Walking in a webinar wonderland...

Posted: 08/19/2016 - 05:28

Another month, another great Outsource Talks webinar… This week it was my profound pleasure and privilege to welcome Vested’s Kate Vitasek, KPMG’s Don Ryan and ‘Art of Procurement’ host Phil Ideson to the Outsource Talks sofa, where the hour fairly flew by in a wonderful discussion of sourcing business models, GBS, challenges facing CPOs, “two-tier” procurement professionals and much more.

As always with Outsource Talks I was blown away by the depth of the insight shown by my panel. If you’re not yet familiar with the model (and if not, you’re really missing out) the first half of the show is a series of one-on-one interviews on topics chosen by the panellists (enabling them to focus on the themes that are of particular interest to them right now) while for Act II we move to audience Q&A and intra-panel discussion; on Wednesday I was especially pleased with how my panellists picked up on the themes they had each introduced in their one-on-ones and explored them further in the second half of the show, demonstrating their firm command not only of their own fields but of some of the issues driving change throughout the space (such as RPA, the frequent appearance of which in Outsource Talks is further evidence – if any were required – of how significant and far-reaching a development this is).

My intention with Outsource Talks is always to create a panel which offers a good deal of variety in terms of the origins of the panellists and the kind of work they each do, and to bring such varied perspectives to bear on specific topics is, I think, of real benefit to our audience – themselves a very varied bunch, reflecting the diversity of content Outsource offers across our channels. Seeing how Wednesday’s panellists engaged with each other’s chosen themes was a genuine privilege, and as always I’d like to thank Kate, Don and Phil for their excellent participation: I’m sure our audience, like me, picked up plenty from the show which will enhance and extend their understanding of what’s going on in the sourcing and outsourcing arena today.

If you missed the big event, despair not: the recording of the webinar is now available to download here. I urge you to check it out and to pass that link on to any colleagues or connections you feel might benefit from hearing from three such fine thought leaders.

Following the show, the tables were turned somewhat: I was interviewed by Phil Ideson in a special “after the show” ‘Art of Procurement’ podcast. At the time of writing, that podcast has not yet been published, but you will be able to check it out very soon (along with all Phil’s other great shows) on his site: www.artofprocurement.com.

If you’d like to hear more from Kate, as I mentioned on Wednesday I recently interviewed her for Outsource: you can read that interview here while her regular columns for us are indexed here.

Meanwhile, anyone interested in finding out more about the GBS Roadmap conferences which Don Ryan discussed in his one-on-one can go to the series homepage for all the information they require, or can drop me a line at jliddell@sig.org (which is of course also where you can send me any feedback you may have on this week's webinar, suggestions for future guests, or any other thoughts you may wish to share - I'm always on the lookout for great new contributors, so if you'd like to discuss getting involved content-wise, don't be shy!).

Our next Outsource Talks takes place on Wednesday September 21 at the usual time (3pm UK; 7.30pm India; 10am Eastern; 7am Pacific) and I look forward to hosting another superb panel – and as many of you as can make it. See you there!

DOWNLOAD OUTSOURCE TALKS #6 HERE

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