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.

Hal is an accomplished professional with over 30 years of CPO level experience in procurement and contracting. He is a past national president of the Airport Purchasing Group and the National Procurement Institute, and was a founding member and past president of the California Chapter of the National Institute of Government Purchasing. He is a frequent presenter at industry events and is a well-regarded procurement expert.

We were fortunate to catch up with Hal earlier this year to learn more about his background, notably: how he got his start in procurement, why he left the cold and wintry weathers of the East Coast for the warm and breezy West Coast, and how he returned before retiring to the suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Today, Hal writes about procurement and continues to evangelize for the future of the profession.

Education and Early Career

Hal attended Elizabethtown College where he studied business administration and psychology. Like many other procurement professionals, he got his start in the field somewhat accidentally at New York University (NYU) Medical Center (now NYU Langone) where he began working in the respiratory care wing of the clinical department, a 24-7 operation that required constant staffing and servicing. Over time, Hal became more involved in the procurement of goods for the department and less involved in the clinical-care side. One day, one of his managers said, “Why don’t we call it like it is and transition you into procurement?” From there, Hal’s career would be entirely focused on materials management and procurement.

Hal worked for NYU Langone Medical Center for 12 years, serving as Assistant Director of Central Services before taking a sudden and drastically different turn in his career. While on a family vacation to Disney Land, Hal noticed an opening for a Procurement Director for the City of Palm Springs. He and his family loved the location, and with nothing to lose, Hal applied for and ultimately got the job. He and has family uprooted from the East Coast and would make Palm Springs home for the next 21 years.

Hal’s long tenure as Director of Procurement and Contracting for Palm Springs was quite interesting because it encapsulated a lot of unique projects, including infrastructure, marketing, public safety, and tourism. For example, during his time the city built a convention center that accommodated the local economy – mainly, hospitality and tourism. He and his team helped to manage the expansion of Palm Springs Airport and allow it to serve international carriers. He was instrumental in the acquisition and installation of one of the earliest reliable and successful earthquake early warning systems in the US in Palm Springs, a city located on the San Andreas Fault.

After working there for more than 21 years, Hal and his wife, Jaye, moved back to the East Coast when he became Director of Procurement and Contracting for Frederick County, Maryland, a position that he would hold for about another eight years. Hal’s tenure in Frederick would cover the ground of the modern procurement professional – procuring direct and indirect materials, as well as construction and professional services.

In November 2012, Hal decided to semi-retire from procurement and move to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where he consults and freelances on procurement and remains active on social media. He hosts a LinkedIn group, Procurement Pros, in which he combines public and private sector issues, as well as supply chain and service-oriented issues, in a forum that he seeks to make as interesting for his members as it is for him. Although Hal is semi-retired, he remains interested in developing a common procurement language that procurement professionals around the world can use, as well as connecting the sourcing, procurement, and payment processes into the source-to-settle process. For him, hosting Procurement Pros and speaking at conferences are “give-backs” to a procurement community that has treated him well over his career.

What 35 Years of Procurement Change Looks Like

Since Hal began his procurement career in 1971, he has seen quite a revolution across the industry. At first, there were no thought leaders evangelizing the procurement role. It is a different story today, with thought leaders educating the workforce and tying the two ends of procurement and AP together, and linking contracts and risk management with procurement.

What he sees more than anything else is the recognition that internal and external stakeholders need to collaborate and work together. They need to be familiar with what procurement is working on, and they need to work holistically across the organization to pull in other constituent departments and functions, like AP/Finance, contracts, legal, marketing, operations, and so on. Hal also believes that it is no longer just about cost savings; they are important, as are cost containment (not spending more than you have to). But the concept of best value and looking at the overall value to the organization has really come to the forefront. Fortunately, he believes that the digital environment in which we operate has enhanced our ability to do that, as well as to collaborate and make the world much smaller than it is.

