On Day Two of the conference, we had the opportunity to sit down with Greg Tennyson of VSP Global – and CPO Honors Award winner – and dive deeper into the role of sourcing in modern business. As part of the largest not-for-profit vision benefits provider in the United States, VSP Global’s sourcing organization must work closely with the business to ensure optimum cost savings and risk management. To do this, VSP uses technology including  Scout RFP to demystify sourcing for the rest of the business and encourage enterprise-wide engagement.

With simplified processes, the VSP sourcing organization has become a strategic partner to the business, leading to increased engagement and savings across the enterprise.

How do they do this? Here are Greg’s top tips:

1. Sourcing requires 2020 vision.

Complete visibility into the sourcing process is imperative to smooth operations. With new technologies, procurement professionals can now manage all of their projects in one place and keep their stakeholders constantly in the loop and up to date.

2. Automation is your friend.

With increasingly complex projects, the sourcing organization must nurture its internal and external relationships more than ever before. Procurement professionals need solutions to help streamline and automate their workflows, and ultimately give them more time to focus on people, not paperwork.

3. If you’re not early, you’re late.

Being proactive is imperative to sourcing success. Greg urges procurement professionals to engage with the business early and often in order to establish strong relationships and achieve better outcomes.

We sincerely appreciated our roundtable discussions with Greg and loved hearing how VSP Global is leveraging technology to maximize sourcing’s impact on the business. CPO Rising 2019 reinforced that sourcing and procurement are more important than ever in managing risk and driving cost savings. As business challenges become increasingly complex, sourcing organizations must be equipped with the proper tools in order to keep up and get ahead. We can’t wait to attend next year’s summit and continue learning from procurement industry leaders.

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.

The ABCs of New Procurement Tech

AI: On AI, I gave some backstory on the term, and sought to clarify what AI is and what it isn’t, including some popular definitions and distinctions – like how there’s Narrow AI (like machine learning, natural language processing, and robotic process automation), and Artificial General Intelligence (like deep learning, neural networks, and fully-autonomous, self-learning systems). I then gave some examples of procurement use cases for AI – like guided buying and predictive purchasing.

Blockchain: On Blockchain, I again gave some historical context (it was invented only a decade ago), and really tried to explain what Blockchain is – a distributed, decentralized database that acts as a ledger for all transactions, changes, and movement. Everything you do on a blockchain is permanent, cannot be changed, and is open to others to see (especially on “open” blockchains). So it drives great transparency into transactions – especially those across extended supply chains. On that note I shared a couple of use cases for Blockchain, such as supply chain track and trace, and smart contracts that are written into the Blocchain’s code that automatically execute and fulfill.

Connected Devices: On Connected Devices, or what we also call the Internet of Things, I talked about how advances in sensors, processors, and transmitters enable them to be embedded within everyday items, machines, and products – like thermostats, utility poles, gas/electric meters, commercial equipment, and so on. This enables the automatic transmission of critical business intelligence point-to-point, or machine-to-machine. They’ve long-been used by manufacturing, and use cases for procurement have started to emerge, like helping procurement teams get ahead of managing maintenance, repair, and operational services (MRO) spend, and syncing with Blockchain digital ledgers to link the physical and digital supply chains to enhance track-and-trace.

Summary

Artificial intelligence for procurement has already started to become a reality, even if for now we’re still applying “narrow” AI to the discipline. Blockchain use cases for procurement, such as supply chain track and trace, smart contracts, and now supply chain financing and payment reconciliation, continue to be modeled, explored, and piloted, although the technology has some issues of scale to work out, like high energy consumption and effective aggregation of disaggregated commodities (like bulk coffee).

For their part, connected devices / IoT continue to collect and transmit vital operational intelligence to procurement, manufacturing, and services, allowing these departments to get ahead of MRO and budget accordingly. If industry can iron out some integration and deployment issues, IoT-integrated Blockchain can be the missing link for linking the physical and digital supply chains and enhancing track-and-trace.

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How Far Can We Apply Industry 4.0 to Procurement?

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.

