Fairmarkit resource library

Watch our webinar recording of Fairmarkit CEO, Kevin Frechette, and Univision VP of Procurement, Frank Cuomo, discuss achieving greater cost savings through in-house tail spend management.

Fairmarkit discusses the challenges of tail spend and how VSP Global is solving this problem with Fairmarkit's tail spend solution.

The procurement landscape is changing faster than ever with disruption, innovation, and technology. CPOs and procurement leaders are inundated with more technology choices than ever before. If teams don’t embrace disruption and new technologies, they risk being left behind. Despite its challenges, technology allows teams to engage differently, operate more effectively, and respond with more actionable information.

Want to learn how to build a procurement department and avoid crucial mistakes? Learn from experts in the field including Greg Tennyson, Head of Sourcing and Procurement at VSP Global, Jean Johnson, Head of Global Sourcing and Procurement at LogMeIn and Natalia Graves, VP of Procurement at Veeam Software as they share their backgrounds, experience and knowledge of building out successful procurement departments.

Procurement and supply chain are often considered the same to those outside of the operations department. Although the two share combine goals and tend to act upon one another in inescapable ways, they are two entirely different departments with different key initiatives and target goals. Given this relationship, executive leaders will benefit from learning the principles and processes of supply chain management and procurement to better understand the relationship between the two departments.

For procurement departments in financial services, risk mitigation is as important as cost control. Because tail spend, also known as nonstrategic spend, constitutes up to 90% of an organization’s spend by volume, it represents a significant source of risk. Thus, procurement departments within financial services organizations stand to gain from adopting a robust tail spend management strategy. Further, the trend toward large-scale digitization in financial services provides incentives for procurement to be early adopters of digital solutions.

The age of digital procurement is here. Though machine-learning, robotics, and data analytics have existed for decades in some capacity, they are growing more sophisticated and permeating throughout organizations. Procurement professionals need a digital strategy to make sure that they can continue to serve the wide variety of needs throughout their company.

As blockchain advances to solve its current shortcomings in scalability, cost, and security, the technology will start to permeate throughout industries. Blockchain will be most effective when integrated within a robust, enterprise-level digital strategy. Even further, it can be difficult to understand the present potentials of blockchain, and even more difficult to formulate a solid prognosis. However, procurement professionals should monitor the development of blockchain carefully because a flattening of procurement data ownership will drive competition, and services-oriented procurement companies will be the propellers for a new wave of efficiency.

Explore the unique relationship dynamics between procurement and other departments, including finance, marketing, and informational technology. As with any strategic partnership, defining the relationship is essential to ensuring positive outcomes. Due to its vital role throughout the operational functions of a company, procurement departments have a unique challenge, as they need to define these relationships with every other central organization in the business. We’ll explore synergies, process efficiencies, data enrichment opportunities, and provide key insights on how the relationships can be improved to drive better, more informed business outcomes.