SIG University Certified Sourcing Professional (CSP) program graduate Shawnie Albritton shares how category management can help with cross-team engagement and its usefulness in procurement.
Shawnie Albritton, Sr. Procurement Operations Analyst, Raymond James
In this article, we hear takeaways from a recent CPO Rountable discussion from Michael Koontz, VP, Strategic Sourcing & Business Leader for American Tire Distributors (ATD) Sourcing Solutions. I think you will find his approach to battling inflation innovative and unique.
Before we get to Michael’s fight-inflation strategy, let’s first provide some background information on his company. ATD operates more than 130 distribution centers, including 24 in Canada, serving close to 80,000 customers across North America. Employing 4,000 associates in the U.S. and 600 north of the 49th, ATD offers an “unsurpassed breadth and depth of inventory, frequent delivery and value-added services to tire and automotive service customers.”
Their selection as one of Forbes’ 2021 America's Best Mid-Sized Employers and the reception of a Gold Stevie® Award in the Transportation Company of the Year category of the American Business Awards® provides testimony to their high level of service and success as a company.
An Innovative Model
According to Michael, inflation is “five times more difficult for small businesses.
The same conclusion is echoed in a January 2022 Ipsos/MetLife/U.S. Chamber of Commerce poll. According to the poll, "inflation and supply chain challenges continue to bedevil small business owners,” with “concerns around inflation and supply chain” intensifying rather than decreasing.
Based on the above, ATD had to do something to support its network of 650 franchises. Enter ATD Sourcing Solutions.
As the first half of 2022 comes to a close, procurement faces the reality of inflation and what that means for their supply chains. We have a host of resources, insights and events to get you prepared.
May CPO & Executive Virtual Series
SIG's CPO & Executive Virtual Series is an opportunity for the most senior procurement executives to gather with their peers in an interactive virtual environment to discuss their most pressing issues. On May 4 Brian Roche, CPO from Westfield Insurance, will deliver an exciting keynote session on the potential for AI in procurement at the May CPO & Executive Virtual Series. He will be followed by Karen Coker, Director of Third Party Risk & Vendor Management at LendingPoint for A Day in the Life presentation.
Join us for this executive-level conversation with actionable takeaways!
On May 18, Canda Rozier CIAP, Sourcing Executive & former CPO, will share her digitization journey as a CPO. That session will be followed by Daryl Hammett, Global Head of Demand and Operations at Amazon Web Services (AWS), who will lead an exciting deep-dive discussion on the importance of professional development in sourcing.
Join your sourcing, procurement, and risk management colleagues in this two-hour interactive virtual environment to be challenged with topics related to our industries!
Organizations spend tens of trillions of dollars a year globally on services. It’s not surprising why: The world is shifting from a goods and manufacturing-based economy to one where outcomes are delivered “as a service” — whether that’s traditional labor, complex services (e.g., BPO, professional services) or even the outsourcing of goods production through contract manufacturers. On average, services account for around 50% of spending on third-party suppliers, ranging from 20% to 80%, depending on industry and specific organizations.
Because of this vast overall expenditure and the distributed nature of services spending throughout the enterprise, there are potentially significant opportunities to reduce the cost of services. What’s more, in many organizations, services spend ownership is, in practice, distributed across the organizations’ functional units (e.g., legal, marketing, IT), and procurement involvement can be limited or even resisted. This creates opportunities to obtain savings and improve services outcomes by increasing visibility into and rationalizing and automating related sourcing and performance management processes.
Yet the question then becomes how to obtain these improved results. Over the past several years, procurement practitioners have told us repeatedly that processes and technology for the management of services are not as robust as those for goods and materials, meaning there is much more to do to gain better visibility, influence and control over services spend. Despite the tens of trillions of dollars, organizations spend on services each year, how organizations use technology to support their sourcing and management of services has not been analyzed to any meaningful extent.