CPO Rising Hall of Fame Class of 2017 Inductee: Shelley Stewart Jr.

Shelley Stewart Jr. has been called one of the most powerful executives in corporate America. As Vice President of Sourcing & Logistics and Chief Procurement Officer at DuPont, this man led global procurement and logistics activities totaling $20 billion dollars annually for the oldest continuously operating company in the United States. Shelley also played a significant role in the DowDuPont merger by helping to deliver synergy savings and standing up two new organizations in support of spinning into three standalone, world-class companies. He joined DuPont in 2012 after serving as Senior Vice President of Operational Excellence and Chief Procurement Officer at Tyco, where, in his first three years with the company, he saved it $1 billion dollars. Shelley’s resume also includes successful stints at SVP and VP of Supply Chain at Invensys and Raytheon, respectively, and nearly 20 years in sourcing at United Technologies.

In November of 2017, Shelley was inducted into the CPO Rising Hall of Fame, along with fellow CPO Tom Linton of Flex. The two procurement leaders joined the ranks of Tim Cook (of Apple), Gregg Brandyberry of GlaxoSmithKline, and Harold (Hal) Good of the City of Palm Springs, and most recently, Scott Singer of RioTinto. Each of our Hall of Famers have made a significant contribution to the procurement profession over the course of their respective careers. Shelley is not only a procurement visionary, he is also considered among the most forward-thinking executives working in business today.

In October of 2018, Shelley retired from DuPont to lead Bottom Line Advisory, LLC, a boutique consulting firm focused on procurement operational improvement. On Tuesday, October 29, Shelley will take a break from his busy schedule and join fellow CPOs, Nisreen Bagasra of Veolia North America and Dan Warn of athenahealth, at CPO Rising 2019 for a panel discussion on how CPOs can expand procurement’s value. Catch them at 10:55 am in the Harvard Hall at the Harvard Club of Boston (Back Bay).

To see a few images from CPO Rising 2017, click here – CPO Honors: Stars Shine Bright at the 2017 Summit

The CPO Honors 2019 Awards Gala is scheduled for October 29, 2019. If you cannot join us for the event (sidenote: there are still tickets available — click here to purchase and join us!), please be sure to check this site to see who will join Shelley and other CPO Rising Hall of Fame members at this year’s Gala Awards Dinner.

David Kern

Andrew Bartolini: How did you get into procurement and how did you move up into your current position today?

David Kern: I fell into procurement when I worked at Staples. I was at a point in my career where I had to decide if I wanted to work in public service (police and or fire department), or if I wanted to stay in corporate America.  While working in Staples internal audit, I had an opportunity to take on an audit of our transportation division; and at the same time I was on a path to explore becoming a police officer. I quickly found in my audit that a transportation division at Staples really needed someone to manage the transportation portfolio for its final-mile delivery, which at the time was roughly thirty million dollars in annual spend. Staples leadership offered me this unique advancement position but I turned it down and chose to stay on the path of exploring becoming a police officer.

After successfully completing the Police Academy, I was once again approached and re-offered by Staples to take over the final-mile delivery supplier oversight function.  Feeling as though I had accomplished a personal goal and could remain semi-active in helping the local community; I accepted the Staples offer and continued to volunteer as a Police officer.  Over the next nine years, I led efforts to help grow the transportation portfolio to a half a billion dollars.  It was during that course of time that I was able to recognize my own personal talents in driving value – whether it be through collaboration with vendors, or through identifying synergies to yield better service, expense, and overall healthiness for the space that I was overseeing.

AB: That’s awesome. So, it sounds like even though you were within a fairly well-established business, you really got great experience in managing a high growth business?

DK: In the span of nine years, I was able to see something later commonly known as transformation; and not even really see it – I actually lived in the middle of it.   Staples has a well-defined North American final-mile delivery footprint; as that business started to grow within North America as one of the few next-day service providers, it was critical they continuously build out network capabilities.  This included adding fleets and couriers on top of increasing the reliance on UPS/FedEx/USPS; along with other non-traditional modes of transportation. During that course of time, it was important to focus not only on domestic transportation growth, but expand into Canada and other international locations.

