This year’s Summit hosted just over 120 delegates, who descended upon Boston with the individual goals of learning the latest trends and best practice ideas and expanding their network and the collective goal of driving the procurement profession (and the role of the CPO) forward.

The fantastic presentations, unique setting, executive audience, and intimate environment have become the trademarks of the CPO Rising Summit. Over the next few days, we will share some of the scenes from the 2019 Summit while also reminding each of you to save the dates – October 27 & 28, 2020 for CPO Rising 2020!

The CPO Rising 2019 Summit was held at the historic Harvard Club in Boston

Ardent Founder, Andrew Bartolini, kicked off the Summit on Day 1

A Day One keynote presentation from Heidi Landry, the CPO of Johnson & Johnson

Attendees of the CPO Rising Summit look on as Landry gives her presentation on “Procurement with a Purpose”

Greg Tennyson, CPO of VSP Global and the CPO Honors’ 2019 CPO of the Year, gives his keynote presentation on “Moolah’s Transformation”

We were thus very happy to have Bill present on his experience with building a new procurement team from the ground up. He took us on his journey through the process, and offered us his lessons learned through it all. Bill began with what should happen on “Day 1” of this process, starting with an honest self-assessment that, to be frank, should never really end. He then talked about “minding the gap” between perceptions of what procurement does (“they’re only focused on price,” “they operate in a silo,” “they slow us down,” “they don’t know our business or our market,” “they make us bid on everything!“), versus what procurement should actually do. Bill then gave attendees some advice on how to change those perceptions to re-position procurement as a strategic value driver.

“It is incumbent upon the CPO to engage and educate, then collaborate and execute,” he said.

Bill and his nascent team then had to face their reality. At Carbonite, they had:

• No procurement tools at all
• A decentralized, local approach to sourcing and procurement
• No visibility into spend and, therefore, savings

Thus, Bill and his team found themselves having to transform the procurement organization from glorified purchasers to strategic business partners, with or without the requisite tools.

Based on his and his team’s experience, Bill then gave some advice on how to start the actual transformation process (assess, address, and execute). Bill advised to break the plan down into several manageable steps — addressing stakeholders, real opportunities, the process, capabilities, and constraints — while keeping the bigger picture in mind.

He advised us to not “boil the ocean,” which can be tempting for any leader who’s starting out on this journey. Instead, procurement leaders should focus on collaborating with stakeholders — from the CEO to the line-of-business — getting access to any and all pertinent data, and employing data analytics and management tools to wrangle and make sense of that data.

“These,” he said, “led to impactful results and a pathway for future investment.”

Bill then talked about transformation disruptors, such as lacking resources, technology solutions, having multiple stakeholders, mergers and acquisitions, executive turnover, reorganization, and economic factors. But perhaps the biggest challenge all procurement teams have is managing data. Common data challenges for him and his team were having no formal spend reporting, no procurement support tools (again), multiple data sources with different owners, the data lacking sufficient detail. Bill then talked about making a business case for data management and analysis tools, and reiterated the need to derive valuable insights from data.

Bill then gave us some initial results from his team’s growth and transformation initiative, which included generating savings of $1.1 million to data (11%), establishing a network of stakeholders (breaking down more internal walls and establishing a regularly collaborative cadence), and continuously driving savings and process efficiencies — something that never ends and truly should never end.

Bill then closed out by providing a list of lessons learned for the audience, which are:

• Understand that there’s immense value in data — you cannot chart a course if you do not know your current position, and you can cannot adjust what you cannot measure
• Value internal stakeholder relationships — break down silos, reach across the aisle, seek first to understand and then be understood
• Continuously nurture your relationships — “a greenfield must be watered.” Once you’ve established relationships, work to communicate and collaborate and keep them aligned to your team’s mission
• Building brand is key to long-term success — in order to be known as strategic value drivers, you have to establish your team as strategic value drivers, and show up every day to prove it

We are so grateful for Bill for sharing his and his team’s experiences, and we wish them the best as they continue to grow the procurement function at Carbonite.

