This week I attended – and spoke at – Sainsbury’s fourth annual supplier conference and awards.
Alongside a host of speakers from the supermarket who addressed strategic suppliers on subjects from sustainability to logistics, online developments to customer insights, the opening presentation was given by a board director – this year, chief financial officer John Rogers.
As I said to the gathered group, strategic relationship management (SRM) doesn’t work without the support of those at the top. (more…)
Want to get your business to consider sustainability, but don’t know how? Try talking to them about risk.
That’s the advice of Professor Andrew Douglas from the University of the West of England. Addressing buyers at the Sustainable Purchasing & Supply Summit in London last month as he helped launch the CIPS Sustainability Index, Douglas said people now see the sustainability agenda as a way of managing risk. (more…)
The problem of recruiting and retaining talent is not a new one, but it is an issue that requires urgent focus if procurement is to fight off competition from other functions and hang on to good people in this tough economic climate.
At a procurement talent event in March, AstraZeneca CPO Ashley Readshaw threw down the gauntlet for the profession to rise to the challenge of defining itself better and improving its image. “Procurement has a victim mentality – it is not seen as a stimulating career for talent,” he said. (more…)
One of the events I took part in last month was the London Universities Purchasing Consortium (LUPC) conference. In addition to chairing a panel debate, I attended the morning sessions to hear the keynote speakers.
As part of a wider talk, one plenary presenter put forward his vision of the ‘future of procurement’. He gave three options: 1. Procurement has increasing success, takes on more categories and gets more work. 2. Procurement professionals take on a more advisory, consultancy-type role within their organisation. 3. Procurement survives as a business capability, but not as a function. (more…)
If you’re looking for some tips on what to do or not to do, don’t be afraid to learn from the mistakes of others or duplicate the more brilliant efforts of peers. In the past month, we’ve seen plenty of examples of both.
Improving stakeholder relationships, getting involved at the design stage of a product or service and forming better bonds with sales colleagues… These are all easy things to say (I just did in 21 words), but the doing is quite a lot more challenging.
The broad subject of business ethics has been highlighted over the past few weeks. For a start, there has been much unease surrounding companies that are believed to be avoiding paying their full viagra lowest price and proper share of corporation tax in the UK. Starbucks was one of the companies under fire and, as SM went to press, it made a tax pledge following pressure from its own customers. (more…)
It seems to me that procurement professionals are remarkably good at helping each other out. You want to, you enjoy it and, frankly, you’re just an incredibly helpful bunch.
Unless you’ve been trapped under a desk somewhere, you’ll have seen the numerous headlines in recent days concerning the level of corporation tax paid by some companies on their profits achieved in the UK.
In other words, some are paying very little or even none. (more…)
As announced by CIPS CEO David Noble at this year’s CIPS Annual Conference, from January CPO Agenda magazine will be relaunched with a new name and new look, and will be called Supply Business.
As every CPO will be aware, the attention on the profession from the higher echelons of senior management has dramatically increased. (more…)
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