Procurement has been an essential partner to businesses throughout the pandemic. While there are many factors that have led to its prominence, not all of them will have a long-term impact. In 2022, the tradtional function of procurement and the roles it performs will change drastically.
History repeats itself. Could we use the lessons from the first time around? At the height of ransomware attacks, people responsible for oil rigs and ships in the sea find themselves to be the next potential target. Let me explain.
Supply chain disruptions continue to drive up prices and lead to a growing shortage of goods across the U.S. and abroad.
The boom of technology implementation and its effectiveness were quickly tested by the challenges of the pandemic. While some challenges were solved successfully – collaboration via video conferences – the pandemic has stressed the structure and effectiveness of other areas.
Predicting the future may sometimes seem an impossible task, especially given the speed with which our world and the world of cybersecurity changes, but there are already signs of two major shifts coming in 2022 that you need to have on your radar.
Having sold more than $980 million in outsourcing deals in my career and having played a key role in structuring more than $22 billion in outsourcing deals across every industry and virtually every process, it seems the more things change, the more they remain the same.
I won’t add to the dizzying array of endless terms Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies develop to differentiate their offerings, but in this article I’d like to discuss some of the commonalities across all of them.
While previous industrial revolutions relied on developments in steam machines, electricity and telecommunications, the fourth industrial revolution is powered by big data, advanced manufacturing techniques, cloud computing, machine learning and artificial intelligence. As the fourth industrial has risen, so too has the notion of Quality 4.0, a term recently coined to refer to the shifts in performance excellence we’re seeing in today’s age of digital transformation.
At a time when global talent shortages are reported at a 15-year high, one key to keeping the best employees happy and on board may lie in how well companies not only state their purpose and their values, but also prioritize carrying them out.
Supply chain and sustainability are two sides of the same coin. A standard teaching practice within supply chain is “lean thinking” that advocates for minimalist, one-piece flow to the tune of an ever-present waste reduction drumbeat. Unfortunately, this drumbeat isn’t always heard. The prevalence of waste in far-reaching corners of supply chains is in large part due to the sheer global scale of many manufacturers.
As the Ever Given jammed the Suez Canal, disruption rippled across the supply chain and cargo owners scrambled to determine whether their goods were trapped in one of the containers. Shippers and receivers found it challenging to come up with an authoritative answer.
Over the past year I’ve had the chance to speak to a variety of senior business and sustainability leaders about supply chain topics and their implications on a range of ESG issues. What is apparent from these conversations is that the supply chain is increasingly considered to be one of the most impactful components of a company’s sustainability efforts.
Traditionally thought of as just being responsible for dollars and cents, the function of today’s procurement team goes much further than purchasing supplies needed to run an organization’s day-to-day operations. Beyond managing the entire supply chain process, their responsibilities have expanded in the wake of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) movement.
Sustainability: It’s a word that certainly needs no introduction and one with global implications that reach far beyond that of the supply chain crisis we’re experiencing. Some devastating impacts of climate change are now unavoidable, and the topic of sustainability in procurement is heating up, too.
Most people who have used any sort of business software offhandedly consider the importance of maintaining quality data, but few make it a priority. Too often in my world, organizations will meticulously enter supplier information into a spreadsheet and dust off their hands. They see ongoing data quality as a difficult to achieve “nice-to-have,” accept the risk of bad data, and carry on with other business demands, fingers crossed. Not everyone realizes, however, the magnitude of that risk, especially around supplier data.
