Spring 2009
Refreshing a core process
By Jon Hughes and John Dickson
Category management has been a cornerstone of procurement excellence for more than a decade, but in many firms it has lost touch with business needs. Here’s how premium drinks maker Diageo put some fizz back into a universal practice
Doing more with less
By Nick Martindale
The pressures of the global downturn are increasing workloads and reducing headcount, challenging CPOs to deliver superior results with fewer resources
A fine balancing act
By Nicolas Reinecke, Nicklas Garemo et al
At the same time as helping to improve their firms’ cash positions, CPOs must keep key suppliers healthy and take advantage of strategic opportunities
Part of the fabric
By Geraint John
Global market dynamics have forced leading apparel maker VF Corporation to develop a new type of supplier relationship, explains its CPO, George Irion
The £4.4bn assessment centre
By John Doyle and Richard Jones
Evaluating a potential partner’s ‘soft’ skills and cultural fit is notoriously difficult. So for the task of decommissioning the UK’s Sellafield nuclear plant, its owners took a novel approach
An upside to the downturn
By Stephen Finch, Ashley Hubka and Grégory Kochersperger
Current economic conditions give CPOs the chance to build an organisation that not only protects against the downside of purchasing-related risks but also captures the upside
Casting the net wider
By Dick Russill and Nick Wildgoose
When it comes to risk, most of procurement’s attention tends to be on supply chain disruption. But there are also plenty of dangers lurking inside an organisation’s four walls
