Keynote speaker Chris Lynch (CFO, Rio Tinto) spoke about fostering a culture of “intrapreneurship” within large organisations and understanding that the bigger your idea is, the more resistance it will face.
However he went on to state that by persisting with your idea, taking ideas from other sources, including suppliers, and showing the outcomes, you are more likely to succeed.
Dr. Jules Goddard, distinguished academic and our facilitator for Big Ideas calls for an end to ‘best practice’.
The good Dr. says that the notion of ‘best practice’ has really harmed businesses’ ability to create wealth during the last 10-15 years. It’s a pursuit that needs to stop.
Sig Osagie, Author and Coach believes that everybody is born with the capacity to do extraordinary things. “Don’t die with your music inside of you”.
Sigi says don’t wait for your CPO to manage you, take the initiative to understand what your personal values and drivers are and align them with your career as motivation.
Jason Busch, founder of Spend Matters takes inspiration from the automotive industry and a metaphor around transmission.
Jason says procurement needs to transition from the clunky old manual transmission that doesn’t know what gear to be in, into a modern automatic that predicts where it needs to be, learns and grows.
A little insight into the Big work that went into Procurious’ inaugural Big Ideas Summit, as told by the people that made it happen.
Gathering 40 of the world’s most influential thought-leaders for a one-day event in London was a potential logistical nightmare in the making…
Luckily Team Procurious had an ace up its sleeve in the form of its European General Manager – Lisa Malone, who skilfully guided the entire operation to its successful conclusion . Planning began back in the latter half of 2014, speakers were booked, agendas set, media packs distributed, interviews arranged, film crew booked, dietary requirements received and reservations at venues made. Yep, Big Ideas Summit 2015 was spread across not just one, but two venues.
Spend Matters’ Jason Busch joked: “I’m not sure if anyone else who knows the history of the Soho neighborhood also observed the irony of a “procurement” event there – especially one hosted by “Procurious” – but I at least got a chuckle out of it.
“Venues aside – and the Soho Hotel has a truly great small conference facility.” Suffice to say that the irony was not lost on us…!
Fun fact: Big Ideas Summit was originally known as 20:20 – with the idea being 20 speakers in a room with 20 influencers.
Product Manager Jack Slade built a bespoke landing page for the event. The Big Ideas Summit website carried essential information about the day, including featured speakers, topics to be covered, latest news and details for getting involved. A timer counted down the hours to the big day, ensuring that the whole team were kept on their toes…
As the big day rolled around Lisa would do a faultless job of ensuring speakers kept to time and everything flowed smoothly. In- fact we think the word ‘effortless’ was mooted…
On the day itself Procurious founder Tania Seary said: “Through the ideas that have been generated today, we’ve hopefully inspired a new generation of business intrapreneurs to get their creative juices flowing, to start collaborating through networks like Procurious and then start implementing those ideas to achieve change within their organisations and the entire profession.”
Fun fact: Even before Big Ideas Summit began we’d published 30+ stories on the topics and people who were set to appear
Euan Granger, Relationship Manager – Procurious, offered: “For me, Big Ideas represented a great opportunity to make people aware of procurement and Procurious, as well as getting them talking about the future of the profession. It was great to be able to see both sides of the conversation – the first part in the room in London where the room was alive with ideas and discussions, but also to watch what was happening on social media and know there was a huge number of people watching, following and taking part in the discussions around the world. To see the numbers of people following Procurious across the various social media platforms was something special.
I just hope they got as much out of the day as I did!”
Jordan Early, Euan Granger and Jack Slade working away
Procurious contributor Jordan Early said: “Big Ideas was a blast. It was busy but that’s exactly what I expected when I stepped off the plane at Heathrow after an overnight (and day) flight from Sydney.
The lineup of speakers didn’t disappoint. It’s great to see some procurement conferences are finally moving away from the traditional sale pitch from service provider and CPO patting themselves on the back style of speeches towards discussions that hold real relevance for procurement professionals.
“I spent most of my day scribbling notes in the hall and turning them around into blogs that can now be read on the Procurious platform. I learnt a lot and met some great people and ultimately, isn’t that what events are about?“
Big Ideas certainly caused a buzz across social, just as Euan had alluded to. On Twitter #BigIdeas2015 was mentioned 759 times in 24 hours (reaching a potential audience of 1m+), we saw a colossal 2700+ new likes on Facebook, and our 5000+ strong community made Procurious the go-to place for daring discussions.
As the curtain went down, the action moved across town for a chance for guests to let their hair down.
After wars of words in the panel sessions, a new battle took shape in the bowling alley…
Those not able to make the day were able to enjoy bowling, drinks and food at The Ham Yard Hotel.
It also provided us with an opportunity to get face-time with some of our biggest supporters and valued community members.
Helen Mackenzie – Head of Exchequer Services
The Faculty’s Max Goonan treated us to some of his highlights from his trip across the pond:
Chris Sawchuk being described as a ‘Dapper Road Warrior’ despite arriving that morning from Chicago.
Max Goonan surviving similar jetlag on any even longer flight from Australia the night before.
Sigi complementing all on how good looking everyone was…
Paul Rakovich (I think it was him) aligning his mid-life crisis Porsche purchase – to the state of the procurement profession..
