Whilst searching through the Ariba Spend Management Learning Center , I stumbled upon a very interesting Aberdeen report entitled CPO Rising: The CPO’s Agenda for 2008.

“The CPO on the rise is based upon demonstrated competence: Best-in-Class companies have placed 70% or more of their spend under management. CPOs and procurement departments can adopt and expand technologies and sustainable practices, such as improving internal collaboration and systems sharing; improving supplier relationships; adopting a center-led procurement strategy; and considering Low-Cost Country Sourcing (LCCS). This report addresses many more issues facing the contemporary CPO.”

What interested me the most about this report was the section on Procurement Key Performance Indicators. The report highlights that the ‘Best-in-Class’ enterprises put a greater significance on implemented / realised cost reduction savings and supplier performance (price, delivery, quality, service, etc.), whilst the Procurement ROI (savings / operating costs) and spend under management rank higher with ‘Average’ and ‘Laggards’.

The report goes on to say

“Procurement ROI, defined as annual savings generated by the procurement department divided by the total annual investment in procurement operations, is an interesting measure and one that deserves a discussion given its recent promotion by “consultants” in the marketplace. The measure misses the larger goal of business operations since CPOs, like the enterprises that employ them, should be focused on generating the largest total net return from their department. While Aberdeen views the metric as a decent relative indicator of procurement department performance (when used in context with other KPIs on the list below), it should not be a primary goal for the CPO to maximize this number. Beyond savings and efficiency metrics, 79% of procurement”

Top 10 Procurement Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Source: Aberdeen Group, February 2008

Procurement KPI’s is a topic is always passionately debated at the Procurement Leaders Roundtables, Aberdeen’s view seems to make sense but I love to hear, what your thoughts are on this topic. Would there be scope to agree and industry standard?

Picture Copyright: Marcela Barsse

Over the last month I have started using Evernote as my second brain. It’s a great tool to capture and store, well absolutely everything! Rather than me describing what Evernote does, why note hear it directly from from Evernote CEO, Phil Libin.

Erik Schonfeld over at Techcrunch has a written a great review on Evernote -‘Extend Your Brain With Evernote’ which is worth reading, however the best way to see what evernote it to try it out. After trying out Google Notes and Microsoft Onenote in the past I have to say Evernote is definitely my preference, due to its ability to index photos as well standard text.

What is evernote?

Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.

What’s the point of Evernote?

We are all constantly bombarded by information, much more than our brains can handle. So, we end up forgetting all sorts of things.

With Evernote, you can start capturing all of those experiences, ideas, and memories, from both your real and digital life that would otherwise slip away.

Evernote also allows you to share your notes - if you want to see my shared notes you can check out them out here.

So it’s been six months since I stepped down as editor of Procurement Leaders and I have finally succumbed to my need to share my thoughts with the world on the topics which interest my business and personal life.

So what are those topics that interest me?

Procurement - funny enough after spending the last four years facilitating one of the most influential buying communities in the Europe, the focus of Sourcing Excellence will around the procurement and sourcing.  My day job continues to be strategically drive the Procurement Leaders Network forward, by extending the reach of the membership in Europe and into new regions.

Technology - as a self confessed techy geek, technology is going to another key area that I will be regularly writing about. I am a sucker for all the new shiny technology, whether it is new web app that promises going to save me time managing my email or new type of phone to read my email.

Collaboration - this is a really exciting area for me. Over the last few years technology has provided an endless array of ways for individuals and groups to work together and moving forward it is only going to get more engrained into out day to day lives. Whether it is open sourced software like Wordpress (which this blog is running on) or the Wikipedia it astounds me what the collective group can achieve. With this in mind I am going to use the crowd at much a possible to drive sourcing excellence forward.

Sustainability - whether it’s the fact that I am new father, or my back ground in biology or the growing awareness of society as a whole about what we are doing to our planet, sustainability in all its guises is another area that I am passionate about. My day job obviously gives a lot of insight into corporate buying decisions, so sustainable procurement topic area that I will cover regularly.