When you take all that explosive growth and scale into consideration, and you then layer in the purchase of Corporate Express, a large next day office supply corporate retailer, my role within transportation and transformation became instrumental overnight.  I found my passion as a change agent focused on transforming different business operations and value add services.  My mission was clear, to focus on driving a common service offering that provided the highest level of service at the lowest sustainable price. So when I hear about transformation as the new buzz word in today’s boardrooms, I quickly smile as I had an opportunity to experience transformation very early in my career – and for that I am extremely grateful.

AB: You’ve hit upon two great things: dealing with a fast-growth environment and merging organizations.  What are some of the takeaways you have in bringing two organizations together and managing that change?

DK: When two companies merge, sometimes the assumption is that the acquired company doesn’t have the best processes; and so the acquirer may assume that what they’re doing is best in class.  Taking this mindset can be a real disadvantage. Rather, taking time to seek to understand and brainstorm as a collective group, open and honestly, will often find that you both have solid best practices and process.  It’s a matter of augmentation and tweaking to get to the best process for the combined entity going forward.

In addition to just seeking common ground and best way forward, it is critical that you approach opportunities by “looking underneath the hood with a trust-but-verify” mindset.  This applies daily to procurement as we are constantly being pitched from a variety of sales folks. Information provided needs to be validated for accuracy of what is being sold and to confirm what is being purchased solves the business requirements.   So when you start to look at bringing operations of like-minded intent and structure, you’ve got to make sure that you don’t overlook what you think or what you’re accustomed to thinking is the best process – everything we touch has opportunity for improvement.

AB: So talk about your current role and what’s happening at TripAdvisor.

DK: Awesome stuff; I started at TripAdvisor just under four years ago. It was a new role – they didn’t have a procurement team. It’s been an amazing journey, both professionally and personally, being part of such a great organization. What I probably learned the most is that companies like Trip have highly talented people who are willing to just roll up their sleeves and help do whatever they can whenever they can.  It’s just fascinating to see how quickly things evolve, and how every day there’s something new to learn. Any day you’re not learning doesn’t put you behind, but it sure makes you have to catch up the next couple of days because the world is moving fast. There’s so much to learn and plenty ways to grow professionally – I truly feel very lucky to be part of the TripAdvisor team!

AB: As you look at the industry and the profession going forward, what are some of the things you see that are emerging and interesting, or some of the things that get you excited about working in the profession?

DK:  I’m excited about the profession because it seems like it’s more of a new / growth area than an established defined function.  What I mean by that is when you hear the word “procurement,” not everyone knows what it means; and for those that think they know I often get asked “what does TripAdvisor procure?” In my opinion, Procurement is simply explained as a core group of skills and experiences for which someone leverages and represent opportunities as an agent working on your behalf.  The core focus is to secure an outcome that provide sustainable value for shareholders and or customers.

Independent of the basic efforts outlined above, Procurement is becoming not only a trusted partner but gaining valuable insights into operational aspects that not everyone within an organization can see or synergizes.  Procurement professionals have a huge opportunity to acquire operational exposure and insights.  Providing such insights to other business units that may not know internal opportunities/solutions exist can be ten times more valuable than saving a few points on a contract.  I’m super excited about what procurement is becoming and will be in the future – value creation through process improvement, operational enhancements, and supplier value creation; combined driving meaningful shareholder and customer value.

AB: As an industry leader, what is some advice you can give to other professionals.

DK: One thing I love most about Trip Advisor is that we have a great culture, and a core focus on “acting like an owner.”   This allows my team to talk with people about how procurement can drive variety of benefits and solutions.  We see the operational enhancements that people don’t necessarily know exist because they either don’t know who to talk to, internally, or they don’t necessarily know where to start. Procurement can be that gateway into some really impactful things that will be meaningful to all folks – customers, shareholders, and employees.

AB: Thank you so much David!

DK: My pleasure, Andrew. I’m passionate for this space and I appreciate the opportunity to help others find Procurement and grow within their personal journey.

