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.

RELATED ARTICLES

Artificial Intelligence for Procurement Gets a Reality Check

Artificial Intelligence: Making the Procurement World Smarter

Procurement’s Love Affair with Blockchain: Built to Last, or Destined to Fail?

Payables Place First Thing: Tradeshift Introduces Supply Chain Finance Using Blockchain Technology

Manufacturing Success: How Procurement can Leverage Industry 4.0 to Manage MRO Spend

How Far Can We Apply Industry 4.0 to Procurement?

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!

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.

Ardent Partners will present awards for outstanding performance and execution in the last year – “The CPO Honors” – to a variety of high achievers including CPOs and other procurement leaders, procurement teams, and new this year: procurement solution providers and/or other experts. The deadline to submit nominations is September 15th, so if you and your team would like to be recognized for Best-in-Class procurement achievement over the last year, make your nomination today!

The categories for nomination are:

The Innovation Award: Presented to the CPO and team that have used new and innovative strategies and approaches to overcome significant hurdles.

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

Best Team Performance Award: 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): Presented to the CPO who has driven new performance heights as a result of their direct involvement and leadership and overall exceptional executive management.

**NEW

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

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

To make a nomination, visit the event site:

https://events.cporising.com/cpohonors/

Dan Warn

Andrew Bartolini: How did you become the CPO of athena? What was your track, or path to the role?

Dan Warn: The short synopsis is that I fell into procurement and procurement consulting. I discovered that I love two main things about it: it’s one of the only functions that views the entirety of the enterprise’s spend with third-party vendors; and from that, it provides an opportunity to collaborate with every area of the business and to deliver really tangible results. I’m a results guy; I really enjoy being able to point to a set of metrics and tangible results at the end of the day. It’s a lot more than just savings, too – it’s total cost of ownership and total value which includes a whole host of “softer” metrics including customer and stakeholder satisfaction. Basically, it’s a fun function where you get to work with the whole company and at the end of the day you get to point to a very clear set of results that you delivered.

At athena, and at least a couple of times in my career, I’ve gravitated towards greenfield opportunities that are ripe for transformation because that’s where you get to see the most progress. And by definition, you need to meet all the stakeholders, starting on Day 1, to get a handle on where those opportunities exist.

AB: With those, how do you find greenfield opportunities? Is there a general approach?

DW: It’s a great question. I think it is situationally dependent, but I believe the concept of “quick win” applies to any opportunity, not just procurement. What I’ve done with every greenfield opportunity I’ve had is to take a very quick spend snapshot, make an opportunity assessment, and layer on a matrix of risk, criticality, and ease of implementation. I then target a few things that fit with willing stakeholders that are going to be less sensitive, or on commodity-based categories that haven’t been competitively bid or managed very well. In greenfield opportunities it’s been fairly easy to identify a handful of those areas. Before you even start improving “people, process, technology” (building a team, fixing process, implementing or buying technology), go deliver on four or five of those quick wins. You will gain some instant credibility allowing you to then kick off a more in-depth assessment across people, process, and technologies. I feel like it’s a pretty simple answer, but if other folks aren’t doing that, they should be (laughs).

After the quick wins, I generally start with people first, process second, and technology third. Cleary, I’ve spent a lot of time in the technology space – I’m very pro- technology, but it’s tough to lead with technology until you have a good handle on people and process. For me, hiring the right talent means hiring really analytically-savvy people that are also really good communicators. We can then leverage our quick wins to gain easier entry with our stakeholders and build their trust. Then process is something that can follow, right? Because if you have quick wins and the right people that have built trust, it’s easier to introduce more stringent process frameworks – things that people have to adhere to – because they now trust that you can deliver, and they trust that you have assigned the right person to care-take their spend category. Then once you’ve done those things, you’ve got the right people, you’re focused on the right things, and you’ve got processes that people are starting to follow, then enable that with the best technology.

AB: As you think about the talent management piece, it’s a competitive environment – particularly in the urban centers in the US. Talk more about what you look for, more broadly, in your people. For example, do you look for rich process experience, as well as analytic skills?

DW: It’s a great question. To be totally honest, I try to bring along 1-2 folks from my network that I have worked with or otherwise know to be accomplished practitioners and already possess a highly analytical skillset and the ability to communicate, or I have to go hire those people, because I need a couple of experienced people to allow me to rapidly toggle towards the raw talent. I really try to get folks that are newer to the function, but are super eager to learn, great people skills, and that have raw competencies around analytics. I sometimes look for non-traditional backgrounds – at least non-traditional for procurement – people that have been in sales and marketing, that are really good communicators, that can sell a message, and that are data savvy. Not having a ton of procurement experience is OK, because it’s important that we have the ability to teach new hires how to run a sourcing process, how to read a contract, how to negotiate price, calculate price benchmarks, and all the things we know to be important to the function. I think those things are relatively easy to teach to the right people that have the raw competencies.

