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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TAGS
"Leadership"
Battle cry of procurement
Machiavelli, Churchill and an ancient Chinese warrior were among those invoked when senior European procurement leaders got together to discuss the latest industry issues
An air of confidence underpinned the fourth European Leaders in Procurement forum in London in May – even running to military language to reinforce the message.
Guy Allen, director, sourcing and supply services at Fujitsu, described how procurement has developed in the last 20 years but warned that it was still not delivering what was expected of it.
Allen’s rallying cry opened the forum, based on the theme “Winning Purchasing Battles in a Changing Global Marketplace.”
He told more than 100 delegates from across Europe that many procurement professionals treated suppliers as partners. Instead, they should be more cynical towards suppliers, he said, while being upbeat with other people. Invoking the names of
Machiavelli and Churchill, Allen offered an attitude statement saying: “We’ll get the best deal if it’s the last thing we do!”
Other speakers included Prof Christopher Jahns from the Supply Management Institute in Wiesbaden, Sammy Rashed, head of sourcing at Novartis Pharma in Basel, John Boardman, contracts and systems manager, e-procurement team, from Shell International and Ken Cronshaw, European programme manager at BP.
Osama el Kadi, chief procurement officer at Centrica, left everyone in a mood of quiet determination with a closing session on the relevance of advice offered 2,500 years ago by military philosopher Sun Tzu: “Every position is a new start”.
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