Two weeks ago, 120 global procurement executives descended on Boston for our Annual CPO Rising Summit. I’ve been organizing Chief Procurement Officer (CPO)-focused events since 2006 and I still find the entire process to be equal parts exhilarating, stressful, educational, empowering and highly-rewarding. I’ll share some of my thoughts with you here in today’s article. I plan to write a few more articles about the event over the final weeks of 2018 as does each analyst on our team. (Later today, I will also be co-presenting the “Voice of the CPO” webinar with fellow Ardent analysts, Matt York & Chris Dwyer that shares the key highlights and takeaways from the event).

The Age of Intelligence

In the “Age of Intelligence,” the procurement function is positioned to leverage its position at the hub of business operations to become a more productive, agile, and intelligent operation and use data analytics to drive better business outcomes. Each year, our Summit has an overarching theme we try to weave through. This year, I couldn’t think of a better topic for the leading minds and global experts working in and around procurement to tackle than operating a procurement function in the age of intelligence. Developing a new type of intelligence that will redefine the procurement function is an idea that emerged in both our annual state of procurement/CPO studies and in keynote presentations delivered at the Summit over the past three years.

With the rise of business process automation tools, cloud-based applications, mobile solutions, and connected devices the world has become increasingly data-driven, and procurement teams around the globe have an extraordinary opportunity to capitalize on it. Over the next few years, Ardent Partners predicts that a new type of intelligence is going to enable CPOs to view their operations differently and, by doing so, it is going to force these same CPOs to manage them differently. Chief Procurement Officers must hire new talent while developing their existing roster; institute new processes while refining existing ones; and invest in new technologies while enhancing existing tools.

Leading the Dialogue: 20 Global CPOs and Procurement Experts

At our 2018 Summit, we were excited and honored to have another world-class roster of 20 CPOs and procurement experts discuss how procurement can become more intelligent and transform operations and capitalize on the most significant opportunities in this new age. This year’s roster was more diverse and considerably younger than any previous Summit roster, and I have to say that the overall quality of the presentations, panels, and breakouts was as strong, if not stronger than what we’d seen previously (this is really saying something because we’ve had some amazing presentations). In particular, the main-stage keynotes on both Day 1 and Day 2 were outstanding from top to bottom.

These keynote presentations were delivered by a group of global CPOs including

• Steve Listzwan, the Head of Procurement (CPO) of Shire Pharmaceuticals and Ardent Partners’ 2017 “CPO of the Year.” His presentation, “Faster, Higher, Stronger: Building the Data-Driven Procurement Athlete,” was designed to help CPOs and Procurement Leadership Teams use internal data to get more from their staffs and ultimately build an elite team of high-performers. Steve’s innovative and thoroughly unique approach to staff development is to leverage different sources of data to both evaluate and improve staff performance and discuss the strategies that enable the best use of that data to build a better Procurement athlete and team.
• Chris Shanahan, VP of Global Procurement & Global Real Estate, Thermo Fisher Scientific, whose presentation, “0 to 60: Driving a High Velocity Procurement Transformation,” shared the key strategies and approaches that he has used to successfully drive procurement transformations at the “speed of business.”
• Meghan Truchan, Head of Procurement, Bain Capital, LP, whose presentation, “Procurement Transformation: One Size Does Not Fit All,” took a consultative approach to assessing and contrasting different procurement transformation scenarios and the approaches that make the most sense to take in each situation.
• Dan Warn, Director of Strategic Procurement (CPO), Wayfair, whose presentation, “Spend Therapy: Transforming Procurement In a High Growth Company,” looked at a new procurement delivery model that is many ways more representative of today’s business environment than the classic approaches.

I could go on and on — and my team and I will — but not today. We will continue to discuss and review this year’s CPO Rising Summit in a series of articles publishing over the next few weeks. So, stay tuned!

Summary

Procurement’s “Age of Intelligence” demands powerful analytics and deep insights. It demands agility. The ability to make better-informed decisions across an organization can and will be game-changing; I believe that this new intelligence coupled with agility are going to be the fundamental drivers that push procurement to the next level. But this all starts with the CPO and his or her mindset. If you are a CPO or report to one, please mark your calendars for October 29 and 30, 2019 for the CPO Rising 2019 Summit.

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