Here's your weekly update on the latest thought leadership, networking events and training with SIG.
Artificial Intelligence and Its Impact on Procurement and Supply Chain
Read how GEP is breaking down some of the essential AI concepts and showcasing the game-changing applications that they believe are most relevant in procurement and the supply chain.
Artificial Intelligence is the topic of many business conversations where often the fantasy is of intelligent robots doing more work with less time and resources. Not all of the promises related to AI are unfounded. Read this eBook to learn how AI’s potential can transform procurement.
Future of Sourcing continues the "Women in Global Sourcing series" with Tracy Scheid. Tracy is the Vice President of Operations at Workspend. She is a strategic and results-oriented leader with over 30 years of experience aligning business goals with talent acquisition strategies.
Kelly Bengston is Senior Vice President, Chief Procurement Officer at Starbucks. Kelly is responsible for enhancing Starbucks enterprise-wide functional strategic sourcing and supplier relationships, creating consistent global sourcing processes, developing a sourcing talent management program and building a values-based approach to working with suppliers across all categories of the business.
Kelly has held numerous leadership positions during her 8-plus years with Starbucks. Most recently, Kelly served as Vice President of Starbucks Global Supply Chain’s Strategy & Deployment team, a new team created under Kelly to support Starbucks supply chain’s aspirations of becoming digitized, strategically aligning resources against priorities and building capabilities through long-term capacity planning and supply chain intelligence.
Prior to joining Starbucks, Kelly gained broad experience in packaging, product development, manufacturing, and project management at Macy’s, Bensussen Deutsch, Cranium and Hasbro. She enjoys running, traveling, and spending time with her family. Her favorite Starbucks beverage is Nitro Cold Brew.
Can you share a little more about your day-to-day role and responsibilities as the Chief Procurement Officer for Starbucks?
I am fortunate to have an amazing job, working for an amazing company. My day-to-day is filled with connecting with great partners and suppliers to deliver products and services to our stores and customers.
According to reports authored by the International Association of Contract and Commercial Management, the Aberdeen Group, and the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals, the average contract loses approximately 17% to 40% of its value from the time of execution through to close-out. Value leakage can range from things like low adoption rates, non-value-added change orders, lack of innovation, poor governance, etc. This blog post will help contract professionals understand how customer-supplier relationships lose value and three best practices to preserve value.
Move Beyond Deal Points
Typically, negotiators think in terms of “getting the best deal”, meaning, financial and legal Terms that are favorable to the negotiator’s organization. Here is the problem: if businesspeople accept this premise, they are negotiating short-term “deals” in a complex, long-term business environment.
Focusing on the “deal” often leads to losing focus on the larger business goal(s) that a customer-supplier relationship seeks to address. For example, an overemphasis on “getting the best deal” often results in failing to fully document costly aspects of the work in the Statement of Work, failing to include adequate inspection, testing and cure processes, and failing to document and control common risk events.
Furthermore, focusing on the “deal” also precludes the inclusion of innovation in the delivery of goods and services. Buying emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, robotic process automation, cloud computing, or cognitive automation is the new norm, yet only 21% of respondents in Deloitte’s 2016 Global Outsourcing Survey reported that innovation was a key part of their contracts.
Keynote speakers, thought leaders and industry publications show no signs of slowing when it comes to evangelizing the benefits of the supply chain’s digital transformation. With its promises to save you time and money, the market has exploded with offerings of cloud-based solutions, IoT devices and a legion of outsourced practitioners who can make all of your spend visibility and risk management dreams come true. But for all the benefits touted, what is often left out of the conversation is the topic of security, especially as it relates to third-party vendors.
The Path of Least Resistance
As hackers become cleverer in their approaches, they’ve moved from directly attacking large organizations to exploiting vulnerabilities and penetrating third-party cloud software, apps and IoT devices to implant malware directly into the software or steal login credentials. “The challenge with supply chains is that they are multifaceted and there are many places where a hacker can enter,” says Brandon Curry, Senior Vice President with NTT Communications. Curry, who is also a Certified Ethical Hacker, frequently reports on trends in cloud and supply chain software security. He notes that the top cost of a supply chain breach is legal and reputational costs, with software supply chain attacks costing an average $1.1 million per attack globally.
Compromised software is one of the primary causes of supply chain software breaches, and the damage isn’t limited to grabbing customer credit card numbers or personally identifiable information (PII). Hackers are also looking to steal intellectual property, mine your customer base, counterfeit your product and take over your market share.
Kevin Nash is the Vice President Chief Procurement Officer at Health Care Services Corporation, a Blue Cross Blue Shield Company. As an experienced executive in procurement, sourcing and supply chain operations, Kevin manages over 100 people who oversee a wide range of functions from sourcing and contracting to regulatory requirements. Kevin shares his tips to keep a large team organized, his outlook on the growing role of procurement in organizations, and his advice for those looking to be better procurement professionals and team leaders.
Can you talk about your background and education--how did you get involved in procurement?
Like many procurement professionals, I stumbled upon procurement early in my career and found it to be an interesting and exciting area to work. After graduating with a degree in engineering, I started my career at GE supporting a manufacturing process. While in manufacturing, I began to focus on supply chain because we were experiencing frequent supply chain and inventory issues that were significantly impacting the ability to meet the production schedule. After finishing my MBA and leaving GE, I joined a consulting firm and continued to focus on supply chain with an emphasis on procurement. While in consulting, I transitioned from focusing on the supply chain for direct material to supply chain and procurement in service-orientated companies.
In my time working in the sourcing sphere I have become passionate about ethical sourcing. Mexico, where I have lived for nearly eight years, is where many companies source cheap, nearshore labor and is a resource for bilingual, cost-saving talent. I have witnessed unethical sourcing practices in my time here and I am always looking to educate myself and others on the benefits of ethical sourcing. As companies chase better costs to remain viable, the possibility of building a supply chain with poor ethical practices increases. Ensuring ethical sourcing practices in your supply chain can be labor intensive but the benefits are immense.
According to the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply (CIPS), ethical sourcing is the process of ensuring the products being sourced are obtained in a responsible and sustainable way, that the workers involved in making them are safe and treated fairly and that environmental and social impacts are taken into consideration during the sourcing process. Ethical sourcing also means the procurement process respects international standards against criminal conduct and human rights abuses and responds to these issues immediately if identified.
SIG Speaks Weekly Briefing - May 28
Here's your weekly update on the latest thought leadership, networking events and training with SIG.
Artificial Intelligence and Its Impact on Procurement and Supply Chain
Read how GEP is breaking down some of the essential AI concepts and showcasing the game-changing applications that they believe are most relevant in procurement and the supply chain.
eBook on Artificial Intelligence Essentials
Artificial Intelligence is the topic of many business conversations where often the fantasy is of intelligent robots doing more work with less time and resources. Not all of the promises related to AI are unfounded. Read this eBook to learn how AI’s potential can transform procurement.
Ariba Live Barcelona
SIG’s CEO and President, Dawn Tiura, will be speaking at SAP Ariba Live. Join her there!
Latest Future of Sourcing Articles
Future of Sourcing continues the "Women in Global Sourcing series" with Tracy Scheid. Tracy is the Vice President of Operations at Workspend. She is a strategic and results-oriented leader with over 30 years of experience aligning business goals with talent acquisition strategies.