Geopolitical Agility: Future-Proofing for Supply Chain Uncertainty
Location: Airmeet Date : June 24, 2025 Organizer: Art of Procurement
In a world where shifting policies, trade tensions, and climate disruptions dominate headlines, procurement professionals are navigating an increasingly complex and volatile landscape. Staying informed and responsive has become not just a challenge—but a strategic imperative.
From new regulations to Scope 3 emissions, the external pressures on procurement teams are mounting. The ability to adapt quickly without losing sight of long-term objectives is what sets best-in-class procurement teams and resilient supply chains apart.
Join us for this AOP Live session as Darshan Deshmukh, President at ProcureAbility, explores how procurement can rise to today’s geopolitical challenges with agility and strategic foresight.
Darshan will share insights on:
- The difference between perceived and actual risk in supply chain management
- How strategic sourcing can drive near-term decisions while aligning with long-term goals
- Why companies that stay committed to sustainability gain a lasting competitive advantage—even amid disruption and market uncertainty
Don’t miss this opportunity to learn how procurement leaders are building resilience and agility into their supply chain strategies—today and for the future.
See Event
Sourcing Strategically in Chaotic Conditions
Location: Airmeet Date : June 10, 2025 - June 10, 2025 Organizer: Art of Procurement
We regularly have the opportunity to watch chaos at work in global markets, but procurement teams should see this as their chance to shine, not a reason to shy away from the challenge.
There are any number of procurement strategies that can be applied, even in difficult times, and many of them are tried-and-true approaches that have delivered results in the past. These strategies just need to be rediscovered and reapplied by courageous procurement leaders.
In this AOP Live session, we will be joined by Adam Collins from Esker to discuss the opportunity - yes, the opportunity - procurement has to leverage the strengths of strategic sourcing in chaotic conditions:
- Fostering competition to drive both cost and value from supplier engagements
- Proactively using price discovery and contract audits to uncover new savings opportunities (or mitigate potential increases), ultimately expanding and elevating procurement's value proposition
- Remembering to manage payment timing, either in support of working capital objectives or as a negotiating lever
See Event
Optimizing Services Spend Management for Maximum Impact
Location: Airmeet Date : May 13, 2025 - May 13, 2025 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Services spend management often falls into one of two categories: a few highly strategic partnerships that are well managed and… everything else.
If ‘everything else’ services spend is left to follow the path of least resistance, procurement is leaving behind a huge opportunity to increase value and mitigate risk.
Addressing unmanaged services spend at scale is a massive opportunity to impact the business - and for procurement to elevate themselves in the eyes of executive leadership and decision makers at the same time.
Join Cheri Vander Moren, Lead Indirect Sourcing Manager at Amway, Mark Sawicki, Senior Vice President at Guidant Global, andBen De Wulf, Client Solutions Architect at Guidant Global, for a conversation that will address every stage of the services spend management maturity journey:
- Who should own the value creation process associated with services?
- How can procurement get stakeholders to ‘buy in’ up front?
- What are the minimum standards and benefits that my programme should deliver from day one and how do I structure my strategies to evolve as my programme matures?
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Tomorrow’s Procurement: A Marked Evolution From the Past
Location: Airmeet Date : March 18, 2025 - March 18, 2025 Organizer: Art of Procurement
According to a new report from Harvard Business Review, Procurement at a Crossroads: Evolve or Be Left Behind, a number of obstacles have prevented procurement from achieving their full potential: overly siloed workflows, a pervasive legacy mindset, and technology that falls short of user expectations.
But that was yesterday’s procurement, and today is a new day for the profession.
Join Sean Rhoades, Managing Director at Deloitte and Jason Moore, Head of the Enterprise Transformation Office at Zip, as they discuss how placing an emphasis on the user experience can enable procurement to unlock new categories of value and achieve higher levels of business partnership.
They will discuss key points from the report including:
- Why user experience expectations now require technology and process to be more aligned than ever before
- The role that process clarity and flexibility play in ensuring adoption as well as systems ROI
- Next level business outcomes that procurement can deliver against once the user experience is placed at the center of their strategic priorities
See Event
Opportunities to Elevate Services Spend Management
Location: Airmeet Date : January 28, 2025 - January 28, 2025 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Services spend represents a large and strategic part of procurement’s purview. According to Economist Impact research, 66 percent of companies spend between 5 and 15 percent of revenue on services.
As processes become more mature and digital platforms simultaneously facilitate access and improve the distributed user experience, procurement needs to ensure that services spend management continues to improve.
In 2023, Art of Procurement and SAP surveyed the community and discovered:
- Procurement’s potential for impact is rooted in collaboration,
- Consistency is just as important as having a fit-for-purpose platform, and
- How procurement’s approach to services spend management has improved but there are always new opportunities to improve
We recently updated the research to investigate new avenues of opportunity and look for indications that procurement’s services spend management practices continue to evolve and mature.
Join us on January 28th at 1pm ET for a webinar featuring Gordon Donovan, Vice President Research - Procurement & External Workforce at SAP, to hear this year’s findings and recommendations.
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Procurement's Top Line Impact: Driving Revenue Without Accepting Future Costs
Location: Airmeet Date : October 16, 2024 - October 16, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
As category strategies become more comprehensive and procurement increases the sophistication of the business outcomes they drive, many teams are turning their focus from the bottom line… to the top.
Given procurement’s skills and ambition, this seems like a natural progression, but not all revenue generating strategies are equal. Despite the best of intentions, some will lead to revenue while others open the door to added costs.
