Art of Procurement

"Change is about first having an awareness. Once you have that awareness, then that other party that you're trying to drive that awareness has an understanding. And when that understanding is there, then they're motivated to take action." Pratik Patel, Director - Category Management - Labor/North America Technology Spend, Mastercard Services procurement can be a rewarding field, but it also has so...

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement. Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that ca...

"I'm a big believer in market intelligence, where we educate the business on the providers and the levers to pull. It's not about just pricing; it's understanding the market." - Amy Fong, Partner, Sourcing and Vendor Management, Everest Group Service categories are experiencing unprecedented change driven by generative AI, which is shifting workforce models and evolving commercial structures acros...

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement. Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that ca...

Twenty-five years after co-founding Corporate United, the first indirect GPO in the United States, David McCarty points out an inconvenient truth: the very tools procurement once developed to leverage spend are no longer as effective in today's supplier-dominated landscape. In this episode of "Buy: The Way…To Purposeful Procurement," David joins co-hosts Philip Ideson and Rich Ham to discuss the e...

"In a transformation, make your good examples in the beginning, where you think you will make a difference." - Joel Andersson, Process development and digitalization project leader - indirect procurement, IKEA Building a mature indirect procurement function that's strategically aligned with the rest of the business is a journey filled with problem-solving, stakeholder relationships, and continuous...

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement. Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that ca...

"If you can't understand how procurement affects the ultimate end users in your organization, whether it's a state prison, or whether it's a manufacturing facility in Germany, then you're abdicating your role, you're just a robot. And that's why procurement has a superpower." - David Yarkin, CEO, Procurated Long before "DOGE" became a buzzword in government efficiency, the state of Pennsylvania le...

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement. Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that ca...

More than one hundred years after John C. Dinsmore wrote in Purchasing Principles and Practices that "there should be no great chasm between the board of directors who represent the stockholders whose money is spent and the person who does the spending," procurement is still struggling with the same fundamental problem of misalignment. In the eighth episode of "Buy: The Way…To Purposeful Procureme...

"I understand that tension between procurement and legal could happen, but it really is a disservice to each other. It's like two brothers fighting. It doesn't make any sense." - Paul Bagley, Director of Commercial Contracting, Acosta Group Procurement and legal often find themselves at odds, despite the fact that they're usually working toward the same goals for the business. We can usually trace...

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement. Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that ca...

"You're not going to be able to completely eliminate your tariff exposure. There are three frames under which to think about tariffs: How will you mitigate in the short term? How will you think about it in the medium term from your customer's perspective and pricing? And how will you think about a long-term realignment of supply chains?" - Richeek Maitra, Director, AlixPartners With tariffs domina...

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement. Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that ca...

In this seventh episode of the "Buy: The Way…To Purposeful Procurement" podcast series, Art of Procurement's Philip Ideson and Fine Tune CEO Rich Ham take a deep dive into procurement history with Kate Vitasek, Faculty of Graduate and Executive Education at the University of Tennessee, and architect of the groundbreaking Vested methodology.  With over 15 years of research and eight books dedicated...

"Procurement isn't just a cost center; it's a true value driver. So when they're recruiting, CPOs and heads of procurement are looking for someone who's current and who is bringing ideas to the table. They're not just hiring buyers anymore." - Derek Lutz, Founder and CEO, Lean Six Search  As economic and geopolitical instability sends ripples of doubt across global supply chains, the question of w...

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement. Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that ca...

"Transformation is not just about how it's going to impact procurement, but about how it's going to impact the entire enterprise through the efforts that will be happening within the procurement function." - Natasha Gurevich, Founder & CEO, Candor Procurement Going through procurement transformation without the right approach in place and without support from the business is a bit like sailing int...

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement. Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that ca...

It's been a long, winding road that has brought procurement to its current state of flawed incentive structures and measurement challenges. Rob Hills, CEO of Hills Advisory Services and former Deloitte partner, has seen it all unfold firsthand.  But recognizing problems and how they were created is only half of the battle.  With over three decades of procurement experience that stretches back all...

"We're seeing data around the acceleration of procurement having to 'do more with less' and this is compounding year over year, so at some point, procurement's operating model is going to break." – Philip Ideson, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Art of Procurement Procurement teams are facing unprecedented and compounding pressure to "do more with less," and, because of that, it's more important...

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement. Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that ca...

"We are seeing a labor-for-technology swap as organizations become much more dependent and scalable, and what's driving that scale and that productivity is technology." – Christopher Sawchuk, Principal and Global Procurement Advisory Practice Leader at The Hackett Group Procurement is no stranger to change. Over the last decade or more, procurement has seen significant shifts in priorities, in the...

Procurement 6 is a short podcast from Art of Procurement that publishes in the Art of Procurement feed every Friday morning at 6am US Eastern Time. Presented by a member of the Art of Procurement team, each episode has 6 short segments that summarize the week in procurement. Segments range from procurement tips to podcast summaries, from details of events to news or overviews of blog posts that ca...

In this episode of "Buy: The Way… To Purposeful Procurement," Rich Ham, Philip Ideson, and Kelly Barner reflect on what we heard from Oliver Hurrey and Brian Kyle in episodes 3 and 4 and explore how these procurement leaders find purpose and passion in their work, no matter how big or small the project is.  Rich, Philip, and Kelly discuss what "purposeful procurement" truly means in 2025, challeng...