Paul Melchiorre, Ariba’s VP of Strategy had a chance to sit down with Vinnie Mirchandani, former Gartner analyst, and author of The New Polymath, being published by Wiley in June, to discuss how the book’s contents could apply to the sourcing community. Part 1 of the interview is here.
Paul Melchiorre (PM): What New Polymath characteristics [...]
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Paul Melchiorre, Ariba’s VP of Strategy had a chance to sit down with Vinnie Mirchandani, former Gartner analyst, and author of The New Polymath, being published by Wiley in June, to discuss how the book’s contents could apply to the sourcing community.
Paul Melchiorre (PM): To start with. what is a New Polymath?
Vinnie Mirchandani (VM): Paul, [...]
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As my wise colleague Pat Furey recently wrote, “career fortunes are made during a recession.” As companies tighten their belts in the face of shrinking top-line revenues, they’ll look to procurement to drive bottom line savings. So do you have the performance record, skillset and credentials to move up the ladder when the economy rebounds [...]
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Purchasing Magazine’s recent advice that procurement market and sell its usefulness to internal stakeholders got me thinking: what are spend management organizations doing to serve their internal customers? And how are they measuring success?
When I first posed this question to two CPOs a while back, their answer was blunt: “When I talk with my CFO, [...]
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Faced with a bleak employment market and the desire to simply hang on to their current job (or find another one quickly), many people put “career development” on the back burner. But at a time when many employers are seeking to trim down their rolls to the most skilled, dedicated employees, it can pay to [...]
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Since Lady Thatcher exited the British political scene in the eighties, unions in the United Kingdom have not been the fiercest to organize demonstrations. So why have thousands oil and power plant workers across the United Kingdom staged strikes over the last 5 days?
Crowds have been demonstrating all over Europe in the recent weeks. The [...]
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Last week, the NYTimes reported on the growing trend of companies trimming labor expenses – in the form of salaries, benefits, forced furloughs, 4 day work weeks, etc – rather than slashing headcount.
“Companies taking nips and tucks to their work force say this economy plunged so quickly in October that they do not want to [...]
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Even in a very dour employment market, there are always bright spots. As the saying goes…fortunes are made during recessions. So, tremendous volatility in commodity prices and a recession provide a HUGE opportunity for direct materials procurement professionals to make their career “fortunes”. The buyer’s market conditions provide obvious strategic and savings opportunities for procurement [...]
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In this economy, one thing we can count on is that all organizations will be asked to do is stretch their budgets and increase productivity. And although an efficient procurement department is a net plus on the company’s bottom line, they won’t be immune from the calls to do more with less. So, how do [...]
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Have you ever been in a meeting with an internal stakeholder who doesn’t want any help on their category because it’s too complex, or is the creative service that can’t be effectively sourced or managed by anybody but the supplier and that stakeholder himself? Then this story is for you…
In the Business Week article “The [...]
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