurement at MetLife. He started his career in supply chain in the automotive and airline industries before making the switch to procurement and financial services. He has also w...
Sep 16, 2019•49 min
If we were to describe a CPO that was focused on emotional intelligence (EI) and self-empowerment, tranquility and self-possession, where would you guess he or she worked? Maybe at a lifestyle brand or a Silicon Valley startup. It would probably take you a few hundred guesses to come up with the National Basketball Association (NBA). In this week’s podcast, host Philip Ideson interviews Joe Postiglione, CPO of the NBA, author and executive coach. True to our opening question, he is a certified e...
Sep 09, 2019•38 min
In this episode, AOP Host Philip Ideson and Kelly Barner (AOP Content Director and Owner of Buyers Meeting Point) discuss their major take-aways from August’s news, industry topics and podcast interviews. In August, we split our time between active procurement practitioners and thought leaders. Dana Small, Global Category Manager at BioMarin Pharmaceutical, talked about her transition from finance to procurement (yes, on purpose) and shared how being a business blogger changes her perspective on...
Sep 02, 2019•47 min
According to research undertaken by today’s guest, Procurement Insights Founder Jon Hansen, 70% of an organization's digital transformation activity passes through the procurement and supply chain. But is procurement prepared to step outside the frameworks of our historical job descriptions to proactively enable our companies to create and execute their digitization strategies? In today’s podcast, Jon and I discuss: Why the unknowns of digitization are impacting executives across the company, no...
Aug 26, 2019•43 min
No one wants conflict for its own sake, but it can actually be an important factor in personal or organizational growth and decision making. Rather than shying away from conflict, especially in a professional context, procurement professionals need to start embracing it as proof of diverse thought and opportunities to practice empathy. That is the point of view espoused by Jason Cammorata, Vice President of Strategic Sourcing at MDC Partners, and one that he is quite passionate about. Is this po...
Aug 19, 2019•32 min
It seems that we live in a service-centric world these days, and that includes a growing number of procurement spend categories. Although we’ve made headway in IT, legal and marketing, there is one category of professional services spend that still gives most of us reason to pause: management consulting. In this episode of the podcast, I ask Helene Laffitte, Founder and CEO of Consulting Quest, some of the questions I hear most frequently about managing consulting spend. For instance: How can we...
Aug 12, 2019•58 min
The commonly-cited disconnect between procurement and finance all comes down to one central question: where did the money go? As hard as procurement works to negotiate and track different types of savings, they always seem to evaporate or be reallocated for other projects. In the best cases, this gets the enterprise more value for their dollar, but in the worst cases can lead to reduced credibility for procurement – especially with finance. I’m joined today by Dana Small, Global Category Manager...
Aug 05, 2019•37 min
Last week, I had the opportunity to facilitate a webinar last week with procurement consulting firm Efficio, titled Driving Greater Procurement Performance from Complex Direct Spend and Factory Indirects. In the webinar, I was joined by two of their US-based principal consultants, Arthur Mattouch and Waldo Saville. During the webinar, Arthur and Waldo shared three case studies demonstrating the strategies and tactics that can be used to deliver sustainable savings in a mid-cap manufacturing envi...
Jul 29, 2019•22 min
What do childcare, ducks, and power have to do with negotiations? In today’s episode, host Philip Ideson shares three negotiation tips taken from his experience as a procurement practitioner and entrepreneur.
Jul 22, 2019•16 min
As we enter the summer, I’m going to spend some time answering some of your most frequently asked questions. These pod’s are going to be bite-sized, so I’d love to hear your feedback on whether you like the shorter podcasts or not. One of the topics that I get asked the most about is negotiations. So for the next couple of weeks, I’m going to share some insights based on my own experience. This week, I’m going to dig into the archive and share a part of a podcast I recorded 3 years ago - specifi...
Jul 15, 2019•11 min
If procurement is going to attract the ‘best of the best’ to join our ranks, no matter what their background, then at some point we can expect to work alongside someone with no experience in procurement. Whether such a move is successful is likely to be dependent on the individual transferring in as well as the overall culture of the organization. I interviewed Liam Moniz, Manager of Procurement Systems & Services at Fortescue Metals Group, during SAPAriba LIVE in Austin, Texas. Two years ago, L...
