First of the two-part Strategic Sourcing series bringing you the insights, examples and direction you need to reach your strategic sourcing goals!
Learning Objectives
- Understand the importance of data quality in developing a Strategic Sourcing strategy
- What is data cleansing and how does it support your sourcing process
- How can you leverage Commodity Classification to streamline your procurement operations
- Importance of automated procurement data enhancement
- Plan your sourcing strategy evolution
Program content
Sometimes, when it feels like you’re taking one step forward and two steps back, the best course of action may be to stand still and take stock of just where you are. Before your purchasing organization can move ahead with confidence, you have to understand where you are today, develop a vision of where you want to be, and decide how you’re going to get there.
Strategic sourcing is the process of identifying opportunities, evaluating potential sources, negotiating contracts and continually managing those supplier relationships to achieve corporate goals and objectives. One of the most critical impediments that companies face today is limited access and limited visibility to relevant procurement information across the enterprise. Almost every major procurement operation enhancement relies on the quality of information that can be delivered to the key decision makers. The effectiveness of an SRM solution depends on the completeness of the available procurement data, which is typically distributed across information technology systems for billing, order entry, shipping, finance, and so on, in varying levels of detail.
One element often overlooked by companies is the power of integrating cleansed data with day-to-day processing. By capturing business goals as part of your procurement intelligence, you can constantly look for the best supplier strategies and monitor the utilization of those strategies throughout your organization. Once data has been prepared properly, an organization can start the journey toward addressing its most pressing business problems by leveraging corporate buying power, managing supplier portfolios and transforming procurement into a strategically focused operation.
Pierre Mitchell will discuss how the importance of ensuring the cleanliness of data at both a supplier and commodity level is vital component of an effective procurement organization. Taking the form of supplier rationalization and commodity classification, this process is the key to accurate analysis. He will discuss the steps for building and implementing a transition plan that will help you define your current procurement capabilities and future needs and identify your path forward. He will provide insights on incorporating data quality capabilities within your company’s current use of procurement information and developing a strategy for improving and expanding that usage.
About Pierre Mitchell
Pierre Mitchell is vice president of AMR Research. AMR focuses on supplier-facing technologies that support strategic sourcing, procurement, supplier collaboration and the inbound supply chain. Pierre has 15 years of industry and consulting experience in operations strategy, process redesign, and systems selection and implementation. His implementation experience has been primarily in processes such as strategic sourcing, procurement, strategic network redesign, distribution and inventory planning, master scheduling, warehouse management, and production and inventory control.
Pierre received a bachelor's degree in engineering management from Southern Methodist University, and his master's in business administration at the University of Chicago, with a minor in strategy, statistics and quality management. He was recently named by iSource magazine as one of the top 50 practitioner "pros to know" in supply management.
