“In our 20 years of existence, the procurement policies of government have become more intrusive to the act of buying a good or service. Today we have trade agreements, Comprehensive Land Claim Treaties, the Procurement Strategy for Aboriginal Business, Employment Equity, concerns about intellectual property, risk management and so on. All of these subjects impact the purchasing or front end of the act of buying within government. For these reasons, The Board of Directors decided it was appropriate to change our name to be more inclusive and to recognize the thousands of public servants, including managers and program specialists, who are involved in the procurement process. We exist to help all of them.”
The Canadian Institute for Procurement and Materiel Management (formerly the Materiel Management Institute of Canada) web site (http://www.mmi-igm.ca/)
As you can well imagine, my somewhat lengthy career and at times exhaustive speaking schedule has enabled me to gain a global perspective on the changes that are taking place relative to the modern supply chain practice. In fact, one of my most popular conferences is actually titled “The Changing Face of Procurement.”
My most recent speaking tour took me to multiple cities on three continents in a period of six weeks, culminating with a keynote address to 400 purchasing professionals in Hampton, Virginia. And while I gathered as much insight as I shared, I can honestly say that no one mandate or vision of the future captured the true essence of the changes our profession is experiencing as did the above referenced statement from the Canadian Institute for Procurement and Materiel Management (CIPMM) web site.
Moving out of the shadows of adjunct functionality within the modern enterprise to a position of operational prominence and relevancy, at no other time has purchasing been viewed in the light of its own merits and overall impact on the individual organization and society as a whole.
The newly re-named CIPMM with its corresponding “inclusive” mandate is the first organization to truly recognize and respond to this emerging truth. And with a growing number of associations struggling to redefine themselves and the traditional (some would even suggest antiquated) membership models under which they have been built and operate, CIPMM has gained a considerable advantage in terms of competing for the attention of an increasingly demanding group of professionals.
Competing for Jobs, Hearts and Minds
In a September 2007 article that appeared in the Stanford Challenge, Professor Martin Carnoy discussed how in the 1950s, “there was an enormous interest in economic development, because the United States was competing with the Soviet Union for the hearts and minds of people around the world.” Carnoy, a “labor economist,” who admits to having a “special interest in how changes in the world economy affect education and how education affects a country’s competitive prospects,” expressed his belief that “not much has changed” today.
What has changed according to Carnoy is that “ the relationship between education and other forms of development,” has proved to be “extremely complex.”
Echoing similar sentiments, a purchasing professional in a Procurement Insights August 2008 post expressed his disappointment with traditional association models and their inability to deliver timely and meaningful information in what is becoming an extremely challenging world.
“Where it once did,” the professional lamented, “the value gained from the traditional association model can no longer compete for my attention. I need to collaborate bigger, faster, stronger – and at my convenience.”
He went on to say that the new association model “could better leverage Web 2.0 to deliver a greater level of service to me as a supply chain professional by more actively, rapidly and efficiently aligning with the pace at which new, useful industry information becomes available – then delivering this information in an effective way, so as to keep me abreast of trends” and “best-practices,” while simultaneously enabling me to “exchange ideas with fellow members, thereby making me a more valuable professional.”
By recognizing this pressing need, the refocused and revitalized CIPMM mandate has laid a solid foundation for delivering an invaluable service to its membership by empowering purchasing professionals to better compete in the new knowledge-based economy.
A “Healthy” Base
The same purchasing professional concluded that “if done effectively,” the elements of a program such as CIPMMs would represent “a value proposition beyond what I see today in many other associations.” This type of model he concluded would likely “attract membership at a higher rate; thus creating an even larger, and more valuable platform” in which an increased number of professionals could “exchange real-life, real-time expertise and experience” to the collective benefit of everyone.
The fact that CIPMM has what they refer to as a “healthy roster of active members, representing virtually every organization within the federal public sector (as well as members from the provincial, municipal and even private sectors),” means that the fundamental base for a meaningful exchange of “expertise and experience” already exists.
Why CIPMM?
For those of you that are part of my regular readership, you already know that an important tenet of the Procurement Insights Sponsorship Program (which includes these profiles) is my total commitment to neutrality. And as such I will continue to leave the assessment surrounding the viability of the CIPMM value proposition in your hands, (as always, I will direct you to the Link To Our Sponsors and Sponsor Presentations Section of the PI Blog to investigate their service offering in greater detail, and at your own convenience).
What is compelling about CIPMMs new and much broader mandate is that it reflects the seemingly disparate elements of the increasingly globalized supply chain practice in which social, economic and even political considerations must be understood and addressed by today’s supply chain professional.
By recognizing and even more importantly understanding the impact of these changes, CIPMM will as they state provide “the kind of ongoing support needed to foster and maintain our individual and collective contributions to the field of public sector, procurement and materiel management.”
I could not have said it any better myself!
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Procurement Insights 
Posted on February 25, 2009
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