CFO | Procurement Insights

Browsing All posts tagged under »CFO«

The more things change, the more they stay the same . . . at least in the world of procurement by Jon Hansen

April 25, 2014

I doubt that when French novelist Alphonse Karr coined the phase the more things change, the more they stay the same, he was thinking about procurement. Based upon a March 27th, 2014 Harvard Business Review article by Proxima CEO Matthew Eatough, Karr would not be unique in this regard. In fact if you accept the […]

Zycus LinkedIn post uses the equivalent of Sandberg’s “bossy” term to describe procurement professionals? by Jon Hansen

March 21, 2014

In a recent post by Roz Usheroff, she indicated that you would probably have to be on another planet – maybe even in another galaxy – to not have heard of the recent call to arms of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg to eradicate the word “bossy” from our everyday vernacular. The reason for Sandberg’s discontent […]

Rashed Procurement Leaders post on procurement skills important, interesting and promising by Jon Hansen

March 4, 2014

As a parent of 4 kids under the age of 8, I did not realize how big they had gotten until I returned home from a fairly recent 4-day speaking engagement. Now for those who do not have children, 4 days may not seem like a long time. However for those out there who do, […]

For procurement professionals’ success is as much about personal branding as it is doing a great job! by Roz Usheroff

March 21, 2013

Editor’s Note: The following is a post that appeared in Roz Usheroff’s The Remarkable Leader Blog. Besides being a great read, it demonstrates the growing reach of our profession in that discussions about procurement’s value to an organization are no longer confined to our specific industry. The other day I read an article by James […]

Is Procurement Trying Too Hard? by Kelly Barner

August 22, 2012

One of the interesting stories to come out of the 2012 London Olympics is that some of the badminton teams were disqualified for trying to LOSE matches. That’s not exactly what you expect from the most competitive athletes in the world in any sport. They weren’t trying to lose because they wanted to go home, […]

The Evolution of Strategic Sourcing by Joe Payne

June 1, 2012

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to sit in on some roundtables at the Corporate United Synergy conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. The majority of attendees were strategic sourcing and procurement professionals primarily focused on indirect spend categories, many at companies with $1 billion or more in annual sales. The underlying theme of most […]

Confessions of a Real-World Procurement Professional by Kelly Barner

April 16, 2012

I will start my contributions to Procurement Insights by laying the truth right out in the open: I am terrible at math. But that confession is just the beginning. In college I took advanced music theory to avoid calculus, and I got my MBA by learning just enough about finance and accounting to get through […]

Changing Face of Procurement: How To Avoid Falling Behind

April 18, 2011

Based on the critically acclaimed Changing Face of Procurement presentation that was first introduced in 2005, this updated version provides thought provoking insight into how the industry has changed and, will continue to change including what procurement professionals need to do to stay in step or risk being left behind. Note: if you can’t view […]

A CFO provides his perspective on the question of supply chain finance in the public sector

February 25, 2011

A funny thing happened on the way to writing Part 2 of the planned series on Supply Chain Finance . . . a debate broke out. Of course I would prefer a good debate any day over the monologue associated with a single discourse. It is in this spirit of conversational exchange, that I am […]

Are Purchasing and Supply Chain Bloggers Sleeping?

August 31, 2009

Note: Originally published in the PI Window on Business Blog under the heading “If Traditional Media is Dead, Where Does That Leave Social Media’s Current Professionals?” As I continue to contemplate the rapidly developing story regarding the death of traditional media, and the growing urgency for social media to come up with a viable revenue […]