This year, as in every other year that my team and I have produced this event, I was able to recruit a fantastic lineup of seasoned procurement veterans with nearly a century’s worth of combined experience leading supply chain, sourcing, and category management teams….and they did not disappoint. The 2019 Summit featured stimulating presentations and thought-provoking discussions on the role of the CPO as well as key strategies that will help bring the procurement function to the next level of performance.

But now that the 2019 Summit is in the rear view, my team and I want to quickly galvanize the enthusiasm from earlier this week and highlight the major takeaways from the event. With that said, I wanted to personally invite you to a new webinar, the Voice of the CPO Rising 2019 Summit, on November 14th at 2 PM ET, where my team and I will highlight the key speaker presentations and discussions that took place during the event.

If you have some time next month, I hope you will join us. Click here and below to register.

Webinar Details:

Voice of the CPO Webinar: Highlights from the CPO Rising 2019 Summit

Date: Thursday, November 14th 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM ET

Presenters:

Andrew Bartolini, Chief Research Officer, Ardent Partners

Christopher J. Dwyer, VP of Research, Ardent Partners

Webinar Sponsored by: Tradeshift, Scout RRP, & Jaggaer

The CPO Honors were established to celebrate the procurement function and recognize the accomplishments of the profession’s best leaders and teams. These awards have quickly become the procurement industry’s most prestigious series of awards. CPO celebrities and prior winners played an active role in the ceremony which was hosted by Tradeshift’s CPO, Roy Anderson.

The CPO Rising Hall of Fame Class of 2019

Established in 2016, The CPO Rising Hall of Fame inducts up to three procurement leaders each year who have differentiated themselves and their organizations by a blend in leadership in innovation, executive stewardship, process excellence, and dedication to their craft. This year’s inductees are:

James L. Polak, former Director, General Purchasing, PPG Industries, Inc.

Uldis Sipols, Former CPO Gillette, Danaher, AMP, Sonoco; Executive at P&G and Ford

CPO Honors 2019: And the Winners are…

The CPO Honors were presented in 6 categories. The finalists and winners (in bold) are noted below.

The Innovation Award Finalists: This award is presented to the CPO and team that have used new and innovative strategies and approaches to overcome significant hurdles.

• WINNER: Anu Saxena, Senior Vice President and Global Head for Hilton Supply Management (HSM) and the HSM Team
• Sprint’s Procurement Team

The Technology Excellence Award Finalists: This award is presented to the CPO and team that have leveraged technology solutions to impact procurement operations and performance.

• TIE – WINNER: Andrea Greco, Chief Procurement Officer, CBRE
• TIE – WINNER: Jorge Martín Torres Pérez, Strategic Procurement Director, Coca-Cola FEMSA

Best Team Performance Award Finalists: This award is presented to the procurement department that has excelled across the full scope of procurement operations to make a significant impact on overall enterprise results.

• WINNER: Highmark Health Global Procurement & Payables Team
• Endurance’s Procurement Operations and Business Intelligence Team

The Leadership Award (CPO of the Year) Finalists: This award is presented to the CPO who has driven new performance heights as a result of their direct involvement and leadership and overall exceptional executive management.

• Kai Nowosel, Chief Procurement Officer, Accenture
• WINNER: Greg Tennyson, Head of Global Corporate Services,  VSP Global
• Mike Morsch, Vice President Global Procurement & Supply Chain, CDK Global

Innovative Solution of the Year Finalists: Presented to the solution provider who most significantly impacted the market with innovative solutions.

• WINNER: BuyerQuest
• Fairmarkit

Best Technology Partnership Finalists: Presented to the best partnership between a solution provider and their procurement team customer on to a technology deployment.

• WINNER: Scout RFP and Biogen
• Ivalua and Whirlpool

Ardent Partners extends its congratulations to the CPO Honors finalists, winners, and new CPO Rising Hall of Famers! Watch for more details about those recognized last night.