Rob Nott’s amazing bowling prowess – re-created from his teens…
And the genuine camaraderie amongst participants – all with a desire to be part of a momentum shift in thinking!
In the days since we’ve been hard at work getting all of the videos (keynotes, panels and Big Ideas) onto Procurious for you all to view and share among your peers. The latest uploads can be found on our Learning page.
The Procurious team now have just enough time to recharge their batteries before Big Ideas Summit 2016 kicks off! Keep your diary free next May, and keep your eyes locked to Procurious for further announcements…
Team Procurious Assemble!
The day itself may now be over, but your Big Ideas are still being amplified online. As a Procurious member you can access exclusive video content online – just join the Big Ideas Summit Group page to view.
Got a Big Idea of your own? We want to hear it (provided it’s less that 60 seconds)! Find out more here.
James Ferguson founder of Supplibase.com thinks the future lies in Social Supplier Management (or SSM for acronym fans).
James imagines a place where we all manage our supplier relationships through reviews, references and recommendations.
London-based professionals may also like to know that James hosts a monthly procurement meetup (don’t worry it’s not in a boardroom, but a local pub…) – you can RSVP and join James at the London Buyers Club here.
Want to add your voice to the conversation? We want you to share your point of view and ideas with the community by creating a video no more than 60 seconds long. What’s your Big Idea?
One of the most incendiary sessions at the Big Ideas Summit saw us gazing into our crystal ball with a view to identifying procurement’s blind spots.
“There are known knowns… There are known unknowns. But there are also unknown unknowns.” – Donald Rumsfeld.
This brilliant distillation of what was quite the complex matter can also be attributed to the disruptors likely to affect both business and procurement. We’re already well versed on innovations like 3D printing and social media, as well as water scarcity and climate change – but what of the blind spots, the things that no one is talking about yet?
What are the issues that have the potential to really shake things up? We turned to the Procurious community for answers and this is what you had to say…
Payments and costs seem to be a hot topic… Chris Smith starts things off by asking: “What about transaction costs for undertaking the procurement, for the user, the buyer and the bidders (winners and losers)? Mike Dunlop agrees, and takes the discussion further: How to best calculate the cost of transactions, the benefit of SRM as a tangible return of investment, the risk / cost of compliance of Procurement Payment cards vs loading a new supplier for low value spends?”
This prompts a reply from Cornelius du Preez who comments: “Measuring and procurement, what a headache. I’m currently doing my dissertation in the area of procurement. Al the reading of past research and case studies are really interesting, but the question that keeps coming up is the ‘How to measure….’ One of the questions I ‘m trying to get to the bottom is, ‘How to calculate procurement’s contribution on the bottom line?’ As there are many variable factors that needs to be considered, further upstream as well.”
We encourage lively discussion on Procurious, and this is exactly what we get here! Mike comes back: “My view is that anyone can negotiate. It is inherent in the human DNA and we all do it every day of our lives without realising it. But not everyone is able to – clearly articulate a specification and ensure all tender responses are like for like, create a valued weighted score card for value comparison, understand the cost of resource through the entire end to end process, look at where to reduce waste and enable people to great more value, contract management and risk mitigation (plus many more excellent tasks).
Mike argues: “In essence Procurement should be able to easily display their value to the company or there is an argument that they shouldn’t be there. With this you can calculate the value benefit from savings, reduced waste and reporting on missed savings. This will then give you a bottom line impact of X that you can compare against the Overhead cost of the department. This would then give you a Return on Investment of the procurement department. You now have your tangible rationale as to the contribution on bottom live vs the cost of return.”
Returning our focus to procurement blindspots, Simona Pop says “it’s prompt payments and how they could really improve supply chain health and our economy as a whole!”
Samantha Coombs believes more focus needs to be put on checks, saying: “I believe the best driver of prevention is proper checks. Ensuring there are policies in place to tackle a variety of the points you mentioned. By carrying out proper supplier due diligence then protects the company’s reputation, the people and importantly the shareholders who invest based on the appropriate management of risk.”
To round this particular topic off, Mark Johnson wanted to highlight Rogue Spending Activities, having seen this over and over in many different industries.
We’re putting Big Ideas from the Procurious community in the spotlight… Here’s a particularly creative effort from Anya McKenna of Market Dojo. Great job!
Market Dojo want to make eSourcing for everyone, following on from a TED lecture about the 4 stages of technology. In Anya’s view, eSourcing is yet to reach a commodity level, but it’s just a matter of time… Who will be the first?!
Want to add your voice to the conversation? We want you to share your point of view and ideas with the community by creating a video no more than 60 seconds long. What’s your Big Idea?
Lance Younger, CEO of Statess believes that procurement isn’t about a transaction anymore.
Lance says that the profession must adopt Intelligent Collaborative Ecosystems (ICE). Procurement is about long term valuable relationships. ICE encourages collaboration to solve shared global problems.
Sigi originally arrived in the UK as an African immigrant with holes in his shoes, penniless and no address book. Fourteen years later, he was a global director in a FTSE250 blue-chip multinational.
Today he works as a writer, speaker, business adviser and coach, drawing on insights from his atypical life journey and career success to inform and inspire others.
