This Month in Procurement returns, and this week Mark and I welcome a special guest, Sigi Osagie. Sigi is the charismatic author of the popular procurement book, Procurement Mojo, and a has an extensive background driving performance improvement and change across multiple functions and industries - both as a practitioner and business owner. Mark and I invited Sigi to join us this month to chat about Procurement Mojo, and to hear Sigi's perspective on some of the actions we can take to create pro...
May 29, 2017•43 min•Ep. 137
At the Art of Procurement, we get many press releases - usually detailing client wins, technology updates, or company acquisitions. However, there was one that came across my desk recently announcing the launch of an Indirect Procurement Standard. With my interest piqued, I reached out to the author of the Standard - Sime Curkovic - to learn more. Sime is Professor of Supply Chain Management at Western Michigan University, and joins me on the show today to share more details about the Indirect P...
May 22, 2017•51 min•Ep. 136
There was a time, not long ago, when the only procurement professionals who bought software had responsibility for IT sourcing. Today, with the explosion of SaaS, and the use to SaaS technology to deliver tradition labor based services, buyers across many categories must now negotiate software licenses, either directly or with the help of their peers in IT. At the same time, IT sourcing professionals are faced with the increasing supplier requests to move from on-premise to cloud based solutions...
May 15, 2017•44 min•Ep. 135
As a procurement leader, how do you balance the needs of your stakeholders with your responsibility to be guardians of third party spend? That is the challenge being addressed head on by today's guests on the Art of Procurement. I'm delighted to be joined by David Natoff, the Head of Procure to Pay at Google, and Dr Bernd Huber, the Head of Google's Sourcing Center of Excellence. We focus our conversation on how Google Procurement continues on their journey to become a trusted business partner i...
May 08, 2017•54 min•Ep. 134
I am joined today by Shaz Khan, the co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Vroozi, a leading cloud-based business purchasing platform. Shaz has a deep background in procurement technology, with a particular focus on SAP. As long time listeners will know, I learn more and more every day about the nuts and bolts of procurement technology, while tending to spend more time looking for trends that I think will impact our profession. One of those trends is self-service sourcing – empowering the orga...
May 01, 2017•42 min•Ep. 133
Joining me on the show today is Dave Quillin, the manager of procurement for Alliant Credit Union, the seventh largest credit union in the United States. Dave has specialized in technology procurement with organizations such as Orbitz and Groupon before taking on a new opportunity at Alliant to build a procurement and vendor management office from the ground up. In today's Art of Procurement, Dave shares his journey at Alliant. What I really like is that Dave built his organization by first list...
Apr 24, 2017•51 min•Ep. 132
Today, I'm joined by Tim Meester. Tim is the Senior Director of Procurement and Sustainability for Best Buy, an almost forty billion dollar revenue provider of technology products, services, and solutions. As I got to know Tim in our pre-interview, I was very impressed by his and his team's efforts to deliver value beyond savings at Best Buy. We connected to discuss CSR and sustainability, but that is only the start for his team. In today's discussion, Tim shares the actions that Best Buy procur...
Apr 17, 2017•39 min•Ep. 131
Back in my days in the automotive industry, supplier led innovation played - and still plays - a key role in the development of new innovative products. Procurement organizations have been set up for a long time to facilitate this process. However, on the Indirect side of things, we still struggle to integrate supplier innovation - certainly at scale. If you are a long time listener, you will have heard me share my thoughts about the importance of innovation as a key component of the new procure...
Apr 10, 2017•45 min•Ep. 130
I think it is fair to say that you can't move for reading Blockchain related articles today. But to be honest, I have always been a little confused by them in terms of understanding what Blockchain actually is. In today's show, I attempt to demystify Blockchain, and its impact on procurement. Helping me understand the potential of Blockchain is Jack Shaw. Jack is a business technology futurist who has spent his career leading companies in numerous industries to lever technology to find better, m...
Apr 03, 2017•49 min•Ep. 129
My guest on the Art of Procurement this week is Lara Nichols. Lara is the Head of Procurement for insurance company NFP Corp, and is also leading the conference organizing committee for ISM2017, the largest procurement related conference of the year. Prior to NFP, Lara enjoyed roles of increasing responsibility across Fortune 100 organizations such as Wachovia (now Wells Fargo), Tyco and Merck. Our conversation today is broadly split into three different parts. Lara shares her experiences switch...
