News and Events

From the time we called for the Death of Strategic Sourcing in 2010 to all the conferences that we speak at or host, one thing is consistently clear – people choose to define Category Management (CM) as they see fit. I’ve had CPOs tell me that they have been doing CM for a few years but when probed, it [...]

One of the primary differences between Strategic Sourcing and Category Management is an increased focus on Change Management.  One of the most powerful Change Management techniques is Working in Teams.   The concept seems simple enough BUT there is an art to teaming as well as a science.  I  read an article in HBR, “The Two [...]

Who would have thunk that Hamlet would show up in this blog but here we are.  This question of whether we should go to the supply market for a category or just strike a new deal with the incumbent is faced by every single Category Manager.  And they are often perplexed by not knowing how [...]

Last week, we ran a three-day Consulting Skills workshop for a new global client.  The CPO who hired us saw the value of requiring her team to function like an internal consulting practice – since one of our roles as Procurement professionals is to be an internal consultant. The competencies required to play that role [...]

As we have mentioned before, Talent Management always continues to find its way to the top challenges list every single year.  And while it is impossible to single out a particular reason for that, one logical conclusion is to examine the “input” process – meaning that if the selection process itself is flawed then no [...]