In 2013, the Next Level Purchasing Association (NLPA) had yet another breakthrough year for serving procurement professionals, leaders and departments.  This post recaps some of the highlights of a great year in procurement!  It won’t focus so much on the “everyday stuff” we do, like the 10 free webinars, 12 new editions of Leading-Edge Supply Management (our online magazine), or our 24 new editions of our PurchTips newsletter – only the bigger stuff!

Don’t miss updates on Procurement & Supply Chain, Subscribe here!

One of the things that the NLPA has always done well is replacing outdated procurement models with new models more in touch with how procurement is done today and will be done in the future.  In March, we did just that by replacing the haggard “5 rights of purchasing” with the “25 New Rights of Purchasing” via a five-part series of articles.

Also in March, we expanded our series of case studies by releasing one that documented the success of Island Hotel Company (formerly Kerzner International) after they brought the skill levels of their staff up via training from the NLPA.

That same month, the NLPA launched the first of several online Express Courses introduced this year with the release of How To Plan For Outsourcing Success.

Still in March, the NLPA was featured in an article  in Supply & Demand Chain Executive entitled The Value Proposition of Associations.

And finally in March (wow – what a busy month!), we launched the Express Course 7 Critical Steps for Effective Supplier Selection.

In April, we launched the annual edition of a resource we’ve been publishing since 2002 – the 2013 Purchasing & Supply Management Career & Skills Report.  Among the many findings in this report was that purchasing and supply management professionals had received the most training ever on record – 23.4 hours per person in the preceding year.

Also in April, we launched updates to our two international procurement-oriented online courses, Basics of Smart International Procurement and Executing A Global Sourcing Strategy.  The updates included adding 30% more audio to the courses, which has proven to be very popular to the students of the NLPA.

Our last launch of April was that of the report, “Purchasing & Supply Management Salaries in 2013.”  For the first time, this report tracked the changes in bonuses as a component of compensation over time, revealing that 68% of purchasing and supply management professionals received a bonus in the survey year (up from 47% in the preceding year).

In June, we launched a four-part series of Express Courses entitled Procurement KPI’s & Business Acumen.  This series delved further into the use of The Procurement Funnel – a model that we introduced in 2012 for measuring and improving procurement performance.

Our BIG accomplishment for the year was hosting our first ever NLPA Conference, held in September.  The theme was “Make Procurement Rock!”  It was such a fun, different and educational event that brought together procurement professionals from six different countries.  Because of its success, we will be hosting the second annual NLPA Conference on September 15-17, 2014 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.  More details are coming soon, but save the date!

At the 2013 NLPA Conference, we awarded the first SPSM3TM Certification!  Jamie Ray from Porter, Texas, USA had the distinct honor of being the first procurement professional to have the ambition, dedication and intellectual horsepower to pass the SPSM3 Certification Program’s rigorous requirements.  Congratulations, Jamie!

In October, we launched yet another Express Course, Tips For Regret-Free Supplier Communication.

Then, in November, we launched our last Express Course of the year, How To Take Charge of Your Procurement Career.

We began the year by introducing a new model and we ended the year the same way, by introducing The Dominick Matrix.  This matrix helps guide procurement professionals to understand what type of supplier relationship strategy they should employ with different types of suppliers.

We have a lot in store for 2014.  Stay tuned – the NLPA always aims to have its best and biggest year ever.  And we measure “best and biggest” by the volume of resources that we provide to help procurement professionals succeed in an ever-challenging business environment.

Happy New Year!

Categories: Procurement

Share

Published On: December 31st, 2013Comments Off on NLPA’s 2013 Procurement Year In Review

Categories

Archives