Mar 27, 2017•48 min•Ep. 128
Today I am joined on the Art of Procurement by Jim Butler, the Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) for my home State of California Prior to joining the State of California, Jim enjoyed a successful career as the CPO for Levi Strauss, and held a number of senior procurement leadership positions with Dell Computer. In today's conversation, I wanted to learn about the leadership role that the State of California is taking in building sustainability into its supply chain, and in providing opportunities ...
Mar 20, 2017•47 min•Ep. 127
Brian Bancroft, the Vice President of Direct Procurement at The Coca-Cola Company joins me today as my guest on the Art of Procurement. The diversity of our conversation today matches the depth and breadth of Brian's career. Brian has enjoyed multiple VP of Procurement and CPO roles at companies such as Kellogg's and Coca-Cola covering both Direct and Indirect spend, while also having P&L and operational responsibility for other business segments. Listen in to hear Brian's perspective on a w...
Mar 13, 2017•52 min•Ep. 126
Today, Kelly Barner (Buyers Meeting Point) and I announced that we have founded a new entity to meet the strategic needs of forward-thinking procurement leaders. Palambridge brings procurement experts, technology, and intelligence together and makes them available on demand via a virtual platform. In this bonus podcast, I go beyond the press releases to share more details on the Palambridge journey, our ecosystem, the reason behind the name, and much more! After we ran The Procurement Revolution...
Mar 13, 2017•15 min
How does the role of procurement differ in a mission driven organization? Today on the Art of Procurement, I explore how procurement can help save lives with Brian Kyle, Managing Director of Strategic Sourcing and Contract Management at the American Cancer Society. Kyle shares his experiences of moving from a profit-driven to mission-driven organization, and the journey that American Cancer Society has taken to elevate the role of procurement from a sourcing to category management led organizati...
Mar 07, 2017•43 min•Ep. 125
Today on the Art of Procurement I am joined by Kevin Giblin, Head of Global Sourcing & CPO of data analytics company Dun & Bradstreet. In today's episode, I start by asking Kevin for his perspective on creating value beyond savings, and towards the end of our conversation Kevin gives some great advice to procurement pro's looking to stand out from the crowd. However, the purpose of our conversation is for Kevin to share a real-life example of how to significantly increase internal client...
Feb 28, 2017•39 min•Ep. 124
Pardon the interruption! It has been a busy couple of weeks here at Art of Procurement Towers, and so I wanted to share details of a couple of new shows that have launched is week. For more information, visit: http://artofprocurement.com/evenbiggerideas http://thismonthinprocurement
Feb 23, 2017•2 min
Today's guest was the first ever interviewee on the Art of Procurement. All the way back in Episode 2, Tania Seary, the Founder of Procurious, as well as procurement consulting firm The Faculty and recruitment company The Source, joined me to talk about all things related to the importance of creating a personal brand through social media. In today's discussion, we focus on a couple of topics that both intertwine with each other. First, I ask Tania for an update on how things are going at Procur...
Feb 21, 2017•41 min•Ep. 123
I have always sought out the Deloitte CPO Survey as a leading indicator on the health of the procurement function and just a couple of days ago, Deloitte published the results of their 2017 Survey. Today on the Art of Procurement, I am joined by Lance Younger. Lance is the Head of Procurement and Sourcing Consulting in the UK, a Partner of Deloitte's Strategy and Operations Practice, and a co-author of the report that accompanies this year's survey findings. In today's conversation, we go beyond...
Feb 14, 2017•36 min•Ep. 122
My guest today is Drew Polin. Drew is the president of OpDecision, a company that helps organizations reduce their wireless spend, specifically without having to go through the upheaval of switching out their service providers. Our conversation today is split into two parts. First, we talk about gainsharing. It's a commercial model that I have been very skeptical about in the past, as I think it can incent the wrong behaviors, and can become a way for service providers to take advantage of less ...
Feb 07, 2017•37 min•Ep. 121
Today's Art of Procurement interview is a real treat. It is chock full of actionable insights on how we can position our careers, and our organizations, to fully take advantage of digitization and its impact on what, and how, we buy. My guest is Bill Huber. Bill is an active participant in the procurement community and I have followed his career for some time. Bill has worked as a practitioner – most recently as Chief Procurement Officer of Wachovia - as a service provider as head of IBM's procu...