State of Services Procurement Technology Survey
Morgan Zombolas, Marketing Engagement Manager, Spend Matters
Our deepest belief is that the procurement functions, by connecting with stakeholders and creating coalitions along the entire supply chain, are uniquely positioned to accelerate transformations and deliver the impact promised by most corporations on environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG).
SIG and Oliver Wyman have developed a survey to assess the current maturity level of Procurement organizations globally, across various industries and geographies, to highlight the best practices and identify the upcoming challenges for CPOs.
Specifically, this survey examines the following criteria to determine your maturity in sustainable procurement:
Convert ESG-related company ambitions into strategic procurement objectives
Build a robust baseline on each ESG dimension
Embed ESG in category strategy
Explicitly state your goals and pledge to suppliers
Embark, engage, and challenge suppliers
Team up with partners to share ESG-related best practices
Champion change internally
Accelerate change externally
Reinvent procurement performance monitoring towards ESG
Embed sustainability in the core procurement processes
Upskill teams to better engage suppliers on sustainability
Embed ESG in procurement data and digital asset strategy
Share your insights with SIG and Oliver Wyman on our new Sustainable Procurement Maturity Survey!
2022 is already shaping up to further depend on procurement's expertise in transforming sustainable supply chains. We have a host of resources, insights and events to prepare you for procurement's transformation!
Procurement Technology Summit
Prepare yourself and your team for the future of business at the SIG Procurement Technology Summit April 4-6, 2022! Are you registered?
Get ready for amazing keynote sessions, a chance to engage and learn from the brightest industry experts, speed networking, and experience live solution deep-dives from best-in-class providers.
Do you hear that? That's the sound of the SIG Future of Sourcing Awards making a return! The FOS awards are held to honor and celebrate individuals and organizations that show innovation, leadership and transformation in critical areas to the sourcing industry. The next Awards will take place in Rancho Mirage, California, on October 19, 2022, the capstone evening at the SIG Global Executive Summit. Attendees will enjoy dinner, networking, entertainment and an awards ceremony delivered in the most innovative ways imaginable. This event will bring together some of the brightest minds, the best insights and the most relevant topics to create a truly remarkable experience.
A timeless saying is that "life is 10 percent what happens to you, and 90 percent how you react to it."
I was reminded of these words when I recently read the PBS News Hour articleHow the supply chain caused current inflation, and why it might be here to stay.
According to reports, the 6.2 percent increase in prices over last year was unexpected and, therefore, a shocking turn of events to many experts. Even more troubling is that there is a growing belief that higher consumer prices will become the "new normal." In short, while the rate of inflation may nominally fluctuate over the coming months, its fastest rate of increase in "more than three decades" is a trend that will likely continue in the coming years.
I intend to understand the "why" of what is happening and highlight the consequences of the current crisis - including the means and tools at your disposal to deal with it.
Supply Chain Mess
While there is no single reason for the inflation we are experiencing today, it seems that the catch-all reason given by experts is that our supply chains are a mess.
Starting with the "severe shortages of goods and labor in supply chains," pundits point to a dramatic increase in people buying online due to the pandemic as an exacerbating factor.
For example, industry projections that orders would hit 4.7 million packages a day during this recent holiday go well "beyond what the system can possibly absorb or deliver." However, that is just one part of the story, which brings us back to my opening comments about our reaction.
When The Chips Are Down
The strained relationships between buyers and sellers due to inflation are making headlines around the globe.
In what was traditionally a siloed function, separate from overall executive and organizational strategy, procurement professionals have more recently become integral to company operations and resilience. This prominence grew during the COVID pandemic, which broke down barriers between departments and raised attention to the importance of Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) and other procurement personnel, and the work they do.
The Power of Procurement
The procurement team is at the interface between the enterprise and the extended enterprise: the organization and its suppliers. Procurement professionals are in the position to understand the risks and the wider ecosystems their suppliers operate in. They, like no other function, can make predictive connections and be able to quickly identify risks specific to one supplier or those endemic to the wider ecosystem, and quickly pivot alongside the business accordingly. And it’s not just risk, but opportunity and innovation for the enterprise, such as identifying new products, materials, capabilities and offerings.