Post Script: Catch David’s keynote presentation, “GIG, Liquid, Agile Employee Procurement Opportunities,” on Day 1 at CPO Rising 2019 — next week!

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.

Simply put, Gregg “gets” procurement and supply management, having logged more than 40 years of executive and managerial experience across multiple industries, like automotive, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals. He was the Global eSourcing Lead and a consultant at Takeda Pharmaceutical after serving as Senior Vice President, Market Operations for FedBid, Inc, a high volume reverse auction marketplace serving the Federal Government. Gregg also served as a Senior Advisor for A.T. Kearney Procurement and Analytic Solutions organization following a three-year stint as CEO of Wildfire Commerce. But he is perhaps best known as the former Vice President of Procurement – Global Systems and Operations for pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline, a role that he held for 10 years.

Early Beginnings

After leaving Western Illinois University in 1974, Gregg promptly got to work building his 42-year career in supply management. He started at the very ground floor of manufacturing at an auto parts manufacturing plant and eventually became the head of quality. “Something that I learned very early on was that price doesn’t necessarily correlate with quality,” said Gregg. “There’s no strong correlation between what you pay and what you get. It stuck with me forever.” Indeed, Gregg echoed these comments when he was a panelist at CPO Rising 2016.

Before he switched careers to procurement, Gregg became Director of Manufacturing and Quality at the Gates Energy Products, a division of The Gates Corporation and GE’s former battery business division. The experience taught him the fundamentals about how to consider capacity, efficiency, utilization, velocity, and through-put – all the things that a good manufacturer that has a finite amount of time, space, and capacity needs to make the best product possible. As he got into procurement, Gregg realized that procurement did not quite work this way. “It was still in the early days, it was so transactional but did not have a lot of structure, aside from strategic sourcing,” he said. It was very event driven; each event took a certain amount of time; work never seemed as “planful” as what a good manufacturer would do – how they would do their future planning.

Finding His Way in Procurement with eSourcing

Gregg left The Gates Corporation in 1990 and found his way to GSK, where he would make the leap to procurement and also spend the next 16 years of his career. Between 2000 and 2005, he saw procurement technologies, particularly eSourcing platforms, grow in popularity. Gregg worked hard at GSK to illustrate how a small staff could conduct many sourcing events using eSourcing platforms. He set up four global sourcing hubs in the US, UK, and India where his staff of 15 ran between 10,000 and 12,000 annual sourcing events; roughly half of them were auctions. He had “an extremely engaged workforce” that was using a new technology, and that added to the excitement of it all. Pretty soon their excitement outpaced their efficiency, but he and his staff eventually learned how to source more efficiently, even for eSourcing.

As a result of his efforts to drive eSourcing at GSK, his team won the “Baseline ROI Award” for the highest ROI for any IT project that Baseline Magazine had ever considered. They returned investment every two or three working days. This wasn’t an accident. As Gregg says, “a lot of the stars were aligned: tremendous senior management support, a real burning platform to take costs out, an executive, CEO-level mandate, and an organization that was designed to help allow work to flow through it.” Other factors that contributed to the success of Gregg’s sourcing team were that he instituted eSourcing at GSK when it “was at the dawn of all the new procurement technology.” He and his team were not only willing to give eSourcing a try, there were excited by it. “When you have all of these things working together, there’s a good chance you’re going to be successful.”

Gregg reflects on his 10 years as VP of Procurement at GSK and calls it one of the best times in his working life – a time in which he saw many senior procurement people – including CPOs and directors – “sprout” while he was there. Still, every good leader knows when it is time to take on their next challenge, and in 2009, Gregg left GSK to take on three. He became CEO of Wildfire Commerce in February 2009. A couple of months later, he assumed a concurrent role as a Senior Advisor at AT Kearney Procurement and Analytic Solutions. More than a year later, he also joined FedBid as the Senior Vice Present of Market Operations, where he would serve for nearly four years.