About Ardent Partners

Ardent Partners is a leading research and advisory firm focused on defining and advancing the supply management strategies, processes, and technologies that drive business value and accelerate organizational transformation within the enterprise. Ardent’s analysts have decades of experience publishing primary research that help business leaders in procurement, supply management, and financial operations make smarter technology decisions and improve their performance. Ardent hosts its annual CPO Rising Summit in Boston each fall. To learn more about the company, visit www.ardentpartners.com and www.cporising.com

BOSTON, October 29 — Today, more than 140 Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) and other procurement executives convene at Boston’s elegant Harvard Club to discuss best practices, learn about emerging market trends, and collaborate with like-minded peers. The fourth annual “CPO Rising” Summit and executive symposium, hosted by prominent research and advisory firm Ardent Partners, will feature an unrivaled lineup of speakers and presentations, all of which will serve to push the procurement function into a new era.

This week’s event, which will feature nearly two dozen procurement luminaries from large corporations around the globe (and across many industries), will tackle a vast array of exciting topics within the world of supply management. These executives, from Johnson & Johnson, DuPont, Rio Tinto, and many more, will speak about:

• Expanding Procurement’s Value (this year’s event theme)
• Data-driven procurement strategies
• The role of innovation in today’s procurement function
• Designing and building the optimal procurement operation (and procurement transformation)
• The Future of Work
• And much more!

“The procurement function of 2019 sits on the edge of an incredible transformation in its ultimate quest for business agility and enterprise-wide value,” says Andrew Bartolini, founder and chief research officer at Ardent Partners. “Today’s procurement executives have the power to leverage innovation, intelligence, and transformational thinking to become a truly agile business function. The CPO Rising 2019 Summit is the ideal forum for procurement professionals from around the world to learn how to achieve these goals.”

This exclusive summit is sponsored by Tradeshift, Concord Contracts, Jaggaer, Scout RFP, Guidant Global, SAP Ariba, scoutbee, Sievo, and SpendHQ. For more information on the CPO Rising 2019 Summit, please visit events.cporising.com.

About Ardent Partners:

Ardent Partners is a research and advisory firm focused on defining and advancing the supply management strategies, processes, and technologies that drive business value and accelerate organizational transformation within the enterprise. The Ardent team has decades of experience publishing primary research that help business leaders in procurement, supply management, and financial operations make smarter decisions and improve their performance. To learn more about the company, visit www.ardentpartners.com.

At the dinner reception, Ardent Partners will present awards for outstanding performance and execution in the last year – “The CPO Honors” – to a variety of high achievers including Chief Procurement Officers and other procurement leaders, procurement teams, and new this year: procurement solution providers and/or other experts. A new class of CPOs (two names will be announced next week) will also be inducted into the CPO Rising Hall of Fame based upon career achievements.

With a record number of nominations this year, the competition for the CPO Honors 2019 awards was extremely competitive. Making it to this far should be considered a huge achievement, in and of itself.

So, without further ado…

The CPO HONORS 2019 Finalists are:

The Innovation Award Finalists: This award is presented to the CPO and team that have used new and innovative strategies and approaches to overcome significant hurdles.

• Anu Saxena, Senior Vice President and Global Head for Hilton Supply Management (HSM) and the HSM Team
• Sprint’s Procurement Team

The Technology Excellence Award Finalists: This award is presented to the CPO and team that have leveraged technology solutions to impact procurement operations and performance.

• Andrea Greco, Chief Procurement Officer, CBRE
• Jorge Martín Torres Pérez, Strategic Procurement Director, Coca-Cola FEMSA

Best Team Performance Award Finalists: This award is presented to the procurement department that has excelled across the full scope of procurement operations to make a significant impact on overall enterprise results.