With this greater inclusion of procurement professionals into organizational strategy, CPOs and similar roles need to begin to reframe how the function can best serve the organization, and how other departments can serve them. One key to this new way of thinking is framing procurement around holistic risk management, particularly when it comes to managing third parties, suppliers and the supply chain.
Best Practices for Taking a Holistic Approach to Procurement
While not everything in this shift can be implemented immediately, there are general aspects of agility that should be on procurement’s agenda, including:
2022 is off to a fast start and the future of procurement is squarely in view. We have a host of resources, insights and events to prepare you for procurement 4.0!
February Microlearning by SIG University
Stakeholder Engagement has shifted dramatically over the last few years, making way for Procurement’s traditional tasks to become automated. So what should you be armed with to be a vital asset for the business? Join Anita Weise, former VP of Procurement at Vail Resorts as she gives a thought-provoking discussion about the new lens into Stakeholder Engagement! She will be joined by Daryl Hammett, Global Head of Lead Management and Operations Amazon Web Services (AWS), who will lead an exciting deep-dive discussion.
Join your sourcing, procurement, and risk management colleagues in this two-hour interactive virtual environment to be challenged with topics related to our industries!
Did you miss our 2021 open cohort start dates? We have fast-track and self-paced options for all programs if open cohort semester timings do not work for your schedule! Have a large group from your organization interested in taking the program together? We also offer closed cohorts for groups of 20 or more that can start when it is best suitable for your team, and volume discounts are available!
SIG and Globality, the world’s only AI-powered Marketplace and Platform for B2B services, partnered to produce a study looking into why B2B services remains one of the greatest untapped opportunities to drive business value
Almost 70% of Globality and SIG survey respondents indicate that they are either proceeding as planned or are now accelerating their digitization initiatives.
However, bridging the gap between intent, action, and a positive outcome has never been an easy endeavor. In fact, and as pointed out in her latest book, Trade wars, pandemics, and chaos: How digital procurement enables business success in a disordered world, Dr. Elouise Epstein talks about how people are coming clean about the challenges with their existing or historical tech. In other words, organizations need more than just a desire to digitally transform the enterprise if they hope to avoid the same pitfalls that have undermined initiatives in the past.
The purpose of this article is to leverage the insights gained from the Globality and SIG survey to create a clear and more certain path to digital transformation success.
Clear Benefits
According to most survey respondents, there are several priorities when it comes to digitization in critical areas. These top priority areas include the rapid identification, selection, and engagement of suppliers, the ability to react with speed to market dynamics, and the capability to drive revenue through innovation.
While varying degrees of organizational maturity regarding procurement processes may result in some differences in the priority of identified objectives, there is generally no argument that the benefits of a progressive digital strategy are clear.
 (1).png?VxPJPxGINJqziAvOoYJga6nIYrr3WpR6= "Using A GPO Model To Fight Inflation")
 (1).png?yBOyCwHxLxPD4ZJGukUXMwtwF5wchs7J= "This Month at SIG – May2021")
 (1).png "The State of Services Procurement Technology: A joint research study by SIG & Spend Matters")
 (1).png "Sustainable Procurement Maturity")
 (1).png "This Month at SIG – March 2022")
 (1).png "The Inflated Supply Chain: How To Navigate The Complexity Of Doing Business During A Period Of Rising Inflation")
 (1).png "It’s Time to Take a Holistic Approach to Managing Procurement Risks")
 (1).png "This Month at SIG – February 2022")
 (1).png "Developing a Clear and More Certain Path to Digital Transformation Success")
Utilizing Team Engagement in Procurement
SIG University Certified Sourcing Professional (CSP) program graduate Shawnie Albritton shares how category management can help with cross-team engagement and its usefulness in procurement.