GEP

The CPO's guide to building an agile procurement organization

If anyone on the planet was still unconvinced about the value of agility in procurement operations — they’re probably convinced now. Greater agility translates to faster decision-making and execution. And organizations that can decide quickly and act quickly can much better manage the impacts of severe disruptions.

A new study from GEP and The Hackett Group takes a deep dive into the subject of procurement agility — its definition, use cases, and how organizations can develop it as a fundamental attribute.

What's inside:

• How greater agility enhances core procurement capabilities, such as risk mitigation

• The role of technology in increasing agility

• Best service-design practices that foster agility in procurement processes 

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Spend Category Outlook 2020: Key Trends, Challenges and Opportunities Amid the Pandemic

The pandemic has changed just about everything you thought you knew about managing your key spend categories. You need to get a handle on the new market dynamics – but you’re also under pressure to control costs while finding opportunities to reinforce supply networks and create growth. Robust supply market intelligence is critical for the achievement of these goals. 

Where have the most significant impacts been felt? What’s changed, and what hasn’t? Is there really a “new normal” across the board, or only for some categories?

In this webinar series, the leaders of GEP’s category advisory groups will present their outlook on the top trends, challenges, and opportunities in 10 key spend categories. The discussions will be set in the context of COVID-19 and the consequences that are beginning to be felt throughout the global business landscape.

On the Agenda:

• Category-specific impacts of COVID-19 across industries and regions
• Changing scenarios in supply, demand and pricing
• Market opportunities for categories and subcategories now, in 3-6 months, and beyond

Watch the webinar

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GEP Category Outlook & Market Intelligence Report 2020

Everything you thought you knew about managing your key spend categories has just gone out the window, thanks to COVID-19. You need new information and guidance, fast.

What’s changed? What hasn’t? What should you do right now? What about in three or six months?

We provide critical insights, facts and figures in our special post-COVID-19 Category Outlook & Market Intelligence Report. Authored by GEP’s world-class category experts, this report examines changes in the top direct and indirect spend categories, helping you get a fast, firm grasp of the new market dynamics. 

What’s Inside:

• Trends and insights into 15 indirect and direct spend categories
• Impact assessment of the COVID-19 crisis and global slowdown
• Market intelligence to explore new business possibilities

A must-read for those who want to make informed decisions that will put their companies on the path toward recovery and success.

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GEP Outlook 2020: New Business & Economic Realities in a Post-Pandemic World

COVID-19 has thrown the global economy into flux. And with that, has triggered a rapid shift in enterprise goals and priorities.

Amid this volatility, how should procurement and supply chain teams organize for the rest of 2020 — and beyond? What should you be doing now to thrive in the new normal?

For starters, read the latest, post COVID-19 issue of the GEP Outlook 2020 Report.

In this timely report, GEP’s experts analyze global business and macroeconomic dynamics currently at play, and how they will shape procurement and supply chain agenda for the near future. The report also outlines specific priorities and focus areas to help you deliver on rapidly shifting enterprise expectations.

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CPO Study 2020

Strategic CPOs have moved away from a focus on cost reduction and toward value creation for the C-suite. And a key catalyst is the advent of AI, automation, and other digital technologies that are helping CPOs tell clear stories about their contributions to the business.

These and many other insights are contained in a new survey from GEP and ProcureCon. The CPO Study 2020: Automation Drives Procurement Forward is full of practical information about today’s procurement priorities and trends. Whether you’re struggling to find digital transformation talent or need to better align to the larger strategic business imperatives of your company, this report has many important observations and commentaries that you can use today.

Read this report to learn how procurement leaders are reshaping their organizations in a post-automation environment.

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Debunking Best-of-Breed

Here’s a great idea to solve procurement’s systemic challenges and achieve transformation: Take a hodgepodge of specialized “best-of-breed” software from different vendors, bolt them together with the digital equivalent of duct tape, and announce that the resulting “ecosystem” is the new paradigm for procurement excellence.

That, of course, is hogwash. It’s insupportable and impractical. It will waste enormous amounts of time and money, and leave procurement teams in a much worse position than they started in.

GEP’s new white paper, Debunking Best-of-Breed: Why the Single-Software Strategy Is the Only Way to Transform Procurement, counters the best-of-breed approach by presenting the strong case for a unified system provided by a single vendor. It supports this case by listing seven of procurement’s most critical strategic goals and demonstrating how unified software can keep an organization on track toward these goals.

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The Business Case for Budget-to-Pay

It’s a tough time to be a CFO right now. The looming recession — catalyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic — can stifle enterprise growth for the next few quarters and beyond.

Which means, CFOs need all the cash they can save internally to sustain and enable growth — and a new, more effective approach to reduce costs: Budget-to-Pay (B2P).