In this webinar, we will be joined by Richard Ham, CEO at Fine Tune. He and his team have encountered nearly every revenue generating approach procurement has ever conjured up, and they can spot cases where short term gains are likely to be followed by long term expenses.
Rich will answer your live questions about:
- Strategies like retroactive auditing, rebate programs, and contract signing bonuses that sound great but may not deliver as intended
- The advantages of taking early payment discounts and working with third party payment partners
- Preventing the allure of revenue generation from leading to systemic overspending
See Event
Seismic Shifts: Harnessing the Power of Procurement Orchestration
Location: Airmeet Date : August 28, 2024 - August 28, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Procurement is in the midst of a transformational shift when it comes to technology and data. By better understanding today’s collective priorities, the whole community can more confidently navigate future challenges and changes.
At the same time, how procurement perceives and positions themselves - and how the rest of the organization views their processes and value contribution - is closely tied to the success of every digital investment and impact opportunity that arises.
In early 2024, Art of Procurement and ORO Labs partnered to study the factors that are making procurement orchestration a top area of focus now and into the future.
In this AOP Live session, Shachi Rai Gupta, Vice President of Strategy at ORO Labs, will join us to discuss the early findings of the survey:
- The observations we can make about procurement organizations that consider strategic orchestration a top priority
- Why nearly half of procurement teams have low or very low real-time visibility into ongoing activities, and how that limits their impact
- The correlation between increased automation and how easy the rest of the business feels it is to work with procurement
- Predictions for 2025, including how generative AI will influence procurement orchestration
See Event
ESG Risk in Global Supply Chains: Assess Your Exposure
Location: Airmeet Date : August 20, 2024 - August 20, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) risks can pose significant challenges to supply chain resilience and sustainability. However, many organizations lack visibility into the full scope of their ESG risk exposure, making it difficult to proactively manage and mitigate these potential threats.
In this live session, Daniel Dorr will discuss the key findings from over 200 in-depth risk assessments. You will gain an understanding of the most significant ESG risks impacting organizations today and learn how leading organizations are proactively identifying and mitigating these risks to build more resilient supply chains.
Join the conversation to discover how your ESG risk management strategies compare to industry peers and identify areas for improvement.
We will answer live questions about:
- The highest ESG risks: What are the most significant environmental, social, and governance risks currently impacting global supply chains, and how can you assess your company's exposure?
- Effective risk mitigation strategies: How are leading companies addressing these risks through innovative and proactive approaches?
- Positive contributions: Uncover areas where suppliers are excelling in ESG performance, providing inspiration and benchmarks for your own sustainability initiatives?
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Establishing a Single Source of Truth for Third Party Risk in Financial Services
Location: Airmeet Date : June 26, 2024 - June 26, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
In financial services, effective third party risk management is not just a recommended practice. It is a core operational competency that, in some cases, may also be enforced through regulatory oversight.
At the same time, risk cannot - and should not - be avoided altogether. Instead, it is the firms that establish streamlined business practices and support them with well-integrated digital platforms that create an opportunity to drive successful outcomes for themselves and their clients.
In this webinar, Vivek Jayaraj from Deloitte and Arnaud Malardé from Ivalua will answer live questions and share current use cases for emerging technologies such as AI in pursuit of a single source of truth about third party risk.
Vivek and Arnaud will engage in an open conversation about:
-What a ‘single source of truth’ for third party risk looks like in financial services companies
-How to achieve integration and alignment between supplier management processes and technologies
-Proven use cases for embedding generative AI in third party risk management platforms
See Event
Why is facilities management so complex?
Location: Airmeet Date : June 12, 2024 - June 12, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
In the world of indirect spend management, there are few categories as complex - and high stakes - as facilities management. Delivery locations and sometimes provider networks are distributed and fragmented, making selection, implementation, and ongoing oversight especially difficult.
It is no wonder, then, that so many companies are tempted over to “the dark side” of convenience-based solutions in this category. Unfortunately, allowing third parties to manage the delivery of services may also allow them more control over cost than procurement realizes.
In this webinar, we will be joined by Alex Carlson, former Vice President of Category Management within Wells Fargo’s Corporate Properties division and new VP of Facilities Management Services at Fine Tune. His experience and advice can help your organization avoid “the dark side” and instead walk towards the many opportunities for value creation associated with this category of spend.
Alex will answer your live questions about:
-The benefits of managing costs as well as services through a cost plus model
-Navigating the transition from service provider to client
-Facilities management challenges in C-store, big box retail, and office environments
-In depth category perspectives and stories of managed services survival
See Event
Renaissance vs. Resistance: Embracing Human-Centric AI
Location: Airmeet Date : June 05, 2024 - June 05, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Whenever something new comes over the horizon, people have an instinctive response to it based on their perspective and past experiences. Companies are seeing this play out in real time today, as AI is embedded into more technologies and business processes.
For procurement, the response falls somewhere between renaissance and resistance.
According to Darshan Deshmukh, President at ProcureAbility, about 20-30 percent of procurement professionals are currently in the ‘resistance’ camp. They fear the impact that AI may have on their jobs and the rate at which change is taking place. Between 5-10 percent see AI’s impact as a ‘renaissance’—a welcome opportunity to completely rethink their role and impact.
Everyone else—the vast majority—falls somewhere in between.