• Highmark Health Global Procurement & Payables Team
• Endurance’s Procurement Operations and Business Intelligence Team

The Leadership Award (CPO of the Year) Finalists: This award is presented to the CPO who has driven new performance heights as a result of their direct involvement and leadership and overall exceptional executive management.

• Kai Nowosel, Chief Procurement Officer, Accenture
• Greg Tennyson, Head of Global Corporate Services,  VSP Global
• Mike Morsch, Vice President Global Procurement & Supply Chain, CDK Global

Innovative Solution of the Year Finalists: Presented to the solution provider who most significantly impacted the market with innovative solutions.

• BuyerQuest
• Fairmarkit

Best Technology Partnership Finalists: Presented to the best partnership between a solution provider and their procurement team customer on to a technology deployment.

• ScoutRFP and Biogen
• Ivalua and Whirlpool

Our congratulations to all of the finalists!  We will see you soon!

Nisreen Bagasra

Nisreen will participate in the CPO Panel Discussion on Day 1 of CPO Rising 2019. I had the chance to catch up with Nisreen ahead of the event and learn more about her, her role, and what excites her about procurement.

Matthew York: Tell us a bit about your background – education and early career. How did you get started in procurement?

Nisreen Bagasra: I grew up in Mumbai, India, and came to the United States to pursue an MBA at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. Upon graduating, I took a position as a consultant at Coopers & Lybrand and then joined Thermal Electron, where I developed a passion for procurement as an E-Sourcing Manager, running online reverse auctions and generating double digit savings for the company. Last year, I joined Veolia North America as Chief Procurement Officer — the first woman ever to hold the position within the company. In my role, I lead VNA’s procurement organization to maximize value and mitigate risk across the company’s supply base. My team manages national suppliers, strategic sourcing, contract negotiations and compliance of purchasing policies and processes. We are also responsible for VNA’s travel, fleet and purchasing card programs.

MY: What are you and your team focused on over the next 12-18 months?

NB: Veolia North America is at a pivotal point in its procurement journey. As a company, we have a solid foundation in place, and now we are in the process of building up the rest of the house. We are building a centralized team of sourcing experts in MRO, Chemicals, Waste Disposal, Temp Labor, Fleet, Facilities, and Technical products that can be leveraged across our 3 lines of business – Water, Waste, and Energy. Our focus is on simplifying processes and using technology to make it easy for our stakeholders to acquire the products and services needed to run their business efficiently, consistently, and competitively. We want to create an Amazon like experience for our diverse and widespread locations, for all their supply needs.

MY: What are some of the major changes that you’ve witnessed in the profession?

NB: One of the biggest changes I have seen within the profession is the increasing importance that company leaders are placing on procurement. Organizations no longer look at us as simply responsible for compliance functions and for putting controls in place, but also for delivering greater value through innovative and operational synergies. Chief Procurement Officers increasingly have a seat at the executive table. Ten years ago, you didn’t see that so much.

MY: What gets you excited about the future of procurement?

NB: What makes me excited about the future of procurement is the ability we have to make more happen with less by automating transactional purchasing using technology (Artificial intelligence and business intelligence) and leveraging data to provide us with greater insights into the supply chain. We are becoming much more pro-active in engaging early with our stakeholders in the capacity of a trusted advisor, and as the technologies continue to evolve, it’s going to be a big game-changer for our profession.

MY: That’s awesome, Nisreen — thanks so much and looking forward to seeing you later this month.

NB: Likewise, Matthew.

Two weeks ago, 120 global procurement executives descended on Boston for our Annual CPO Rising Summit. I’ve been organizing Chief Procurement Officer (CPO)-focused events since 2006 and I still find the entire process to be equal parts exhilarating, stressful, educational, empowering and highly-rewarding. I’ll share some of my thoughts with you here in today’s article. I plan to write a few more articles about the event over the final weeks of 2018 as does each analyst on our team. (Later today, I will also be co-presenting the “Voice of the CPO” webinar with fellow Ardent analysts, Matt York & Chris Dwyer that shares the key highlights and takeaways from the event).

