Farewell, but Not Goodbye

Today’s article is a copy of the note I published on Aberdeen’s GSM blog earlier today (3/31/10), which was my last day at Aberdeen Group.

It is with mixed feelings that I return today to Aberdeen’s Global Supply Management (“GSM”) newsletter/blog, for you see, today is my last day as an Aberdeen employee.

For the past four years, I have led the Global Supply Management practice at Aberdeen where I have been responsible for all associated research, services, and programs including the CPO Summit. My hope is that our research and efforts contributed to the collective knowledge of supply management professionals around the globe, that our solution selection advice helped enterprises make smart technology buying decisions, and that our support of the sales and marketing efforts of the 200 solution providers that I have worked with directly bore fruit.

Since I joined Aberdeen, we have been able to grow the GSM practice substantially and, by similar magnitude, have been able to expand the number of professionals who receive our weekly newsletter by more than 50%. Over the past four years, Aberdeen, as a company, has changed dramatically – focusing less on my areas of interest and much more so on the areas deemed most important to its owner, Harte-Hanks, a marketing services company. It is now on a different path and so, it is time for a change. Tomorrow, I begin my own journey.

It would not be an Aberdeen article without some facts, so here are a few of my research production numbers:

• 150+ individual research pieces published on Aberdeen.com
• 80+ presentations given online and in 7 different countries
• 24 benchmark reports (as primary author/analyst) with 107 sponsors
• 4 CPO Summits
• 4 great years

It has been both an extraordinary professional experience and an extraordinary personal experience and I want to specifically thank the 20+ (sales and research) individuals who were, at different times, members of my team. I’d also like to thank the events team for helping us build the CPO Summit into a globally-recognized event and the IT team who helped us develop and deliver three online assessment tools for a major client. I want to thank the 200 companies that were our clients and the nearly 100 CPOs who presented at the CPO Summit. More than anything, I’d like to thank the more than 120,000 of you who have accessed, read, listened, engaged, and participated with me and my research over the past four years.

I originally planned to produce a Last Lecture-style article on supply management but quickly realized that I am nowhere near ready to deliver a final proclamation on supply management. I’m not even close. I still learn new things in this field every day (i.e. new supplier innovation strategies, just this past week). I am happy with how this piece turned out and so I leave you with my first (but not last) GSM-tinged haiku.

GSM Haiku

Supply Management’s

Transformation Continues

What’s Past is Prologue!

With Sincere Thanks,

Andrew Bartolini
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Please come back tomorrow for the official launch of this blog!

 

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