In this AOP Live session, Darshan will join us to discuss the various human-centric aspects of AI and how procurement can play an active role in shaping and guiding the rapid changes happening across almost all industries.
● What does ‘human-centric’ AI mean?
● How effectively integrated AI can augment procurement’s efforts
● Uses cases about the additional results that procurement can deliver
See Event
Sourcing for Impact: Combining the Power of AI and Automation
Location: Airmeet Date : May 22, 2024 - May 22, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Like the rest of the world, procurement has been mesmerized by the renewed promise of AI. It can compete with writers and painters and instantly create something new almost out of thin air. But with everything new comes unknowns, risk, and the need for new skills and capabilities.
Although it receives less buzz, automation has already proven its ability to take manual, repetitive tasks off of procurement’s plate so they can focus on strategy, relationship building, and market insight. Automation can soothe many of the pain points procurement often hears about, including processes that take too much time.
What if procurement could combine the strengths of both - AI and automation - to realize accelerated benefits such as process efficiency and an improved user experience?
In this AOP Live session, we will be joined by Diarmuid Cahalane, Data Science Lead at Keelvar, and Kevin Neveu Jr., Solutions Consultant at Keelvar, who will answer live questions about:
-How AI and automation naturally fits into the procurement transformation efforts that are already underway
-Best practices for leveraging procurement’s human and digital talents in the right balance
-Real life examples that illustrate how AI and automation are elevating procurement’s impact on distributed buyers and the company as a whole
See Event
Renaissance vs. Resistance: Embracing Human-Centric AI
Location: Airmeet Date : June 05, 2024 - June 05, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Whenever something new comes over the horizon, people have an instinctive response to it based on their perspective and past experiences. Companies are seeing this play out in real time today, as AI is embedded into more technologies and business processes.
For procurement, the response falls somewhere between renaissance and resistance.
According to Darshan Deshmukh, President at ProcureAbility, about 20-30 percent of procurement professionals are currently in the ‘resistance’ camp. They fear the impact that AI may have on their jobs and the rate at which change is taking place. Between 5-10 percent see AI’s impact as a ‘renaissance’—a welcome opportunity to completely rethink their role and impact.
Everyone else—the vast majority—falls somewhere in between.
In this AOP Live session, Darshan will join us to discuss the various human-centric aspects of AI and how procurement can play an active role in shaping and guiding the rapid changes happening across almost all industries.
● What does ‘human-centric’ AI mean?
● How effectively integrated AI can augment procurement’s efforts
● Uses cases about the additional results that procurement can deliver
See Event
Generative AI and the Future of Procurement
Location: Airmeet Date : May 14, 2024 - May 14, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
After a year of experimenting with and speculating about the potential impact of generative AI, leading procurement organizations are starting to get serious about implementing it with specific use cases in mind.
As with any other new technology, procurement functions will need to be ready if they want to realize the full advantages of generative AI. This will require new skills and knowledge - including a full understanding of the data security and risk implications.
In this AOP Live session, we will be joined by Sushil Srinivasan, Managing Director, Supply Chain and Operations, Sourcing and Procurement, at Accenture, Christopher Sawchuk, Principal and Global Procurement Advisory Practice Leader at The Hackett Group, and Pascal Bensoussan, Chief Product Officer of Ivalua.
They will discuss what procurement should be doing today to prepare for a future that includes generative AI:
-Ways procurement talent will need to adapt and evolve
-How fast this promising new technology is evolving
-Important data security and risk considerations procurement should know about
-Real-life use cases from the field: content creation, document analysis, web research, and process automation
See Event
Unleashing the Power of Generative AI in Procurement
Location: Airmeet Date : April 30, 2024 - April 30, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
In a world where software has reshaped every industry, artificial intelligence is now transforming software itself, particularly in the world of procurement. The influence of AI, including technologies like ChatGPT, is revolutionizing source-to-pay workflows, promising to overcome longstanding challenges in data quality, process adoption, and compliance within procurement.
At the same time, risk is always present where progress is being made, and procurement should plan to address known sources of risk as well as monitoring for concerns that arise as organizations learn more about how AI can be best positioned within the tech stack.
In this AOP Live session, we will be joined by Lance Younger, CEO of ProcureTech, and Nick Heinzmann, Head of Research at Zip, to discuss the transformative role of generative AI across the procurement technology landscape. They will delve into how AI is becoming an integral part of the procurement tech stack, acting as both a powerful tool and a team enhancer, while also discussing the potential risks associated with integrating AI assistants into your team.
Join our live conversation to learn more about:
-The role that AI will play in the procurement tech stack
-The best ways to assess and apply AI between you and your stakeholders
-The top areas to watch for risks and future developments to put your team ahead
See Event
Connecting the Dots with Digital Contracts
Location: Airmeet Date : April 24, 2024 - April 24, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
In today’s fast-paced, high risk, intricately intertwined business environment, procurement needs effective digital contracts more than ever before. But those contracts, and the systems that create and manage them, have to be prepared to rise to the challenge as well.
Rather than static documents that are only used in an emergency or at renewal time, contracts can serve as connectors between people and organizations. Contracts must become the common ground that all supply relationships are founded on, and they should be as agile and sophisticated as procurement itself.
In this AOP Live session, we will be joined by Toby Laforest, Director of Product Marketing at Ironclad, to have a conversation about the mindset shift procurement needs to undergo for contracts to deliver their full potential value to the organization.
