Extensive disruption at the beginning of the decade put resilience at the top of the agenda for most organizations. Now the focus is on how digital procurement solutions can be used to boost agility.
Consumers’ expectations are evolving more rapidly than ever before, making it imperative for business process outsourcing (BPO) call centers to manage an increasing number of channels and agents with a wide variety of skill sets. Adoption of digital channels surged during the pandemic, with nearly all consumers becoming digitally savvy.
Continued pressures from supply chain disruptions, COVID-19 outbreaks and rising inflation are forcing business leaders to re-think their operations to cut costs. Business negotiations are an untapped source of value that can help Fortune 500 companies optimize their business processes while driving bottom-line value.
There are a lot of factors that led up to the labor trend that has come to be known as the Great Resignation, including some that were in play before the pandemic began.
Social justice movements have been powerful catalysts for change in recent years. As these movements have gained in momentum, they have not only raised awareness of inequality and discrimination, but also set an expectation for change and transparency with the right to question injustice and seek remedy. As a result, diversity in governance and leadership is taking center stage in corporate mission statements and employee value propositions.
It’s a word that everyone from high-ranking executives to the average grocery-store shopper dreads hearing: inflation. As the world continues to experience supply chain disruptions caused by a number of factors—the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, political crises, changes in production patterns and more—we’re seeing prices for goods and materials climb faster and higher.
What was once nice-to-have information has now been defined by law. As concern grows around modern slavery, GDPR, conflict minerals and climate change, governments and related third parties are demanding – with regulatory backing – that businesses ensure ethical supply chains.
To mitigate regulatory and reputational cost, organizations need robust, accurate and extensive supplier information. For those with large complex supply chains, this is no mean feat. But apart from alleviating risk, getting your supplier information ducks in a row can also drive value.
The threat of lost business.
Without it, even the largest customer lacks any real power in the marketplace. When a supplier doesn’t feel any plausible threat of lost business, it can adopt—figuratively, of course—the sales tactics employed by Vito Corleone in The Godfather, as relayed by Michael to Kay:
“…my father assured him that either his brains or his signature would be on the contract.”
After a coronavirus-driven slowdown in activity, 2021 was a year of thriving M&A activity in the financial services space. There were 1,400+ acquisitions totaling more than $348 billion, with some notable M&A deals including Square’s purchase of buy now, pay later provider Afterpay; Visa’s purchase of open-banking platform Tink; and SoFi’s purchase of traditional bank Golden Pacific Bancorp.
Rajeev Karmacharya is Head of the Strategic Sourcing and Category Management group in Fannie Mae. He leads a team of category management, sourcing/contracting and supplier operations professionals managing $4.5+ billion in external spend.
Risk management isn’t a new term or notion to the supply chain and procurement industry, yet it continues to be one of the least addressed priorities within organizations. KPMG recently shared a report on fourth-party risk that notes roughly 80% of businesses say they need to urgently improve their assessment of fourth parties in their supply chain.
Most businesses didn’t anticipate having to handle the supply-chain impacts of several disruptive forces at once: an ongoing pandemic, a severe crunch for talent and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The global COVID-19 pandemic put supply chain management and procurement in a very bright and positive spotlight for keeping life moving as normal as possible during all the shutdowns, disruption and general uncertainty.
It also highlighted that business and supply chain disruption are ongoing facts of life – such as ongoing extreme weather events globally and a megaship blocking the Suez Canal for weeks, to name just two. And the impacts created a snowball effect on other industries:
Global businesses have now spent nearly two years navigating the various challenges of the pandemic. Although some of the fallout was predictable, the dramatic impact we have witnessed on the global employment market was more unexpected. Companies that were already adjusting to new ways of working now find themselves in the middle of arguably the worst employment crisis in modern history—a phenomenon known as the Great Resignation.
Tania Seary is the Founding Chairman of Procurious, an online network for procurement and supply chain professionals. Born and based in Australia, Tania’s fascination and commitment to procurement development began 20 years ago in the United States. After finishing her MBA at Pennsylvania State University, she became one of Alcoa’s first global commodity managers.
