Art of Procurement

Alan Mulally led arguably the greatest turnaround in corporate history. He saved Ford Motor Company from bankruptcy amid the chaos of the 2008 recession, and architected and led the transformation of Ford's product line, brand reputation and financial performance. I had the opportunity this week to sit in on a keynote with Alan at the ISM2016 conference in Indianapolis. In today's Friday show, I want to share what Alan described as "all I know". The 11 steps that he used to drive the transformation. In my mind, these can be applied successfully to any project, and they are just great pieces of business advice. I hope you agree! For more, visit: http://artofprocurement.com/ford

My guest on the Art of Procurement today is John P. (Jack) Miles. There are few, if any, leaders in the procurement profession with the depth and breadth of experience as Jack. Jack has enjoyed multiple CPO roles at some of North America's largest companies and has served as Secretary of the Florida Department of Managed Services. He is currently at advisory board member at Coupa. In today's show, Jack shares seven of the key lessons that he has learned from his career in both the private and public sectors. If you have any interest in growing your procurement career, this episode is a must listen! For more information, visit http://artofprocurement.com/tao

How can we make procurement less boring? That is the question I recently posed based on the perception that we hear that procurement is a boring profession. As you can imagine, it led to a lively debate within the procurement profession! In this episode I explore why others may feel that procurement is boring, when practitioners believe it is anything but. I share three listener voicemails, and give my opinion on the actions and mind shift that we need to take to increase the reputation of the work we do. For more information, visit http://artofprocurement.com/boring

I was fortunate to the be in the audience recently to listen to today's guest, Dr Robert Handfield, give a talk on the future of procurement analytics, and the impact that access to real-time and predictive analytics will have on the procurement function. I was delighted when Rob agreed to share his thoughts with me on the Art of Procurement. Rob talks passionately about how procurement is at in inflection point – where our ability to deliver value by using old tools such as leveraging spend is coming to an end. Rob believes that analytics will be the fuel that propels both the relevancy and maturity of procurement to the next level. For more information, visit: http://artofprocurement.com/predictiveanalytics

Time has flown by - we have now passed a half century of shows! I have learned a TON from the thought leaders who have graciously shared their time with us to help us all collectively elevate the role of procurement. In today's show, I take a look back at five key themes that I have taken away from the first fifty episodes. Listen to the show and you will also hear how to get my 20 page report where I share a key lesson that I learned from each episode! For more, go to http://artofprocurement.com/5from50

The legal category of spend is often the final frontier in terms of procurement engagement. It is too complex, too nuanced and isn't understood by anyone from outside the legal space. When we do get involved, it is often to help manage low value and commoditized services. So how do we crack the code and become a trusted partner to the legal team. There is arguably no-one in the world more qualified to answer that question than today's guest, Silvia Hodges Silverstein. Silvia is the Executive Director of Buying Legal Services, a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School, and is a widely published author, having co-written two case studies on the business of law for Harvard Business Review. Hear Silvia share the tips and tricks to becoming a trusted partner of the legal team. http://artofprocurement.com/legalservices

Ugh, governance I hear you say! When we think of procurement governance, we think of it as a way to control our end users - as something to measure compliance against. However, it doesn't have to be like that! I was invited to speak at a conference recently on the topic of procurement governance. My experience is that governance - if used strategically - can be the cornerstone of a strategy that enables procurement to take on a greater role within our organizations. In this Art of Procurement Friday Show, I explain why, and what your first step should be. For show notes, including a screencast of the full length presentation, go to http://artofprocurement.com/governance.

I strongly feel that we can learn as much from people who are outside procurement as inside procurement, and that is definitely the case in today's show. My guest today is Anna Spady, the Marketing Manager and Inbound Strategist for RFP365. In today's episode, I explore how procurement can learn from Marketing best practices in terms of how you can build strong relationships, and advocates, from people who may initially resist talking to you. It is the classic problem that we have in connecting with our internal stakeholders, and Anna shares a number of ways to overcome this challenge using methods that a lot of us may not have considered before. For more information, visit: http://artofprocurement.com/marketingtips bg9ftuar

After a flurry of activity over the past couple of weeks – with the site redesign and then the Big Idea Week series, it is nice to get back into a normal routine this week! And in fact, I don't intend for today's show to be very long at all. Rather than diving in to another subject, I would encourage you to go back and pick out a show from the Big Idea week that may not yet have already listened to. Listen in to today's podcast for a summary of the Big Idea Week shows, and for a question that I would like to crowdsource the answer to! http://artofprocurement.com/47

This week is Big Idea Week on the Art of Procurement - a mini series of shorter interviews with procurement thought leaders ahead of their participation in the Procurious Big Idea Summit. Today, I welcomed Martin Chilcott, Founder and CEO of 2degrees, onto the show. Martin is a serial entrepreneur and a sought after speaker who is passionate about solving our greatest supply chain sustainability challenges. In our conversation, Martin shares why sustainability is critical as we attempt to accommodate a growing global middle class, and the role that procurement can play in building sustainable supply chains through the power of collaboration. For links and show notes, go to http://artofprocurement.com/sustainability