He will answer live questions about:
-How contracts can center a P2P system around user requirements and drive improved business decisions
-What contracts can teach us about positioning supplier relationships to succeed
-Opportunities for AI and automation to streamline negotiation processes while increasing overall project impact
See Event
Procurement Outsourcing - Perception v. Reality
Location: Airmeet Date : April 16, 2024 - April 16, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
With the latest ‘hot topic’ in procurement being the application of AI to some of their most tedious work, it would be easy to overlook the fact that what is really being discussed is procurement outsourcing.
Whether procurement is outsourcing work to artificial intelligence or ‘old fashioned’ human intelligence, the evaluation process and preparation to transition are much the same. Procurement must be prepared to identify and communicate the who, what, when, where, and how - not to mention the why.
In this AOP Live session, we will welcome Joe Payne, Senior Vice President of Sourcing and Procurement, and Anthony Mignogna, Vice President of Sales and Solution Engineering, both from Corcentric, to separate perceptions about procurement outsourcing from reality.
They will answer live questions about:
-Common misperceptions about procurement outsourcing that apply to these decisions, regardless of the intended destination for offloaded work
-The connection between procurement outsourcing and frameworks for measuring procurement’s impact
-Whether changes in the procurement space over the last few years make it possible to have a new conversation about outsourcing
See Event
Driving Procurement Value in Turbulent Times
Location: Airmeet Date : April 10, 2024 - April 10, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
For the last few years, procurement has doubled down on their investments in performance measurement, increasing the amount of data being tracked and reported to demonstrate their impact on the business. While procurement plays a critical role in navigating disruptions, they are constrained by having to do more with less.
What we know now, however, is that procurement also needs to be able to tell a good value story – but the value is only as good as the underlying ‘data story.’
When procurement can contextualize their results, including data from procurement and non-procurement systems, it becomes easier to document their total ROI. Once teams and relationships are empowered by increased understanding, procurement can reinforce their expanded role in the business, altering their own maturity curve.
Join us for a live discussion with Yannick Caharel, Chief Procurement Officer of Christian Dior Couture, and Pierre Laprée, Chief Product Officer at SpendHQ, about how procurement can increase and better communicate their total value - even in turbulent economic times.
Yannick and Pierre will answer live questions about:
-How telling better ‘value’ and ‘data’ stories can enhance procurement’s internal brand and impact
-The importance of properly addressing your audience with the metrics and KPIs that matter to them
-Why measuring value and then presenting it properly are such a powerful combination
See Event
3 Perspectives on Procurement and Risk for Mid-sized Organizations
Location: Airmeet Date : March 27, 2024 - March 27, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Procurement’s ability to have the desired impact is dependent upon a combination of knowledge, skills, technology - and relationships. Misalignment, whether real or perceived, will hold procurement and the business back from achieving their goals.
The recent Economist Impact study on procurement showed that while 59 percent of mid-sized companies report that procurement insights are essential for implementing the company’s strategy and vision, only 44 percent also believe procurement collaborates effectively with the rest of the organization.
A concerning disconnect to be sure.
In this LIVE webinar, Callum Veness Senior Director of Product Marketing, SAP Procurement and External Workforce, and Stephanie LeRoy Senior Director, Procurement, Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group will address this disconnection with real-world strategies on how procurement can better align with the needs of the organization and do this more collaboratively. Insights will be based on mid-sized organization findings from the Economist Impact study and analyzed by Art of Procurement.
Callum and Stephanie will provide these three perspectives and answer live questions about:
-How procurement’s ability to build influence is tied to the business’s confidence in their collaborative capabilities
-Conflicting expectations around what constitutes a good procurement customer experience and how to align everyone internally using research that identifies industry benchmarks.
-Real world examples of ways procurement can bolster perceptions of their ability to handle internal and external risks
By attending this webinar, we hope to give procurement professionals who work within mid-size organizations some practical ways to overcome these challenges.
See Event
Can Procurement Rise to the ESG Challenge?
Location: Airmeet Date : April 02, 2024 - April 02, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
With new regulations and investment decisions requiring more and better ESG data, it is time to uncover the challenges 2024 will bring and get prepared for the road ahead.
Procurement teams have a critical role to play in the environmental and social impact of companies today. To play this role, procurement teams need to provide meaningful and transparent supply chain data. That may seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. In this session we’ll cover some of the drivers for ESG and sustainability reporting, how to get started and how leading organizations are taking impactful actions and achieving success.
In this AOP Live session, we will be joined by Daniel Dorr, Vice President of Marketing at Supplier.io, and Valerie Tardif, VP of Product at Supplier.io, who will cover topics such as:
-Industry drivers for ESG and why now is the time to take action
-Challenges with accessing - and sources of - accurate, actionable data
-The critical role of procurement and how leaders are responding to new regulations
-Overview of Scope 3 greenhouse gas (GHG) measurements
-Tools and techniques top performers are using and new technologies to help you succeed
See Event
Great Shortages Make Great Opportunities: Shifts in the Manufacturing Workforce
Location: Airmeet Date : March 20, 2024 - March 20, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
A combination of factors, including retirement rates, lower birth rates, and generational differences in worker preference have led to particularly acute shortages in the manufacturing industry workforce.
But as the shortages grow, so do the associated opportunities.
Unlike the perception many people have of manufacturing work, these jobs involve the latest in robotics and automation. They often come with beneficial educational opportunities. And the field is inclusive, with companies actively reaching out to women and other groups who might not have otherwise considered pursuing roles in the industry.
