When Colin Cram and I first talked about launching the new Procurement Insights European Union Edition, one of the first questions we asked ourselves is “how can we be different.” I am not talking about a new marketing angle or an esthetically pleasing visual experience – although the blog format does have a certain appeal. […]
Editor’s Note: Charles is founder, president and chief procurement officer of Next Level Purchasing, which offers the SPSM (Senior Professional in Supply Management) family of certifications. Be sure to check out Charles’ Purchasing Certification Blog. My organization provides online training, onsite seminars, webinars, articles, and the like to procurement professionals from companies in virtually every […]
Every week as part of my procurement update on Blog Talk Radio I include a guest soundbite. Sometimes I have an excerpt from a recent webinar, but most of the time I select something current and relevant from YouTube and pull the audio. On good weeks, I find a clip with an obvious tie-in to […]
Back in April of 2008 I wrote a post titled What is the Value in your Supply Chain? (A PI Q and A), in which I questioned the merits of famed Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter’s model. Specifically, I had indicated that while Porter’s theory at the conceptual level has merit, its “value” in terms […]
This past year has been somewhat of a watershed year for the Procurement Insights blog as well as its sister radio show The PI Window on the World. For example, we surpassed the 1,000 post mark with the blog that was launched with little fanfare in May 2007. That is a lot of “virtual ink” […]
The announcement of David Shield’s departure from his position as Managing Director of the UK’s Government Procurement Service will be a shock for many people. Boosting its turnover from about £4bn a year to £11bn a year in 3 years was no mean feat. Even the normally critical National Audit Office wrote what was, on […]
“What you are talking about is the utilization of a predictive model similar in many ways to the system featured in the hit TV show Person of Interest. Quite simply it is a centralized capture and correlation repository which then utilizes advanced algorithms to put an organization ahead of the demand curve.” The above is […]
The other day I read an article by Kelly Barner titled “What if there is no value in what you’re doing?” While Barner was posing this question from the standpoint of being a procurement professional, it is nonetheless a powerful yet simple question that all of us at one point should be asking ourselves. After […]
The very best thing about my role at Buyers Meeting Point is that I get to work and learn at the same time. I read and attend events under the ‘pretense’ that I’m helping my time-strapped colleagues stay on top of the latest in trends and thought leadership from around supply management. While that happens […]
How often should major projects never have been started? I can think of several and there may be another about to start. The Ministry of Justice is planning to spend £675m ($1bn) on a compliance and enforcement project/contract to collect outstanding fines http://justice.governmentcomputing.com/news/moj-issues-675m-contract-for-compliance-and-enforcement-services which, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation last year, amount to almost […]
Scotland’s Commercial Director and Chief Procurement Officer Alastair Merrill becomes a regular PI EU Edition Columnist by Jon Hansen
June 6, 2013
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When Colin Cram and I first talked about launching the new Procurement Insights European Union Edition, one of the first questions we asked ourselves is “how can we be different.” I am not talking about a new marketing angle or an esthetically pleasing visual experience – although the blog format does have a certain appeal. […]