On this last day of 2012, it is a great time to reflect on what may have been our most productive year ever here at the Next Level Purchasing Association (NLPA). As I look back at 2012, here are the ways that we helped procurement professionals improve their workplace performance and enhance their careers: In January, “The Procurement Game Plan: Winning…
It’s a common scenario: a procurement department seeks to take or expand its control over an area of spend but is thwarted by internal customers’ refusal to cooperate. Your management knows that the procurement department should manage that spend. You know that you should manage that spend. Consultants tell you that you should manage that spend. But all of that…
As the end to 2012 draws near, all of us at the Next Level Purchasing Association (NLPA) are getting excited about 2013 because it will be the year that we launch our 1st annual international conference. Many of you have messaged us privately for details about the conference, so here is a short video with an overview of the conference.…
ProcureCon & the Next Level Purchasing Association have teamed up to study how procurement executives manage the career development for themselves and their teams. If you are a procurement executive and want to know how your efforts compare to your peers, you can find out by taking a survey and then receiving a whitepaper with the results. The whitepaper will…
I hope that you have enjoyed the article “The Best of PurchTips 2012.” This edition was our third annual “Best Of” edition. Yes, even though we’ve been publishing PurchTips for over 10 years, it took us awhile to think of having a “Best Of” edition each year! We have some self-imposed size requirements for PurchTips, so we limited the number…
The Next Level Purchasing Association (NLPA) is holding its first annual international conference on September 12 & 13, 2013 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Because this is our first conference, we want to make it amazingly good! We want this conference to be so much better than the other conferences of its kind and, to accomplish this goal, we need to have…
Why do the best planned and most well-intentioned of purchasing initiatives fail to execute? What are the root causes behind the veneer of unsuccessful procurement plans? In the webinar “Aligning Procurement Initiatives to Company Culture,” you will learn that the culture of the department or business as a whole plays a significant role in determining the fate of your purchasing…
It has been decades since top-notch procurement has been recognized as a means of ensuring an uninterrupted supply of high quality goods and services, from responsive and responsible suppliers, at the minimum total cost of ownership. Cost minimization, if you will. As procurement departments approached excellence in their cost minimization activities, the procurement function itself expanded to encompass more things: …
Seems that the top headline on every newspaper and news website this month has been related to “The Fiscal Cliff” in the USA – a December 31, 2012 deadline upon which, absent a budget agreement by the party-divided US Congress – automatic spending cuts and tax increases will go into effect, sending the US economy into yet another recession. Once…