The Resiliency Imperative – Welcome Address (Series & Session 1 Overview)

Posted by Phil Bartolini on March 30th, 2020
Stored in Articles, Chief Procurement Officers, Events, General, People, Strategy

Ardent Partners takes the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic with the utmost seriousness. Please click here to read our approach in these uncertain times.

UPDATE: Welcome Address – The Resiliency Imperative – is now available to watch on-demand (no registration)

Ardent Partners kicks off its new virtual series – The Resiliency Imperative – tomorrow with a welcome address from Andrew Bartolini, our Founder and Chief Research Officer. I caught up with Andrew this morning to get an overview of what session attendees can expect.

PB – Andrew, tell us about this new series from Ardent Partners.

Andrew: Starting tomorrow March 31 and running through May 7, we will be hosting CPO Rising 2K20 – The Resiliency Imperative an exciting new virtual series that focuses on the key strategies that procurement, supply chain, finance, and HR leaders will need to face the immediate challenges created by the coronavirus and ultimately get through this period of adversity.

This series includes web-based presentations, panels, and interviews with leading business executives, industry analysts, and other experts, as well as Ardent’s latest research on resiliency, agility, and the State of Procurement. The series will culminate with a virtual summit on May 7th.

PB – Why did you decide to host this series and summit?

Andrew – It’s fairly obvious that there are many organizations in crisis mode right now and many more that will soon be. We’ve always tried to use our platform to educate and inform our community on smart technology strategies and overall best practices. Today, there’s a new urgency as different teams around the globe start to face challenges and threats they’ve never seen before. And honestly, when a “black swan” event like the coronavirus hits, even the best-prepared teams face challenges.

We were already planning an interview series with different experts when we started to the different industry events being postponed and canceled. At that point, we decided to build this out into a much bigger thing – The Resiliency Imperative series.

PB – OK. Resiliency – can you explain the series theme to us

Since 2013, my team and I have been focused on the importance of Agility – procurement agility, financial agility, workforce agility. In fact, I’d say we’ve been evangelists on the matter. Resiliency is the result of agility. Join me on tomorrow’s welcome address and I’ll share more.

PB – By your own direction, we need a bit more about tomorrow’s session. What say you?

I was just on a call with the procurement leadership team of a public sector entity that has been hit on all sides. They are facing price gouging, huge scams, and an urgency that is literally life and death. They’re also pressed to source new products from a set of entirely new/unknown suppliers.  Less than 15o miles away, I spoke to a CPO who has been able to shift production from one product to sanitizer in less than a week. Since 2000, the global economy has been increasingly driven through its supply chain. Procurement and other supply management leaders are the ones who will help us save and, eventually, win the day again.

The challenge of each day presents opportunities within them. The people and teams in our industry are resilient. We can be resilient together.  Tomorrow, I introduce the series, discuss the importance of resiliency and then share tips on managing a remote workforce.

PB – Tell us about a few of the experts that are involved in the series.

Andrew: For the first time, we are bringing outside experts to appear on our platform and share their deep expertise on topics that matter to business decision-makers as they face the coronavirus and its aftermath head on. On Thursday I will be joined by Larry Williams who has spent almost 40 years as an executive at P&G, transforming the people, processes, and solutions needed to drive a Best-in-Class P2P operation within a Shared Services environment. Larry is going to discuss how to build and execute a business continuity plan. Later, Divya Demato, CEO & Co-founder of the GoodOps, will  presents a series of new considerations and new options that are available to supply management leaders as they re-craft their supply chains in a “post-COVID-19” world. Expect to see a few of our CPO Rising Hall of Famers participate plus several high-profile Chief Procurement Officers and other experts too. Make sure to post the upcoming events below and I hope to see everybody tomorrow and at the other sessions, including the Virtual Summit on May 7.

CALENDAR OF SESSIONS:

Instead of our typical related research section, we are inviting our readers to investigate our new virtual series, CPO Rising 2K20 – The Resiliency Imperative. Click on the session titles below to learn more and register for them! (Note that there will be more titles coming soon).

On-Demand Sessions:

** If you enjoyed this article, you will enjoy these sessions in particular.

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