Art of Procurement

Sometimes the most damning evidence about an industry or an organization comes from the inside. In this second installment of “Buy: The Way…To Purposeful Procurement’s” deep dive into supplier tactics, two former supply executives continue exposing the ins and outs of the supplier playbook they used on procurement when they were on the other side of the fence. 

Bob Schreiner, former CIA section chief and G...

“Procurement officers are going to have to go hunt for the solutions they need and the workflows that can help their business. I do feel like to do this job properly moving forward, it's an offensive job, and you don't have the luxury of sitting back.” - Matt Ziskie, Co-Founder, Bungalow Capital

How procurement approaches working with smaller, innovative startups can look quite different than other supplie...

“I was humbled by the buy-in from the AOP community because, ultimately, people came on trust. They came on the trust that we would deliver what we said we would for our first in-person event.” - Philip Ideson, Co-Founder and Managing Director, Art of Procurement

Now that Art of Procurement's first-ever in-person event, Catalyst LA, is in the rear-view mirror, co-hosts Philip Ideson and Kelly Barner sit do...

Much like the classic plot twist in old thriller movies where the characters realize the threat is coming from inside the house, the most revealing insights about supplier tactics are coming from inside Fine Tune’s own house in this eye-opening tenth episode of Buy: The Way…To Purposeful Procurement.   

Co-host Rich Ham was initially reluctant to tap into his own team’s expertise for this podcast series, b...

“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 some unique...

"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 across the bus...

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 evolution ...

“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 learning...

"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 led a pione...

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 Procurement,” Phil...

“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 this ten...