In this LIVE webinar, Weston Norris from Xometry will talk about how labor shortages are impacting production costs and workforce trends.
Weston will answer live questions about:
-The sources of workforce shortages, and how they are impacting the manufacturing industry in particular
-Best practices for attracting new employees and how this benefits companies as well as workers
-The role talent plays in determining the relative efficiency and productivity of a manufacturing operation
See Event
When Third Party Risk is a First Tier Priority
Location: Airmeet Date : March 19, 2024 - March 19, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Risk is everywhere, all the time, and it takes many forms. Despite the fact that procurement and supply chain professionals have to work in the midst of this complex reality, risk management is not their only responsibility. Third party risk is one top priority of many, and the work is never done.
The more procurement can integrate third party risk management processes and objectives with other ongoing work, the more successful they will be. And that includes sustainability and diversity initiatives as well as overall business continuity.
In some cases, different types of risk compete with each other for procurement’s attention. How is procurement to say whether regulatory risk, supply chain disruption, data privacy concerns, or ESG-related risk is the most important?
The time has come to manage third party risk at scale.
Join Philip Ideson and Kelly Barner as they welcome Certa CEO Jag Lamba for a live discussion about making procurement’s third party risk management work more effective.
In this live, slide-free session, they will discuss:
-Which third parties should be procurement’s first priority for risk management
-Ensuring that ESG is reflected in any third party risk management processes and frameworks that are implemented
-Partnering with the business - and suppliers - to achieve lower overall risk levels
-Ways procurement can simplify third party risk management with the help of AI and automation
See Event
Procurement Outsourcing - Perception v. Reality
Location: Airmeet Date : April 16, 2024 - April 16, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
With the latest ‘hot topic’ in procurement being the application of AI to some of their most tedious work, it would be easy to overlook the fact that what is really being discussed is procurement outsourcing.
Whether procurement is outsourcing work to artificial intelligence or ‘old fashioned’ human intelligence, the evaluation process and preparation to transition are much the same. Procurement must be prepared to identify and communicate the who, what, when, where, and how - not to mention the why.
In this AOP Live session, we will welcome Joe Payne, Senior Vice President of Sourcing and Procurement, and Anthony Mignogna, Vice President of Sales and Solution Engineering, both from Corcentric, to separate perceptions about procurement outsourcing from reality.
They will answer live questions about:
-Common misperceptions about procurement outsourcing that apply to these decisions, regardless of the intended destination for offloaded work
-The connection between procurement outsourcing and frameworks for measuring procurement’s impact
-Whether changes in the procurement space over the last few years make it possible to have a new conversation about outsourcing
See Event
Case Study: Measuring Global Supplier Contributions to ESG Impact
Location: Airmeet Date : March 13, 2024 - March 13, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Procurement organizations all over the world are being tasked with driving and measuring the impact of investments in ESG: environmental, social, and governance-related programs.
There are two challenges associated with this new area of responsibility: procurement must work with global suppliers to understand how they are investing in ESG, and they must centralize the data required to satisfy ESG regulatory and reporting reporting requirements.
In this live case study webinar, Art of Procurement will welcome Emrah Cinbis, Head of Purchasing at Borusan Holding, and Özge Gülden Güngör, Promena’s Head of Product and Customer Success. They will walk attendees through the effort to bolster ESG impact with robust reporting and scorecarding capabilities.
Emrah and Özge will answer live questions about:
-The business objectives that led Borusan to recognize supplier scorecarding as an essential factor in their ESG program’s success
-How they are assessing current and prospective suppliers worldwide
-How systematic measurement is helping Borusan and its suppliers improve their efficiency, effectiveness, and overall relationships
See Event
3 Perspectives on Procurement and Risk for Mid-sized Organizations
Location: Airmeet Date : March 27, 2024 - March 27, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Procurement’s ability to have the desired impact is dependent upon a combination of knowledge, skills, technology - and relationships. Misalignment, whether real or perceived, will hold procurement and the business back from achieving their goals.
The recent Economist impact study on procurement showed that while 59 percent of mid-sized companies report that procurement insights are essential for implementing the company’s strategy and vision, only 44 percent also believe procurement collaborates effectively with the rest of the organization.
A concerning disconnect to be sure.
In this LIVE webinar, Callum Veness Senior Director of Product Marketing, SAP Procurement and External Workforce, and Stephanie LeRoy Senior Director, Procurement, Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group will address this disconnection with real-world strategies on how procurement can better align with the needs of the organization and do this more collaboratively. Insights will be based on mid-sized organization findings from the Economist Impact study and analyzed by Art of Procurement.
Callum and Stephanie will provide these three perspectives and answer live questions about:
-How procurement’s ability to build influence is tied to the business’s confidence in their collaborative capabilities
-Conflicting expectations around what constitutes a good procurement customer experience and how to align everyone internally using research that identifies industry benchmarks.
-Real world examples of ways procurement can bolster perceptions of their ability to handle internal and external risks
By attending this webinar, we hope to give procurement professionals who work within mid-size organizations some practical ways to overcome these challenges.
See Event
Augmenting P2P and ERP with Intake Orchestration and AI
Location: Airmeet Date : March 12, 2024 - March 12, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Most procurement organizations use P2P/ERP platforms to facilitate procurement intake, triage, and coordination. These are important and powerful tools, but they’re not perfect. For example, some don’t easily integrate with other tools. Approval processes that rely on them remain complex and arduous, with long cycle times.