In a timely new paper, The Case for Budget-to-Pay: A Win-Win for Procurement and Finance, GEP discusses a new approach to help CFOs achieve rapid cost reduction and save cash. 

It’s a must-read for finance and procurement leaders looking for effective ways to improve cash flow and take out significant costs from business spend.

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Reimagining Direct Procurement Technology: Why It’s Time to Move Beyond ERPs and Legacy Systems

This paper examines the evolution of the role and needs of direct procurement teams over the years, and the disconnect between the current demands of the function and the technologies that commonly support it. The paper also discusses the strategic advantages of using a next-gen, AI-powered, data-driven procurement platform to enable agile and effective decision-making.

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Digital Should-Cost Analysis: How Technology Can Help Optimize Sourcing and Unlock Value

This paper explains how this new digital should-cost model has been made possible by new technologies and why it’s far superior to manual, DIY calculations. The paper also outlines steps for developing a custom-fit should-cost model that will serve as a strategic decision-making tool, enabling better negotiations and better supplier selection.

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Is it time to outsource Direct Spend Categories?

The paper discusses the factors contributing to suboptimal direct spend management and provides a starting point for eneterprises to begin changing their approach to this area of spend. It sheds light on how leveraging external expertise and adopting the latest technology can help them realize the untapped potential in direct procurement.

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Industry Update: Pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences. Key Procurement Trends and Opportunities

This paper discusses the latest macroeconomic trends impacting the pharma and life sciences industries — focusing on primary factors including scientific disruptors, macro-economic trends and performance catalysts — and what they mean for your business and the procurement function.

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Cost Breakdown Analysis:  The Final Frontier in Cost Cutting

This paper discusses a highly effective technique that drives input cost visibility, helping procurement leaders evaluate the competitiveness of current prices and the economic impact of executive decisions. It also cites specific examples to underline the utility and effectiveness of this methodology.

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White Paper: Energy and Utilities: How Procurement Is Navigating the Forces of Change

Several changes, introduced by the Trump administration, are impacting up the energy and utilities sector in the U.S. How is the current U.S. political and regulatory environment shaping the E&U procurement landscape? In this timely paper, GEP’S E&U experts evaluate the market dynamics and share effective procurement strategies to mitigate risk and drive maximum value for the business.

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Case Study: GEP Enables Leading Solar Technology Company to Save Millions on Logistics Procurement

This case study highlights how a $2 billion-plus solar technology company benefitted from GEP’s expertise in logistics category management to identify areas of opportunities and engage with a best-in-class third-party logistics (3PL) provider.

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Case Study: Optimizing Category Sourcing for Savings and Supply Base Consolidation

A Fortune 200 paper and packaging firm with operations the globe identified the need for a strategic relook at supplier relationships. Using Total Cost of Ownership model, GEP helped the firm align client/supplier incentives and consolidate the supply base for rental equipment.

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Case Study: Energy and Utilities - Category Management

Supplier in India of Piped Natural Gas engaged GEP to analyse its supplier relations in a low-volume market. GEP suggested best practices in category management to improve the company's strategic sourcing approach and tendering process.

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Case Study: Category Sourcing - Sourcing Cost Reduction Through Integrated Planning

The client, one of the global leaders in consumer packaged goods, identified packaging as a critical area of concern because of increasing costs and disruption in supplies. GEP, with its category and demand management, market intelligence and vendor performance tracking expertise, helped identify savings opportunities of over 15 percent on packaging and helped improve on-time delivery metrics.

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Whatever happened to digital procurement transformation? - Part 2

The events of 2020 have led to many procurement teams refocussing their attention on hard savings, cost control, and visibility in the supply chain. Impacts have been felt across organisations and companies have had to look hard at capital and strategic programs. What then for digital transformation projects? Are these to be shelved, cancelled or downscaled?

In the conclusion of the two-part series, hosted in partnership with GEP, we examine the following: 

• Where digital procurement transformation projects may have gone wrong in the past 

• Discuss why that makes for vulnerability in the current situation.  

• Some lessons from best-in-class organisations to see how companies can accelerate results without losing the value of investments made to date.

Watch the webinar

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Whatever happened to digital procurement transformation? - Part 1

The events of 2020 have led to many procurement teams refocussing their attention on hard savings, cost control, and visibility in the supply chain. Impacts have been felt across organisations and companies have had to look hard at capital and strategic programs.  What then for digital transformation projects?  Are these to be shelved, cancelled or downscaled?

In this two-part webinar series, we look at the recent drivers of the priority changes for procurement, assess the likely impact on strategic projects and examine how procurement teams should look to leverage their digital investment in the future.

In part one of this series, this webinar is hosted in partnership with GEP, we look at:

• The current state of procurement investment, especially in CAPEX and strategic projects

• Discuss the trends and challenges caused by the global pandemic and economic crisis

• What companies need to consider in order to build resilience into the operation for the years to come.