Taking eSourcing to the “Next Level”

At FedBid, Gregg led a team whose focus was to run eSourcing events, and boy did they run them. At the height of his tenure, he and his team conducted more than 50,000 eAuction events annually for their government clients. At a time when the concept of “Big Data” was starting to be bandied about, Gregg and his team were getting soaked in data. On any given day, they might have had more than 500 auctions going on. He remembers a day at the end of FY2011 where they had 2600 auctions underway, with an average length of three days, and tens of thousands of discrete transactions occurring.

To understand their events and to help them better manage their auctions, they pulled data from the system every 20 minutes and, using their BI analytics tool, organized the data into real-time reports that their “market specialists” would consult. They would give the specialists real-time intelligence to say that they might not have enough suppliers bidding, or that there is not enough competition, or that there are some questionable bids coming in that need to be checked out. “Nobody’s doing procurement like that,” Gregg boasted.

Like his tenure at GSK, this was a really interesting time for Gregg, and the experience has shaped his thinking on how sourcing events will be carried out.

The Future of eSourcing

For Gregg, some of the approaches that procurement is using are getting pretty stale – procurement as a whole is spinning the same cycles year-over-year, and it is ripe for change. The way he sees it, a big change for corporations will be to get away from treating everything like a single event and move towards a marketplace approach where suppliers are pre-vetted. That way, they will not have to be trained because they already understand how the marketplace works, and buyers “just throw” opportunities at them. Buyers can get highly specific, too – they can ask for diverse suppliers, like women-, veteran-, or minority-owned businesses, or highly-specific suppliers to bid on niche projects. Gregg and his staff were able to do this at FedBid and were very successful with it.

Final Thoughts

We’re very grateful to Gregg for continually supporting CPO Rising, the CPO Rising 2019 event, and for being a true “friend of the firm.” He’s a great guy — colleagial and easy going — and we look forward to seeing him once again at the Harvard Club of Boston this week. Don’t be shy — introduce yourself!

Heidi will deliver the first keynote presentation of CPO Rising 2019 on driving “Procurement with a Purpose” – on how the procurement function is uniquely positioned within many enterprises to drive positive social and environmental change across global supply chains. It’s a topic on which Heidi is well versed, having lived and worked abroad for so many years and having experienced globalization from both sides of the world. The following is a conversation between Heidi and Andrew Bartolini, in three parts, that has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Andrew Bartolini: Back when I started working in the technology sector (late 1999 – early 2000), global sourcing meant sourcing from China, right? But now it no longer means just China, right? There are pockets of capabilities in all these formerly-developing or currently-developing countries. That having been said, do you think that it is easier to do global sourcing now because the suppliers are more sophisticated? Or is it harder because you have so many more potential competitors or potential suppliers and regions to source from? More broadly, when you think of global sourcing back when you were right there with your feet on the ground until today, what are some of the things that have changed in that process and in those relationships?

Heidi Landry: Well, I would say, as with most things, Andrew, that it’s a bit of both. I think if I take what’s become easier, there’s a lot more data and information sources available to find new suppliers and to assess their financial viability then there ever has been. On the flip side, the demands on the suppliers have become increasingly complex. It’s certainly not a matter of just delivering their goods and services; it’s much more around the total value that they deliver, including their innovation capability, their level of sophistication, and social responsibility issues, their capabilities to offer added-value services, whether it’s managing inventory, just-in-time services, or local warehousing. So while it’s easier to find those suppliers and it’s easier to access them, at least at a preliminary level through the technology that we’ve got, the set of demands we’ve put on those suppliers has really increased.

So, for our suppliers, there’s a lot of complexity in developing that to meet our company’s standard, especially with a company like Johnson & Johnson, which has a huge footprint in social responsibility. We really pride ourselves on our “Big for Good” efforts in the sourcing arena. We want to work with suppliers who meet certain criteria, or at minimum are willing to develop and expand in certain areas, particularly focused on our social responsibility goals. And that’s already table stakes, along with having very strong quality systems, robust management systems, strong supplier reliability, et cetera. So, those demands have become very complex; and of course we work in a highly-regulated industry, which has increased the complexity of identifying and qualifying the correct trading partner.

