To continue our discussion from Part 1, let's consider the roles of cause and effect on evolving Procurement practices.
Since March, tens of millions of Americans have lost their jobs, bringing the United States’ unemployment rate to its highest point since the Great Depression. The near-term pain is obvious, but how will this seismic economic event influence the workforce a generation from now?
Every year, companies spend billions on packaging for their products. According to a recent research report by Smithers, the value of the global packaging market was $917 billion in 2019. It will grow to $1.05 trillion by 2024.
It would be far too simple to craft an “us versus them” story when it comes to different generations in the workforce today. For example, one could say older workers, like Baby Boomers, are outdated, and Generation Z, today’s youthful college graduates, are the tech-savvy heroes. Or perhaps the Boomers are experienced and hardworking while Gen Z are tech addicted and anti-social.
During this pandemic, many organizational CEOs and Board members have become aware of and startled by the inefficiencies and bureaucracies in their Procurement organizations. C-suite executives discovered their organizations were in predicaments with deep and broad implications none of us had previously fathomed. Most of us never imagined we’d need to find new suppliers, support, or transition from current ones to diversify for business continuity at the drop of a hat.
Data security is a significant issue of concern for both small and large organizations. As an organization holds onto data collected from customers and vendors, it should be wary of the threat posed by cybercriminals. There are several standards that you should comply with when it comes to information security. ISO 27001 is one such standard.
Key Facts
Recent headlines are dominated by the news that the University of Oxford research team is seeing promising results from early trials of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate. Now we must turn our attention to the vital technology that ensures that doses of any viable vaccine reach locations in a state without the need for retesting.
One of the key things around Intelligent Automation (IA) is to ensure it has a strong business foundation not just in planning, execution and validation but also in assessing and reporting business benefits. While this may seem simple, it’s often not done well in most organizations and leads to a skewed view of business benefits from automating business processes.
When the COVID crisis hit, organizations had no choice but to respond to the challenges they faced by leveraging the resources they and their suppliers had at their disposal. Clearly, some were better prepared and responded with more resilience than others. Now we are many months into the crisis, and it's time to look at what went wrong and what organizations should change going forward.
Quantitative and scientific approaches to cost estimation have existed for decades and are increasingly accessible to procurement teams via technologies that automate data analysis.
In many cases, these new capabilities simply accelerate the manual work that procurement professionals were doing using pivot tables and advanced Excel functions (e.g., show only rows with less than five days lead time) that effectively filter large numbers of line items in seconds.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in the required virtual supply chain work across companies. Aside from the pandemic, teams workingvirtually is a macro trend that newer generations making up a growing portion of the workforce expect. Looking ahead, if supply chain leaders want to attract and retain the best and brightest talent, they will need to facilitate work in new and different ways.
Technology has advanced significantly since the days when procurement leaders were only managing RFIs and RFPs among their “little black book” of trusted suppliers. Today, big data and artificial intelligence now offer an expansive view of an entire supplier market and unprecedented access to vast wells of verified data. This advancement has opened the door to a new approach that can completely transform the strength of procurement decisions and enable procurement teams to impact a company’s bottom line in new and sometimes unexpected ways.
PRO Unlimited, a global innovator of contingent workforce management software and services, recently announced the appointment of Kevin Akeroyd as its Chief Executive Officer.
When municipal and county governments need significant facility and infrastructure updates, but don’t have the funds available, they must identify new and creative ways to cut costs.
For example, Turner County, Georgia, needed to control expenses and upgrade its facilities and infrastructure to ensure its residents receive vital services. They began by analyzing the county’s energy and operational costs.