For all they’re great at, big P2P and ERP platforms are typically designed for the procurement team, and not end-users.
At the end of the day, what matters most when it comes to creating business value is the experience procurement provides. Those experiences must be connected, intuitive, and fast. When processes require employees to use platforms that aren’t designed with them in mind, those processes may become too hard to follow, which limits speed, effectiveness, and value.
AI-powered intake orchestration technology offers a solution to this problem, without mandating change management or requiring you to rip out and replace other existing tools. It allows procurement to begin creating processes that both empower procurement and advance the business’s goals by finally, actually putting people first.
THIS is the promise of orchestration technology in procurement.
In this live webinar, we will be joined by Sagi Eliyahu, Co-Founder and CEO of Tonkean, and Jonathan Fehring, Principal, Procurement and Purchase-to-Pay Advisory of The Hackett Group, to review orchestration use cases that show the potential of putting the experience FIRST when it comes to orchestrating procurement processes and workflows across teams and systems.
Sagi and Jonathan will answer live questions about:
-Why understanding stakeholder behavior is the key to successful procurement orchestration
-What an intuitive procurement experience looks like to the business, and what it should feel like to users
-How taking a comprehensive approach to pulling an existing tech stack together is more powerful - and realistic - than replacing it
See Event
From Overwhelm to Orchestration: Empowering Your Digital Procurement Stack
Location: Airmeet Date : February 08, 2024 - February 08, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
The ongoing debate over the 'right' procurement tech stack has persisted for years, seemingly without resolution. Traditional end-to-end platforms, once hailed as the answer to procurement needs, have proven inadequate in the face of modern, decentralized procurement practices. This decentralization has exposed critical functionality gaps within these current procurement workflows.
Enter orchestration, the solution to decentralized procurement. Where procurement practices of the past failed to create seamless experiences for users and transparency for stakeholders, orchestration promises to deliver better visibility, compliance, and composability across people, processes, data and systems.
Despite recognizing the importance of orchestration, many procurement teams grapple with the challenge of identifying, implementing, and sustaining the ‘right’ orchestration layer for their unique needs – often confusing workflow automation with orchestration.
In this live webinar, hear from:
-Elisabeth Schlag-Lawrence, SVP, Head of Procurement Governance and Enabling, Bayer
-Chris Vessey, Executive Director, Global Product Strategy & Transformation, Goldman Sachs
-Lance Younger, CEO of ProcureTech
-Shachi Rai Gupta, Global Head of Strategy, Intelligence and Digital Transformation at Bristol Myers Squibb
Our speakers will engage in a live discussion to answer:
-Why is procurement orchestration different from process automation?
-When should I consider orchestration for my company?
-What part does AI play in a successful orchestration strategy?
-What are some best practices for implementing successful procurement orchestration?
See Event
Roadmap to Success: Best Practice Supplier Diversity in 2024
Location: Airmeet Date : February 06, 2024 - February 06, 2024 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Procurement teams and professionals have long known that supplier diversity and ESG initiatives can help organizations cut costs, reduce supply chain risk, and improve business results.
While these initiatives continue to expand and evolve in response to requests from the business, the most important progress comes from within - as supplier diversity program leaders learn from each other and embrace proven best practices to elevate their own impact.
2024 promises to bring a fresh set of challenges and opportunities. Fortunately, the expertise required to satisfy both already exists within the supplier diversity community.
In this session we will be joined by Daniel Dorr and Molly O'Brien from Supplier.io who will share the best practices and critical priorities outlined in Supplier.io’s latest research report:
-Why 2024 is the year for forging mission-critical relationships with the business, and then putting them to work
-Ensuring that data is reliable enough to support nuanced financial decisions and serving as a source of competitive advantage
-Building on the successes of supplier diversity by meeting other non-price business objectives, like sustainability
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AOP Mastermind LIVE: Reinventing the Procurement Experience
Location: Virtual Date : October 26, 2021 - October 27, 2021 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Strengthen your Stakeholder Relationships by Improving the Procurement Experience
Gone are the days of gathering up low-hanging fruit, speeding up misinformed buying decisions, pushing suppliers away, and measuring our impact in terms of compliance. The future trajectory of procurement is dependent upon the experience we are able to create for stakeholders and suppliers.
If that seems like a lofty goal, you’re not alone. Join us at Mastermind LIVE Fall 2021 from 10am - 1pm ET on October 26 and 27 as we hear from a range of experts from companies like Deloitte, BT, The Hackett Group, Qualtrics, and more who can provide the insight needed to build the experience we’ve always wanted to deliver.
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Creating Tail Spend ROI Through an Improved Buyer Experience
Location: Online Date : September 28, 2021 - September 28, 2021 Organizer: Philip Ideson
One of the reasons that tail spend continues to plague procurement is its complexity. The high number of low-cost transactions is just the beginning of the challenge. This spend often finds its way into the tail through multiple ‘wrong turns,’ each of which requires a different approach by procurement and a correspondingly different resolution. There is no one ‘cause’ of tail spend and therefore there is no one solution.
Companies that have mature tail spend programs leverage automation wherever possible and then dedicate a formal lead or tail spend manager to the effort. This person can ensure that each type or category of tail spend is addressed or reduced - ultimately generating an ROI that includes both savings and risk mitigation.
