Publisher’s Note: This report is no longer available for download. If you enjoy our research be sure to register for our upcoming webinar, The CPO’s Metrics that Matter in 2019, where we will be discussing some of the key performance metrics from our annual CPO Rising Report research study. Click here to register.

In 2019, the procurement profession still has momentum and is more critical to business operations and results than ever before. But, a decade of Ardent Partners research shows that the profession is also approaching a performance plateau. The truth is that the average procurement department has already picked the low-hanging fruit and most of its easy work has been done. The teams that continue to do the same things over and over again will actually get different results (as in increasingly worse). In this context, procurement’s new definition of insanity is for a Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) to stay the course and make no changes.

Breaking plateaus and launching into a new performance trajectory demands new and innovative ideas and approaches. It also requires a broad, multi-faceted approach since no single ingredient can alter the overall procurement recipe. To avoid a frustrating and momentum-killing plateau, CPOs must work to elevate their organization’s capabilities and gain improvement across a host of areas in a deliberate attempt to rethink what is possible. They will also need catalysts to ignite a new sense of urgency and new sources of value so that their departments can work smarter, expand their mastery, and raise their commitment. Identifying these new catalysts and sources and framing the different ways that CPOs can leverage them is the focus of this CPO Rising 2019 report.

This fourteenth annual CPO-themed report is part of an ongoing dialogue that Ardent Partners’ analysts have had with CPOs and other procurement leaders for more than a decade. The report examines the general competencies and capabilities of procurement organizations today and highlights the management strategies and tactics that leading CPOs leverage to get the most from their teams. It also presents a comprehensive, industry-wide view into what is happening in the world of procurement and captures the experience, performance, perspective, and intentions of 308 CPOs and other procurement executives. The report includes benchmark statistics, analysis, and recommendations that procurement teams can use to better understand the state of procurement today, gain insight into best practices, benchmark their performance against the Best-in-Class, and ultimately improve their operations and performance.

This snippet is almost literally the tip of the iceberg.

RELATED ARTICLES

Insights from CPO Rising 2019 — New Webinar from Ardent Partners!

CPO Rising 2019 Report – Value Expansion

Monday First Thing: Early Excerpts from CPO Rising 2019

Tagged in: Ardent Partners Research, Chief Procurement Officer, CPO, Innovation, People, Process, Source-to-Settle, Strategy, Technology, Transformation