Sunday, July 06, 2008
KNOWLEDGE GROUPS
Knowledge Groups offer a rich source of content, ideas and innovative concepts around a variety of strategic procurement areas.
The groups provide member-only news and articles, cutting-edge research and knowledge on the most important topics across the procurement landscape. Each Knowledge Group is moderated by an interactive leader and driven by an advisory board and steering committee with extensive experience in the field.
Members are provided access to events, roundtables, meeting transcripts, presentations, white papers, research and a variety of other topic-related information.
GROUP TOPICS
- Global Sourcing
- Outsourcing
- Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)
- Spend Management
- Talent Management
- Benchmarking
- Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
- Technology
- Strategic Sourcing
- Supply Chain Management
- Leadership
- Procurement Outsourcing
- Governance
- Risk Management
- Value Creation
- Services Procurement
OUTSOURCING
Outsourcing is at the top of many corporate agendas in today's economy. With a focus on core competencies, more and more companies are outsourcing human resources, IT, procurement and other key business functions in order to reduce fixed costs, streamline and improve performance... more
GLOBAL SOURCING
As the need to gain competitive edge tightens, companies that were once content to cultivate their local and national markets are now keen to globalise their operations and tap into new markets... more
VALUE CREATION
The term "value creation' can be a misnomer, but for procurement professionals it is simple: delivering additional value to the bottom line through new methods. The difficulty only lies in drawing that value out of the plethora of intangible drivers that you have to deal with... more
SPEND MANAGEMENT
Procurement leaders are making a step-change in spend analysis and are looking at spend management as a platform to support an analytical, data-driven approach to managing procurement and operations on a sustainable basis... more
CSR
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a concept with growing currency across the globe. It involves looking at how companies take account of social and environmental factors and how these can impact on their reputation among consumers and in the business world... more
TALENT MANAGEMENT
Effective talent management is a critical business goal for all leading organisations in today's economy. The fast-paced development of purchasing as a crucial lever for competitive advantage has meant that the 'war for procurement talent' is as intense as it has ever been... more
SRM
As the need to maintain quality, coherence and deliver tangible savings across the supply chain has increased, so the focus has turned to procurement departments to realise the benefits through supplier relationship management (SRM)... more
BENCHMARKING
The ability to rapidly and objectively assess how well business processes are performing in relation to overall business value, strategy and competition is crucial to procurement and shows a direct correlation to reducing costs and boosting value... more
TECHNOLOGY
Technical advances have been moving at such a rate that running a company of any size without using a range of electronic processes is increasingly untenable... more
PROCUREMENT OUTSOURCING
With the increased focus on cost and compliance, the procurement function has been elevated to a strategic component of value creation and a rich source of competitive advantage. To achieve this, rather than creating a world class procurement capability in-house, many companies have simply outsourced it... more
SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
The growth of consumer knowledge across globalised economies has meant that the notion of instant gratification by people is now a given. If companies are unable to rationalise their processes effectively, the degree to which they will maintain competitive advantage can be seriously compromised... more
STRATEGIC SOURCING
Procurement is defining its own culture: processes have had to become sharper and faster to be able to deliver in ever-tighter competitive environments. Sourcing no longer equates to instant cost gratification, but is now defined as a strategic component used to drive maximum competitive advantage... more
SERVICES PROCUREMENT
Services procurement encompasses the strategic management and procuring of complex category services such as contract labour, consultancy services, marketing, print, travel, telecoms and legal services... more
LEADERSHIP
The importance of procurement is increasing. Over the last few years organisations have seen the rise of the chief procurement officer (CPO) spearheading campaigns to reduce costs, leverage cash cycles and improve governance... more
GOVERNANCE
Procurement needs good governance. In the early 2000s a number of scandals hit the headlines, the culmination of which led to increased shareholder and governmental interest in corporate governance and the passing of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) in 2002... more
RISK MANAGEMENT
In 1930 Warren Buffet famously said that "risk comes from not knowing what you're doing". Although this is certainly true, it falls short of explaining the plethora of risks modern businesses and their procurement functions face - suppliers and supply chains can stretch globally, opening them to anything from natural disasters to terrorist attacks... more
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