Transformational Procurement Leadership Workshop at The Melbourne Business School

What were your objectives for the workshop and did you achieve them?

I certainly met my objectives at the December workshop:

• Gained further insight to procurement leadership across diverse industry segments – I came to learn – anything!
• Re assessment of the effectiveness of eSourcing tools based on user feedback and 'lessons learned' before taking my own project to the next stage – expanded user interface/broad implementation of end to end P2P solution. The balanced review presented in your session was valuable having been based on the extensive survey The Faculty conducted in 2003.
• To be re-stimulated to drive innovative implementations successfully into my clients' business – the workshop reminded me that we are in fact well advanced in DB in terms of access to highest levels of management.
• Something different – the Toyota Camry session introduced such an interesting slant with the Japanese commitment to local community support and the insight that session gave (along with some others such as Goodman Fielder case study) into the creative opportunities in supply chain procurement. SC is not an area that I have been working with to date.

What was the most useful topic covered?

• Andrew Targett's (Coles Myer) strategic re-structuring and project management to build a new organisation in a complex multi-brand environment. Quite inspirational. I am keen to hear more from him regarding his next moves into vendor relationship management.

What do you think are the top three issues for procurement practitioners currently?

• Taking procurement to the front office – knowing how to get the right communicator in front of the EXCO with a powerful message.
• Demographics in ANZ – limited competition in some key spend areas.
• Perception – subtle 're-branding' of the function to raise visibility of innovative cost benefit contributions. Move away from the 'restrictive' traditional image of purchasing officers (awful functional title!)

What was the best part of attending the workshop?

• Content – and presenters.
• The opportunity to interact in intensive sessions.
• The quality of the event – schedule worked well without losing pace at any time.

< back