Watch the webinar

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Supplier relationship success strategy: Balancing costs, risks and stability

In turbulent times the typical procurement response is to take a short-term, blanket view of all suppliers – negotiating the best prices to improve the company’s working capital. Suppliers will have similar motivation to protect their own interests – thereby putting a strain on the buyer-supplier relationship. Such an approach also creates elevated supplier risk through excessive demands for cost or payment term improvements.

In this webinar we will discuss a program for working with suppliers in ways that will help both sides successfully manage through these uncertain times to emerge in a more favorable long-term position. Procurement should adopt a tiered approach to its supply base; by differentiating operational suppliers from critical and strategic suppliers, who can be targeted with a win-win cost base optimisation strategy. 

What you will learn:

• The right tactics for strategic/critical suppliers and for operational/transactional suppliers

• Risk assessment guidelines for both categories of suppliers

• Making a smooth transition from a short-term, cost savings focus to a longer-term, cost advantage goal

Watch the webinar

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Spend Category Outlook 2020: Key Trends, Challenges and Opportunities Amid the Pandemic

The pandemic has changed just about everything you thought you knew about managing your key spend categories. You need to get a handle on the new market dynamics – but you’re also under pressure to control costs while finding opportunities to reinforce supply networks and create growth. Robust supply market intelligence is critical for the achievement of these goals. 

Where have the most significant impacts been felt? What’s changed, and what hasn’t? Is there really a “new normal” across the board, or only for some categories?

In this webinar series, the leaders of GEP’s category advisory groups will present their outlook on the top trends, challenges, and opportunities in 10 key spend categories. The discussions will be set in the context of COVID-19 and the consequences that are beginning to be felt throughout the global business landscape.

On the Agenda:

• Category-specific impacts of COVID-19 across industries and regions
• Changing scenarios in supply, demand and pricing
• Market opportunities for categories and subcategories now, in 3-6 months, and beyond

Watch the webinar

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Brexit and Beyond: Tips and Tools to Help Procurement Prepare Now

Yes, it's difficult to anticipate the unknown -- and Brexit still holds a lot of unknowns for business right now. Procurement is in a prime position to step up and help the business understand and manage the impact of Brexit. We could even say that the procurement function is crucial for enterprises that want to properly prepare for this historic event.

Yes, it's difficult to anticipate the unknown -- and Brexit still holds a lot of unknowns for business right now. Procurement is in a prime position to step up and help the business understand and manage the impact of Brexit. We could even say that the procurement function is crucial for enterprises that want to properly prepare for this historic event.

Cross-border trade, supply chain and movement of goods are already top of mind and on business leaders' agendas. How can procurement think beyond the obvious and take steps to address the more latent risks that enterprises face? And how can current procurement technology options contribute to this process?

Why Attend This Webinar:

•         Understand how various companies are navigating the diverse Brexit scenarios to forecast impacts on their businesses

•         Learn about technology tools and techniques for assessing potential Brexit consequences across all your spend categories

•         Get advice on formulating a practical plan for conducting a Brexit risk assessment

Category Management in Practice

World class procurement organizations have done their part in driving savings over the past decade, but there are diminishing returns to traditional approaches. In the decade ahead, procurement organizations must increase their level of partnership with business leaders while providing sustainable value that extends beyond cost savings. Strategic category management (SCM) is an approach that aligns procurement activities with business objectives and helps enable this partnership aspiration.

Join GEP’s Bruno Khan and Joel Johnson discuss why SCM is needed, what it entails and how to get started with an SCM program, in this all new, intriguing webinar – a must watch if you’re looking to build or enhance an SCM program, or to simply gain a clear understanding of how SCM can add value compared to traditional sourcing approaches. 

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The Categorical Imperative: Advancing Strategic Partnerships Through a Category Management Framework

In a ‘mature procurement’ scenario, the procurement team is not just a tactical support, but a strategic partner to the business. Based on a better understanding of the business’s needs, the procurement team needs to focus on developing category strategies (as opposed to sourcing strategies) that will use multiple levers to drive value for the business.

In this webcast presented by GEP and SIG (Sourcing Industry Group), GEP’s Biju Mohan discusses methods and motivations for developing an operating model to drive a more strategic approach to category management. Discussion points include:

• Partnering with the business to develop a category strategy aligned with business requirements
• How to avoid the ‘cost-reduction trap’ by using innovative levers to generate value

Essential viewing for procurement pros aiming to lead their organizations to new levels of performance and effectiveness.

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Use of these links will take you away from the CIPS website to internet sites maintained by third parties. You assume sole responsibility for the use of all third-party links. CIPS provides these links as a convenience and accepts no responsibility for content, errors, omissions, or inaccuracies.