The Age of Intelligence

In the “Age of Intelligence,” the procurement function is positioned to leverage its position at the hub of business operations to become a more productive, agile, and intelligent operation and use data analytics to drive better business outcomes. Each year, our Summit has an overarching theme we try to weave through. This year, I couldn’t think of a better topic for the leading minds and global experts working in and around procurement to tackle than operating a procurement function in the age of intelligence. Developing a new type of intelligence that will redefine the procurement function is an idea that emerged in both our annual state of procurement/CPO studies and in keynote presentations delivered at the Summit over the past three years.

With the rise of business process automation tools, cloud-based applications, mobile solutions, and connected devices the world has become increasingly data-driven, and procurement teams around the globe have an extraordinary opportunity to capitalize on it. Over the next few years, Ardent Partners predicts that a new type of intelligence is going to enable CPOs to view their operations differently and, by doing so, it is going to force these same CPOs to manage them differently. Chief Procurement Officers must hire new talent while developing their existing roster; institute new processes while refining existing ones; and invest in new technologies while enhancing existing tools.

Leading the Dialogue: 20 Global CPOs and Procurement Experts

At our 2018 Summit, we were excited and honored to have another world-class roster of 20 CPOs and procurement experts discuss how procurement can become more intelligent and transform operations and capitalize on the most significant opportunities in this new age. This year’s roster was more diverse and considerably younger than any previous Summit roster, and I have to say that the overall quality of the presentations, panels, and breakouts was as strong, if not stronger than what we’d seen previously (this is really saying something because we’ve had some amazing presentations). In particular, the main-stage keynotes on both Day 1 and Day 2 were outstanding from top to bottom.

These keynote presentations were delivered by a group of global CPOs including

• Steve Listzwan, the Head of Procurement (CPO) of Shire Pharmaceuticals and Ardent Partners’ 2017 “CPO of the Year.” His presentation, “Faster, Higher, Stronger: Building the Data-Driven Procurement Athlete,” was designed to help CPOs and Procurement Leadership Teams use internal data to get more from their staffs and ultimately build an elite team of high-performers. Steve’s innovative and thoroughly unique approach to staff development is to leverage different sources of data to both evaluate and improve staff performance and discuss the strategies that enable the best use of that data to build a better Procurement athlete and team.
• Chris Shanahan, VP of Global Procurement & Global Real Estate, Thermo Fisher Scientific, whose presentation, “0 to 60: Driving a High Velocity Procurement Transformation,” shared the key strategies and approaches that he has used to successfully drive procurement transformations at the “speed of business.”
• Meghan Truchan, Head of Procurement, Bain Capital, LP, whose presentation, “Procurement Transformation: One Size Does Not Fit All,” took a consultative approach to assessing and contrasting different procurement transformation scenarios and the approaches that make the most sense to take in each situation.
• Dan Warn, Director of Strategic Procurement (CPO), Wayfair, whose presentation, “Spend Therapy: Transforming Procurement In a High Growth Company,” looked at a new procurement delivery model that is many ways more representative of today’s business environment than the classic approaches.

I could go on and on — and my team and I will — but not today. We will continue to discuss and review this year’s CPO Rising Summit in a series of articles publishing over the next few weeks. So, stay tuned!

Summary

Procurement’s “Age of Intelligence” demands powerful analytics and deep insights. It demands agility. The ability to make better-informed decisions across an organization can and will be game-changing; I believe that this new intelligence coupled with agility are going to be the fundamental drivers that push procurement to the next level. But this all starts with the CPO and his or her mindset. If you are a CPO or report to one, please mark your calendars for October 29 and 30, 2019 for the CPO Rising 2019 Summit.

The CPO Rising 2019 Summit

October 29th and 30th at the Harvard Club in Boston, MA

Produced by Ardent Partners

 Register today, and we look forward to seeing you in just a few weeks!