So again, looking back it used to be quite simple of a task: five or six years ago we did not have an awareness of the impact we could make on social issues through procurement, but today we do. And we strive to put our spend to use according to the principles of how we behave as our own company.

AB: Yeah, that’s right. There was such a big shift that happened about 20 years ago in global sourcing, and it continues; but the shift is back within the enterprise. And what procurement has now is an ability to amplify its linkages to key corporate initiatives, like CSR; or in some cases they become much more directly tied to revenue.

Now let me ask you this: when you think about procurement in the 2020s, what are some of the things that get you or keep you excited about working in this field?

HL: Well, I’ve never gotten tired of procurement. I know I’ve been doing it for almost all of my career, and I find that it evolves very rapidly. We’ve just been leap-frogging forward in terms of our capabilities to automate basic transactions that allow us to focus much more on where we add value in the strategic sourcing space. So as I think forward a decade from now, clearly that will continue to accelerate.

I think that we’ll enter much more deeply into partnerships with some of our key suppliers, especially in the space of co-innovation, exploring higher-enabled innovation and additional value opportunities. Our collaboration with some of those strategic suppliers will become much deeper.

And then I think we’ll become much more expert on balancing and managing our risks and our external environment. So I think we’ll see many companies pursuing a more asset-light strategy, and therefore becoming more reliant on the procurement team to provide effective management of external manufacturing networks, understanding suppliers’ unique competencies, getting the best value. And so as we develop more in that space, I think we’ll see procurement move to more of an alliance-management role versus a more standardized supplier management role, in addition to the more traditional procurement roles we play in Direct materials and Indirect/Commercial arenas.

AB: Yeah, that’s great.

Join us next week as we complete the conversation between Andrew and Heidi on the changing nature of global sourcing.

1. The unparalleled lineup of top speakers…from Carbonite, DuPont, Johnson & Johnson, TripAdvisor, United Technologies, and more, you won’t find a better agenda than the one Ardent has designed with some of the world’s top procurement professionals and executives.
2. The ability to network with like-minded peers. Procurement professionals are often very busy and don’t have the opportunity to connect with colleagues in the industry. Why not take a couple of days and converse with like-minded executives?
3. Procurement is evolving…learn how to approach the future. Every speaker at CPO Rising 2019 brings something different to the event. Learn how the industry is evolving, and what it means for your organization.
4. Historic Boston is a lovely place to visit in the fall. As the weather gets cooler and the leaves begin to turn, Boston just feels like “home,” even to those who visit. Whether it’s the chill in the air, or the smell of fresh apple cider donuts, or the Fenway Faithful cheering on another Banner Red Sox Year, you’ll fall in love with the City…and maybe our accents, too.
5. Learn the best practices that will help your procurement team be more successful. There are many strategies and approaches that you may not be aware of that will come to light at CPO Rising 2019. Make your team be more successful in the year ahead by learning from the very best.
6. The ability to engage with the solution providers that are providing innovation to the procurement market. Technology is a critical component in driving value from the procurement function. The CPO Rising 2019 event will feature a variety of technology solutions from which to learn how innovation is paving a new path for the procurement industry.
7. You will connect with Ardent’s expert analyst team on the issues you want to discuss. Ardent’s analyst team is well-versed in the supply management industry, and its entire lineup of thought leaders will be in attendance throughout the event. Utilize their knowledge!
8. Learn about the “State of the Chief Procurement Officer.” One of the many highlights of the event will be a “State of the Union”-type address on where the modern-day procurement professional sits today and where it can go in the near future.
9. Free, new research from Ardent Partners ($499 value). Every attendee of CPO Rising 2019 will be provided with a complimentary edition of new Ardent research focused on the big trends (and the team’s predictions) in procurement for 2019.
10. It’ll be THE procurement event of 2019. No other procurement or supply management conference will offer the same level of expertise, thought leadership, and network impact that CPO Rising 2019 will provide.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to attend this year’s landmark procurement symposium: register now (click here), and we look forward to seeing you in just a few weeks!