The Future of Procurement: It’s Already Happening

As Hal looks ahead, he believes that the term “buyer” will be a thing of the past, as category managers and procurement professionals are much more than glorified order takers. Also, more staple commodities will be automatically purchased, allowing practitioners to reallocate their time and effort to more strategic planning and execution. Sure, they will still need to setup, maintain, and QA/QC systems and processes, but they will be more involved in examining issues that pertain to sourcing, procurement, and best value to ensure that they are integrated within the overall organization. Hal also believes that procurement as a specialty will continue to be a multi-purpose operation that gets integrated into other things – a belief that Ardent Partners’ research shows has been occurring for the past several years. Hal believes (as do we) that if it has to be competed, sourced, or purchased, procurement should get involved.

There is also a lot of green field opportunity for procurement expansion and collaboration across the enterprise. According to Hal, “some of the things that procurement’s not involved in but could add a lot of value to are things like construction, insurance, and legal services that are still siloed within many companies.” Here, all parties ought to take a holistic view of the value that procurement can deliver to the whole organization. Marketing, in particular, is an underserved procurement relationship, and CPOs and procurement leaders need to ensure smooth collaboration between the two departments. “Sometimes there’s a lot of misunderstanding between the two – one of the most important things that procurement professionals can ascribe to in the future. The two roles need to understand each other.”

There is also greater opportunity for procurement to collaborate and align with legal departments, particularly regarding contract management. “When contracts get handed off, sometimes there’s a glitch,” he says, adding that the relationship between legal and procurement needs to be smooth and integrated because they contribute so much to each other for them not to be. In fact, some legal departments are starting to have their own procurement section, which is recognition that procurement and legal need to work together because they are all working towards the same ends.

Final Thoughts

It is a real treat to sit down with someone who has the breadth and depth of experience in an industry that has evolved as much as it has over the last 35 years and continues to evolve. Hal Good is a procurement pro who not only has ridden the wave from coast to coast and back, but also has managed to be an evangelist and thought leader even in retirement. For these reasons, we are so grateful to have him speak at CPO Rising 2019 and are counting down the days. If you haven’t already, you can take advantage of early bird registration and pricing and register here!

I’ve spent the past 17 years of my professional career focused on driving the procurement profession forward. I have been and continue to be very personally invested in this cause too. In this period of time, we have collectively seen the procurement profession take many great strides forward, but also a few steps back or to the side; we’ve even seen a few stumbles. Nonetheless, when business historians reflect on this period, the transformation of procurement and supply management will have its own chapter.

As someone who’s been a first-hand participant, researcher, and advisor in, of, or to this industry over the years, I’ve been fortunate to have many wonderful and great experiences and memories. For example:

• I remember the first time I sat in a conference room as an entire procurement team and the company CFO of a multi-billion dollar company watched an eSourcing event that I designed and managed save 31%. I remember dozens of similar events for very different companies.
• I remember going to audacious company parties in the B2B Internet Boom ‘hey day.’
• I remember helping Microsoft save millions of dollars on its digital media spend and then identifying how a change in its buying behavior could save millions more.
• I remember reading Tim Minahan’s 2005 CPO’s Agenda research report and realizing the great value of insightful and progressive market research.
• I remember Scott Singer telling me how pumped he was about his job as a CPO after reading the intro to one of my “CPO reports”
• I remember the WSJ’s front page article about procurement and Manitowoc Company.
• I remember Tom Linton explaining his amazing approach to his first six months at LG.
• I remember marveling at Shelley Stewart as he described (in a keynote at an event I had organized) how his office at Tyco was located between the CEO and the CFO.
• I remember the leader of a multi-billion dollar global sourcing program telling an audience that his company adopted a strategy that Ardent Partners developed and that it led to phenomenal results (more on this in a future article).

I could go on for days. But, above all else, it has been the conversations that I have had and the relationships that I have developed over this time that stand as the most important and memorable of my experiences. One day I will write a series covering some of these older stories and reflections; but not today. Today, I want to kick off a series designed to share some of the great ‘memories’ or takeaways from our CPO Rising 2016 Summit held last week.

In many ways, our CPO Rising 2016 Summit was the culmination the past two decades that my team has spent working in and researching procurement. When I founded Ardent Partners, I knew that I wanted to host an annual CPO summit, but I also knew that we should wait until we could pull it off on our own and without event partners so that we could clearly establish our level of engagement and influence in the market.