On September 28th, we will be joined for an AOP Live session featuring Jean-Baptiste Anne, Head of Enterprise Sales and Professional Services Teams for Amazon Business, and Vishal Patel, VP of Product Marketing at Ivalua. They will answer your live questions about:
-The differences between a dedicated tail spend solution and integrating that same capability into a
platform
-How to know that you are making the right investment to deliver a tail spend ROI for your company
-The criticality of understanding what is in your tail spend to being able to direct it through self-guided
buying options such as Amazon Business, new procurement-led sourcing projects, or incorporation
into existing contracts
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Categorypalooza 2021
Location: Virtual Date : August 24, 2021 - August 24, 2021 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Category management will continue to be a critical skill for procurement - even as the activities of purchasing and supplier management continue to evolve. Knowing how to advance, capture, and disseminate category knowledge may very well become the hallmark of world-class procurement organizations in the years to come.
Join us at our inaugural Categorypalooza, a summer festival of category ideas and insights to kick start your planning process and make 2022 your best year ever!
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Getting Control of Your Telecom Spend
Location: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/aop-live-may-2021 Date : May 11, 2021 - May 11, 2021 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Between corporate efforts to digitize operations and an increasingly remote workforce, telecom and technology spend is now more important than ever. Changes to the ownership or structure of a business often lead to opportunities to optimize this category - but only if procurement has it actively under management and knows what to be on the lookout for.
Most companies’ telecom spend represents between 1-6% of their revenue, creating significant savings potential with the right approach. Despite the size of the category, few procurement organizations have a dedicated telecom specialist, which makes it a real challenge to navigate huge data sets and detailed requirements without inflating costs or impacting connectivity and service quality.
Like other spend categories, data visibility has to be achieved before analysis can take place, ultimately leading to recommendations for better control. The tools used to perform this analysis are usually made for purpose, but deciding how much of the management work procurement does in house involves trade-off decisions about time, resources, and expertise.
In this AOP Live session, Jeff Poirior, President & COO of Valicom, will answer live audience questions about how companies can bring - and keep - their telecom expenses under control.
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Mastermind LIVE Spring 2021
Location: https://hopin.com/events/aop-mastermind-live-spring-2021 Date : April 13, 2021 - April 14, 2021 Organizer: Art of Procurement
For the last year, most companies have been heads down focused on staying operational and - if possible - profitable.
A rebounding economy presents new challenges and provides the opportunity for procurement to either continue slogging through the basics of cost management or build upon an expanding internal value proposition.
Procurement teams that intend to reorient for long term success will have to pivot quickly, delivering supply chain resilience and cost management as table stakes before turning to enterprise growth enablement.
Join us at AOP Mastermind LIVE Spring where we will be joined by a number of global leaders to explore what procurement can do TODAY to drive business growth, before it's too late.
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Collaboration or Competition: How Cost Transparency Settles the Debate
Location: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/aop-live-pro-purchaser Date : January 12, 2021 - January 12, 2021 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Good negotiation skills are fundamental to procurement. They allow us to maximize value while simultaneously building resilient, low-cost supply chains. But now that procurement is moving towards collaborative partnerships with our suppliers, it is fair to ask the question: does reducing direct competitive pressure inadvertently allow higher pricing?
Rod Sherkin, Founder and President of ProPurchaser and a former CPO, says the answer is “no, quite the contrary.” The power of Cost Transparency makes it possible for procurement to stay in the driver’s seat at the negotiating table and convince suppliers that lowering prices is in their best interest too.
In this AOP Live session, the discussion will center around Rod’s unique approach to supplier negotiations and forging cooperative working relationships that financially benefit procurement and suppliers and make it possible to build supply chains that create enduring competitive advantage.
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AOP Live: "The Vanishing Tail: Getting a Grip on Long Tail Spend by Following the Three C’s"
Location: Virtual Date : December 09, 2020 - December 09, 2020 Organizer: Art of Procurement
Tail spend is time-consuming and complex to manage and it is full of stakeholder satisfaction landmines. One wrong move and your attempts to make tail spend vanish are disrupted. Most companies rely on automation or full outsourcing to tame their tail, but Merck took a unique approach that included a more expansive and value-oriented path leading to tangible business results and a positive ROI.
In this AOP Live session, Thomas Cicale will share Merck’s tail spend story. Joined by Sameer Sharma, Procurement Strategy and Services at WNS Denali, the pair will discuss how they collaborated on a program that met and surpassed Merck’s tail spend objectives, including the 3 C’s that ensure the success of your strategic tail spend management efforts.
Thomas Cicale and Sameer Sharma will answer your live questions about:
How to build a business case and accurately forecast your ROI for a tail spend program (especially if you have to overcome the “bad taste” of a failed previous program)
How to manage tail spend while balancing competing priorities
How to engage internal stakeholders and build relationships with the right people to ensure success
The tangible business results you can gain by making your tail spend vanish
The benefits of running a pilot project to broaden the scale of your effort
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How Procurement Can Build Supply Chain Resilience
Location: https://resources.artofprocurement.com/sourceday-sept29?utm_medium=email&_hsmi=94608996&_hsenc=p2ANq Date : September 29, 2020 - September 29, 2020 Organizer: Art of Procurement
The events of 2020 have highlighted the impact supply chain disruption can have on a company’s top and bottom lines. Executive teams are intensely focused on increasing supply chain resilience while reducing costs and protecting existing revenue streams. They’re asking procurement teams to help balance these objectives, as demand volatility makes it harder than ever to optimize supply chain spend. The product and brand companies that adjust quickly and figure out how to juggle these challenges will not only weather the current storm–they’ll thrive.