Jul 08, 2019•25 min
Whether you are a consultant or a practitioner, it seems like the grass is always greener on the other side. Consultants are constantly on the road, work late hours and are subject to high expectations from their management team and the point people on each customer account. Practitioners find themselves at the mercy of consulting teams they didn’t personally decide to hire, lack the influence naturally extended to external parties and are often left to deal with the details – and the devil in t...
Jul 01, 2019•29 min
Today I am joined on the show by my good friend, procurement executive recruiter Iain McKenna. Iain is Founder and Managing Director of the executive search firm Sourcing Solved. Our conversation is split into a couple of different parts: In the first half of our interview, we discuss the hiring process, and specifically if our reliance on AI - such as keyword searching on CV’s and resumes - severely restrict an organizations ability to hire the best candidate for a role. Iain shares tips on how...
Jun 24, 2019•34 min
Many procurement organizations pay lip service to innovation, but few are taking the steps required to make it a reality. Part of this has to do with the difficulty overcoming the paralysis of the unknown and part of it has to do with a willingness on procurement’s part to risk failure. Ironically, facing the unknown and pushing past the fear of failure makes it far more likely that disruptive innovation will be achieved. I’m joined today by Cyril Pourrat, Chief Procurement Officer at Sprint. Th...
Jun 17, 2019•45 min
If you’ve been in the workplace – any kind of workplace at all – for longer than six months, chances are good you’ve experienced poor management at least once. Sadly, being in the workplace for years or even decades doesn’t come with the same odds of encountering even one great manager. Why is that? Why are great managers so rare? I’m joined today by David Deacon, career HR executive and the author of The Self Determined Manager: A Manifesto for Exceptional People Managers. He and I talked about...
Jun 10, 2019•39 min
Whether we are responsible for Procurement and our stakeholder is the c-suite, or we are developing a Category Strategy and our stakeholders are the business users. Alignment continues to be one of the greatest challenges for procurement. Ultimately, it becomes the differentiator that determines whether you are perceived as being a trusted advisor or a back office function. Indeed, it is not possible to become a mature procurement organization without true strategic alignment, at scale. How can ...
Jun 03, 2019•18 min
I’m joined today by Anthony Clervi, President and CEO of UNA, a group purchasing organization (or GPO). He joined us last month for an AoP Live session that proposed an alternative approach to ‘automating’ procurement – one that doesn’t involve robots and doesn’t cost a dime. As the opening quote suggests, our preconceived notions can often prevent us from leveraging the full range of options available to us. Acting without being fully informed can be a huge misstep for procurement, given that o...
May 27, 2019•59 min
The only guarantee that comes with a transformation journey is that there will be ‘twists and turns’ along the way. And since no organization can escape the unexpected, how procurement leaders makers handle those twists and turns becomes a critical differentiator and success factor. While I was at ProcureCon Indirect East, I interviewed Dave Quillin, Manager of Procurement at Alliant Credit Union in Chicago. I last interviewed Dave in early 2017, when he was at the end of his first year of procu...
May 20, 2019•38 min
Everything procurement delivers – from savings to risk mitigation to value – is predicated on having access to clean, trustworthy data. If this foundation does not exist or if it is shaky, then buyers don’t know how much the company is spending with a given supplier, let alone how they can improve the efficiency or impact of a given spend category. While I was at the Ivalua NOW event in Paris, I interviewed Cyrille Naux, Purchasing and Supply Chain Vice-President at Chassis Brakes International,...
May 13, 2019•27 min
When procurement talks about transformation, we are usually referring to the critical changes we need to make to our own talent, processes and technology. But does the opportunity exist for procurement to transform the business as a whole? Evidence from the team at VSP Global suggests that it does. I interviewed two members of the VSP Global team, Nathan Haydn-Myer, Manager of Procurement Operations and Insights, and Siddharth Ramesh, Manager of Corporate Procurement about their dynamic program ...
May 06, 2019•27 min
It is impossible to have a forward-looking discussion about procurement without digital transformation and automation coming up. That said, figuring out what their inclusion means on a company-by-company basis will differ drastically – creating a unique challenge for every CPO who decides to lead their organization on a digital journey. I’m joined today by Kris Koneru, the Business Practice Head of Sourcing & Procurement at Infosys BPO. He was in the ‘hot seat’ for a dynamic AoP Live session in ...
Apr 29, 2019•1 hr