AB: Do you ever consider tapping into newer talent pools, like independent contractors, or the so-called “gig economy”?

DW: I haven’t…. I think, as much as I like to consider myself an innovator, I’m a dinosaur in that I’m an ex-Army guy. I really like having a team that’s here, that’s engaged, that wants mentorship and coaching, and career goals that go beyond the job at hand. I probably have a bit of an inherent bias against the “gig economy” – somebody plugging in and out, here and there. I think it can totally work – it’s clearly working in lots of areas in the world today, just look at Uber. I just prefer to have a team. But having said that, I’m increasingly looking towards outsourced specialty service providers for more complex or unique categories, like telecom expense management. I think the GPO model for transactional tail-spend categories can deliver a lot of value without having to add a FTE. So, I don’t know why I’m not thinking about contract, temp, or gig-labor type for things that might lend itself well to that model. I just haven’t traditionally gone there.

AB: What are some of the things that get you excited about procurement from an emerging-opportunity standpoint?

DW: I think this really gets at the theme of my presentation – the value that procurement can deliver. The longer I’m in this function, the more I get excited about all of the ways we can deliver value and define how we do that, compared to ten-fifteen years ago when it was largely contract and cost-related. I see procurement continuing to move up in visibility. I see most of us now reporting to the CFO; some are reporting to the COO. I think we’re going to continue see a progression to report directly to the CEO. The entire end-to-end lifecycle of a vendor relationship (intake, pipeline, sourcing, savings, contract, better due diligence, ongoing performance management, and payables) is under the CPO’s charge, in addition to price/cost, in terms of how we determine whether relationships with the vendor are going well (or not).

I got into this because I really like the tangible nature of conducting a project, pointing to cost savings, and having a happy stakeholder. Increasingly, measuring ourselves, not in cost savings, but, “are we making our stakeholders wildly happy with their engagement with us”? which can create all kinds of definitions of value beyond pure cost savings. The longer I’m in this function, the more I see what we can and should touch and own, and that continues to broaden the definition of the value we can deliver. You mentioned [in this year’s CPO Rising research study] that momentum may be slowing. Personally, at least in the organizations that I’ve been in, I’ve seen the opposite. I see real opportunities for leadership across all aspects of third-party spend relationships. So to me that’s exciting – there are multiple ways we continue to add value as we grow our influence and visibility across any organization.

AB: Yeah – that’s awesome.

DW: Thanks, Andrew.  

Be sure to catch Dan’s keynote presentation, “How to Influence Friends and Manage Spend,” on Day 2 of CPO Rising 2019!

Candidates are chosen based upon external nominations, and must be nominated prior to September 15, 2019 to be considered. So, if there is a CPO (procurement leader), procurement team, and/or industry expert that you think is deserving, make sure to submit your nomination below before September 15th! 

The Innovation Award: Presented to the CPO and team that have used new and innovative strategies and approaches to overcome significant hurdles.

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

Best Team Performance Award: 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): Presented to the CPO who has driven new performance heights as a result of their direct involvement and leadership and overall exceptional executive management.

**NEW

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

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

Submit your nomination here.

Ardent will reveal the winners of these prestigious awards in global procurement on October 29th at Gala Dinner held at the CPO Rising 2019 Summit. The CPO Honors winners are chosen by a committee of industry experts including the Ardent Partners analyst team, CPO Rising Hall of Famers, and other industry luminaries.

Previous winners include:

• Tom Linton, CPO Flex
• Walter Charles, CPO Biogen
• Shelley Stewart, CPO DuPont
• Gregg Brandyberry, CPO GlaxoSmithKline
• CA Technologies’ Procurement Department
• Steve Listzwan, CPO Shire
• Sara Malconian, CPO Harvard University
• Dennis Silva, CPO, BCNET
• Boston Scientific’s Procurement Department
• Scott Singer, CPO Rio Tinto
• Watermark Retirement Communities’ Procurement Department

CPO Honors Timeline

• Nominations open June 1 – September 15
• Finalists Announced – October 1
• CPO Honors Gala Dinner October 29 (at the CPO Rising 2019 Summit)

Register for The CPO Rising 2019 Summit