Procurement teams are uniquely positioned to lead supply chain resilience initiatives. That’s because procurement brings together the right suppliers, products, and materials needed to fulfill customer demand.
To meet today’s challenges in supply chain spend management, we must embrace automation. Gone are the days of being able to throw bodies at a problem. Systemic inefficiency not only creates unsustainable processes, it creates enormous waste and revenue risk. Now is the time for procurement to lead through change.
On September 29th, join us for an AOP Live session featuring Tom Kieley, CEO and Co-Founder of SourceDay, and Go Kamiyama, Senior Manager of Strategic Initiatives from NetSuite.
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AOP Mastermind LIVE
Location: Online Date : October 06, 2020 - October 07, 2020 Organizer: Art of Procurement
For most people and organizations, 2020 brought a sudden shift to remote working, expense reduction, and – potentially – an industry-wide struggle to survive.
This is procurement’s time to shine.
Familiar challenges have been long overdue for fresh eyes and new solutions. So much change was thrust upon the world overnight that most resistance simply evaporated. Enterprise needs have become a juggernaut for procurement transformation. We’re no longer trying to move a boulder inch by inch; we’re strapped to a rocket – just trying to hold on and steer.
How procurement professionals respond in this moment will define whether the opportunity is fleeting or whether it ushers in a new day for procurement on our journey to become premier trusted advisors.
Mastermind LIVE will help YOU answer:
- What does the CEO value most from procurement today?
- How can we improve the customer experience and our results at the same time?
- Can procurement pick up critical tips from other functions such as marketing and sales?
Join us from 10am-1pm ET each day to hear new insights from a wide variety of experts specifically chosen to elevate the impact of procurement in today’s unique circumstances.
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How Agentic AI Can Transform Procurement Outcomes
AOP Introducing… Tonkean Enterprise Copilot
Art of Procurement
Episode 25: How to be a Procurement All-Star
Out of the Mouth of Babes
846: Building Agility Through Emergency Procurement Readiness with Rick Bond and Tammy Rimes
845: Inside the AI Foundation Behind Next-Gen Procurement with Fang Chang
844: Contracting for Speed: How Orchestration Empowers Procurement with Clare Cassano and Toby Laforest
843: How Change Management Powers Procurement Transformation with Jesse Jacoby
842: The Future Is Frictionless: Simplifying Procurement with Tech and Trust with Todd Heimes
841: Three AI-Powered Opportunities: Assist, Augment, Autonomize with Etosha Thurman
839: Building Data-Driven Procurement at Scale with Adrian Vicol
840: Why Data Literacy Matters More Than Ever in Procurement with Satvinder Panesar
838: Protecting Competition: Inside the DOJ’s Fight Against Procurement Collusion with Daniel Glad
837: Mastering Influence: Procurement’s Internal and External Edge with Giuseppe Conti
836: From Platform to Partner: The Next Chapter in ProcureTech Development with Baber Farooq
“We Win” Relationships: A Playbook for Procurement Value with Neji Issac
834: Rewiring Operating Models for an Unpredictable Future with Darshan Deshmukh
833: The Polycrisis Playbook: How Procurement Can Lead Through Turbulence with Gordon Donovan
832: AI, Data, and the New Procurement Advantage with Vel Dhinagaravel
831: Conquering the Decision Abyss: From Data to Supply Chain Impact with Keith Hartley
830: Inside AOP's Acquisition of the ProcureTech100: Objectivity, Community, Impact with Philip Ideson and Kelly Barner
829: From Good to Great: How Business Partnering Transforms Procurement Teams with Sasha Sergeev
828: How to Turn Market Chaos Into Procurement’s Strategic Advantage with Adam Collins
827: Lessons in Resilience From a Procurement Change Journey with Tanya Roach
826: Deglobalization Hype and Reality for Supply Chain Leaders with Kelly Barner and Philip Ideson
824: Why Technology Complexity Kills User Adoption with Jason Kim
822: Active Communication as a Procurement Game Changer with Jack Skerry
820: Managing Risk and Relationships in Semiconductor Sourcing with Graham Scott
818: Elevating Procurement’s Impact Through Strategic Relationships with Michael Bertalli
Achieving Your Objectives W/ Jan Griffiths
AOP Live: Placing Procurement at the Intersection of Corporate Culture and Employee Experience
AOP Live: How to utilize a data-driven mindset to supercharge your procurement organization
AOP Live: Making the Case for Diversity in Public Procurement
AOP Live: Partnership as a Service: Driving Change & Delivering Unconventional Returns at UMass
Mastermind Fall 2021 Event: Reinventing the Procurement Experience
AOP Live: Learning to Succeed Despite Uncertain Market Dynamics
AOP Live: Roadmap to Savings: Partnering with the Business to Drive Progress w/ Dave Quillin (Alliant Credit Union) and Joe Payne (Corcentric)
AOP Live: Creating Tail Spend ROI Through an Improved Buyer Experience w/ Jean-Baptiste Anne (Amazon Business) and Vishal Patel (Ivalua)
AOP Live: Supplier Diversity: Advancing Together at Ahold Delhaize w/ Nancy Nicoll (Retail Business Services) and Carl Freeman (Ahold Delhaize)
Assessing Supply Chain Risk: Building a Program to Identify High Risk Sources of Supply
PAT Chat: Art of Procurement’s Phil Ideson on Elevating the Role of Procurement