Jan 31, 2017•48 min•Ep. 120
"We never put our own priorities first. If I save money and diminish my stakeholders ability to succeed, then I am counter productive and they are not going to use me again." – Greg Antoniono, Anthem Today on the show, I am joined by Greg Antoniono. Greg is the Sourcing Director for Marketing at Anthem, one of the giants of the US Health Care industry Over the course of the last eight years, Greg has taken his marketing procurement group on a journey from having very limited influence to being a...
Jan 24, 2017•42 min•Ep. 119
January 2017 marks the first month of a new collaboration that I am very excited about. I am co-hosting a new monthly show, imaginatively titled The Month in Procurement, with Mark Perera. Mark is the CEO and Founder of Old St Labs, the Founder of Procurement Leaders, and as I have got to know him, I see how passionate he is about levering innovation and technology to help businesses really harness the power of their supply networks. The show is meant to be a conversation. We'll be bringing in o...
Jan 19, 2017•46 min
My guest on today's show is Mark Webb. Mark is the Managing Director of UK based procurement consultancy firm, Future Purchasing. Following experience as a practitioner and then in consulting with PwC and QP Group, Mark co-founded Future Purchasing, and they have grown from strength to strength since their inception back in 2002. Future Purchasing undertakes what I think is the leading piece of industry research on the subject of Category Management. They just put the final touches on their 2017...
Jan 17, 2017•41 min•Ep. 118
Today's guest on the Art of Procurement is Mark Trowbridge, the co-founder and Principal for Strategic Procurement Solutions, and the former Director of Sourcing and Contracts at Bank of America. Mark is a published author, and a regular presenter at procurement and supply chain conferences. In fact, it was at the recent ISM Indirect conference in December that Mark and I met. As I got to know Mark I knew that I needed to invite him onto the show, and fortunately he accepted my invite without re...
Jan 10, 2017•57 min•Ep. 117
Welcome to 2017! In this first show of the year, I share details of Art of Procurement's publishing schedule in 2017, invite applications to a new AOP Circle of Experts, and share thoughts on facilitating innovation following a recent visit to a startup accelerator program. For more information, visit: http://artofprocurement.com/ep116
Jan 03, 2017•13 min•Ep. 116
So here we are: The Best of 2016 List. As the year comes to a close, I sat down to consider which episodes have been the most powerful and impactful in 2016. Some of these have been my personal favorites, others determined by download numbers. What I did try to do is to make the list as diverse as possible, and it features interviews with CPO's, CEO's, Founders, Educators and Consultants. There should be something for everyone here! For more information, visit: http://artofprocurement.com/bestof...
Dec 16, 2016•4 min•Ep. 115
Pierre Mitchell was the first supply chain practitioner to become a procurement "industry analyst" with roles at AMR Research (now Gartner) followed by The Hackett Group, and now Spend Matters. There are few people, if any, that cover procurement than understand, and have such passion for, the growth of our profession. Both Pierre and I were together last week at the ISM Inside Indirect Conference 2016 in Las Vegas, and so we picked up the mic's and hit record! So, today's show is an informal ch...
Dec 13, 2016•29 min•Ep. 114
On today's Art of Procurement, I answer a listener question. The question was: how do you make a supplier happy. Now, I'm going to assume that the right answer isn't to give them riches for providing peanuts! So, I sat down and thought through 6 different ways that I think we can all put at least a half smile on the faces of our suppliers this Christmas! For more information, visit: http://artofprocurement.com/113
Dec 09, 2016•8 min•Ep. 113
Dec 06, 2016•36 min•Ep. 112
I will be in Las Vegas this week at the ISM Indirect Conference, and with Las Vegas also known as Sin City, I thought it would be fun to look back at some old Art of Procurement episodes and come up with a list of 10 sins of procurement! Now, frankly, there are a lot more than 10! However, I had to stop somewhere! These are inspired by my own experiences, and the guests that we have had on the show. I kept them to what I think are our day to day dealings with suppliers and stakeholders rather th...
Dec 02, 2016•15 min•Ep. 111