Having organized events of this nature, I can tell you that it is no small undertaking to attempt to bring an inaugural event to market, much less one with so many moving parts focused on an executive audience. So, it is with great pride that I can tell you that across all aspects, CPO Rising 2016 surpassed my extremely high expectations – the speakers, the audience, the sponsors, the venue, and the overall production. In sports parlance, it was an “instant classic” and it is an event that I will never forget. That does not mean it was a perfect event – in fact, we have many lessons learned… and our CPO Rising 2017 Summit will be that much stronger as a result. But, this is an event that is very significant for Ardent Partners as marks the beginning of the next phase in our development and growth. We will work doubly hard to ensure that next year’s event is a very significant one for CPOs and the entirety of this site’s readership. We have many great memories to share with you so, if you missed the  CPO Rising 2016 Summit, you are in luck because in the days (and weeks) ahead, we will be sharing key highlights from it.

Also, we encourage you to visit the official site for CPO Rising 2019, which will once again be held at Boston’s historic Harvard Club in the Back Bay neighborhood. Early-bird registration ends very soon, so if you like what you see and want to attend, get on over to the event site and take advantage of discounted pricing while you still can!

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

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

Best Team Performance Award: 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.

The Leadership Award (CPO of the Year): 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. 

“We distinguish top performers in all Ardent Partners’ research efforts as ‘Best-in-Class’ enterprises; from this group, our research team has identified a smaller list of procurement leaders and organizations who are notable for their transformative strategies and results” states Andrew Bartolini, Chief Research Officer at Ardent Partners. “The CPO Rising 2017 Summit is, in some respects, a celebration of the accomplishments of procurement as a function, so we think it is the perfect venue to recognize top performers for their excellence in procurement while also enjoying a great meal and atmosphere.” The CPO Honors 2017 Gala Dinner will also include the induction of several the newest class of Chief Procurement Officers into the CPO Rising Hall of Fame.

The CPO Honors nominees will be selected based upon both external nominations that can be submitted on this page and a detailed review of Ardent’s research over the preceding 12 months.

CPO Honors 2017 – Nominate Top Performers Today!

The CPO Rising 2017 Summit – November 8 & 9

On November 8 & 9, 2017, a select group of Chief Procurement Officers (“CPOs”) and other business leaders will come together at the Harvard Club in Boston for The CPO Rising 2017 Summit, an executive symposium brought to you by Ardent Partners.

This exclusive event promises valuable networking opportunities and the interactive exchange of ideas for Chief Procurement Officers and other business executives. Attendees can expect to return home with a collection of new and innovative ideas and strategies that will help improve the performance of their organizations and increase the impact that their teams will have on business results.

“The accelerating speed and complexity of business has placed procurement and its leader, the Chief Procurement Officer, in the crucible of business operations, relationships, and results. Procurement departments, their operations, culture, and systems, the way in which they transform knowledge into strategies and those strategies into performance, must all keep pace.” said Andrew Bartolini, Ardent Partners’ Chief Research Officer. “We are excited to announce our CPO Rising 2017 event this fall in Boston to help CPOs better understand what they can do increase their relevance, engagement, and results.”

From keynote presentations to CPO panel discussions, case studies, and breakout sessions, the unparalleled speaker panel will highlight procurement-led innovation within the enterprise and across the supply chain and present key topics such as:

• Tools of the Trade
• Procurement-led Innovation
• The Agility Agenda
• The Pillars of Strategic Sourcing Success
• P2P Excellence and Expansion
• Internal & External Collaboration
• Globalization & Supply Risk
• Contingent Workforce Management
• Complex Spend Management
• Procurement Performance Measurement

We have an excellent speaker panel that we will be announcing soon. However, Ardent Partners is looking for Chief Procurement Officers and other procurement executives from all industries and geographies to present keynote and mainstage presentations, lead breakout sessions, and join executive panel discussions. If you’d like to nominate someone or yourself, please complete this speaker nomination form.