P&SC LIVE New York: The Procurement Strategy Forum

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The Procurement Strategy Forum at Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE New York 2024
Leading executives from Cognizant, ServiceNow, CBRE and the US House of Representatives shared valuable insight at Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE New York

Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE New York showcased leaders from across the industry’s leading companies.

Across the two days, attendees were able to take full advantage of the knowledge-packed fireside chats, keynotes and panel discussions, where executives and experts discussed and shared first-hand experience and vital knowledge of the industry.

One of the most insightful discussions of the event was the Procurement Strategy Forum, Sponsored by ServiceNow, which saw leaders share exclusive insights and expert advice on procurement strategy.

Participants in the forum were:

  • Melanie Temkin, Chief Procurement Officer at Cognizant
  • Birchard Allen, Chief Procurement Officer at the US House of Representatives
  • Bob Bruning, Chief Procurement Officer at CBRE
  • Dean Ocampo, Director of Products, Finance and Supply Chain at ServiceNow (the forum's sponsor)

Implementing supplier diversity 

The discussion started on the topic of supplier diversity and inclusion within procurement strategies.

Melanie highlighted the importance of aligning goals with the organisation's diversity and inclusion objectives, integrating these into the procurement process.

“I think it's really important to set goals aligned to the greater organisation around diversity and inclusion, not only with your supply base, but also as related to your employees as well,” she said.

“Really making it embedded as part of the overall procurement process, ensuring that we're constantly assessing new suppliers, with capabilities that have those designations as well and really educating and training not only your internal procurement team, but your key stakeholders of the importance of having a diverse supply base.”

Birchard shared that as a government agency, they adopt an organic approach, engaging with a community of contractors and vendors through outreach opportunities to identify new players.

“We have a community of contractors and vendors that we deal with, but we also have reach-out opportunities, so that we can meet, greet, press the flesh to understand who is a new player out there and who might be interested in participating in any type of procurement that the House may have to offer.

“We go about doing it that way, and then organically, you know, we just end up seeing a lot of new faces, when we actually conduct procurements in the Washington, DC area. That's really gratifying when that happens, in an organic way.”

Speakers at the Procurement Strategy Forum at Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE New York 2024

The role of technology in procurement processes

The conversation between the leaders involved in the Procurement Strategy Forum moved to the vital role in which technology and AI is when it comes to procurement strategy.

Bob spoke about their investments in procurement technology, including new source-to-contract and procure-to-pay systems and a revamped supplier onboarding and risk screening process.

“We're looking forward over the next three years to put together a technology roadmap to really bring in a lot more automation into everything we're doing.

“You could put AI in front of anything that procurement does and make it better and smarter, and looking forward, we'll probably be putting about 50% of our overall IT investment into AI over the next few years.”

Dean then spoke on optimising the technology in procurement. He discussed the importance of cross-domain and cross-team work, emphasising workflow automation and collaboration for better decision-making.

“There is just putting AI to work, putting aside generative AI, there's just the plain old school regression and classification AI algorithms that have a lot of application,” he said.

“We look at a lot of procurement and are still doing a lot of the science experiments. It's time for that to come into regular business output and really put it to work for us, in part, be a part of that cross-team collaboration.”

You can view the entire webinar by viewing the on-demand platform here

Want to see more from P&SC LIVE? Stay tuned to our website for more content, which will be rolled out in the coming days. 

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P&SC LIVE continues to expand

Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE continues to expand its repertoire of events, with more to come in 2024 and 2025. Discover our essential diary dates below.

2024 diary dates:

2025 diary dates: 

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Make sure you check out the latest edition of Procurement Magazine and also sign up to our global conference series - Procurement & Supply Chain LIVE 2024

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