Business Process Outsourcing

Apr 1, 2019

Risk Management in Contract Pharmaceutical Development: Contract Research Part 2

The second installation in our series on contract management research published by MBA students from my online Contract Management class is by Julia Condit, and focuses on the challenges of…

May 5, 2017

Can Sales and Procurement Ever be BFF's?

The relationship between sales and procurement has always been a contentious one, and the idea of a friendship evolving between the two functions is laughable in the minds of many…

Feb 23, 2017

How does procurement evaluate outsource providers?

In the RFQ process, procurement should ideally be transparent about answering this question. Too often, however, the sales team at suppliers providing the bid have to “guess” at what they…

Feb 6, 2017

Red Flags that Every Supplier Business Development Team Knows to Look For

One of the most important elements suppliers seek to avoid involves participation in an RFP when there is a low probability of success. Procurement people think that every supplier will…

Jan 29, 2017

Why do high quality suppliers pass over big RFQ/RFPs?

In a recent discussion, a large supplier of services shred that they fail to respond to almost 50% of every RFP that comes their way! This insight was very surprising to…

Sep 14, 2016

Outsourcing: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – Lessons from Nortel Networks

Jeff Townley, former Chief Procurement Officer at Nortel Networks, provided some fantastic insights in my MBA class this evening. In so doing, he shared some great insights about “Outsourcing: The…

Feb 26, 2015

Omni-Channel Supply Chains Are Changing Everything You Ever Learned in School…

A senior executive from a large global manufacturer came to speak in my MBA class this week, and discussed the major shifts in global business that was occurring due to…

Feb 25, 2015

Biogen Idec designs the innovation supply chain

Joydeep Ganguly from Biogen Idec spoke in my Supply Chain Relationships class last week, and shared his insights on how Biogen’s supply chain evolved. Since graduating from the NC State…

Oct 31, 2014

"The Procurement Value Proposition": Guest Post by Gerard Chick Part 1

I was recently interviewed by Jon Hansen on Blog Talk Radio, discussing my new book “The Procurement Value Proposition” co-authored with Gerard Chick. In the interview, I discuss some of…

Sep 16, 2014

Notes from ProcureCon Indirect West at the Wigwam in Phoenix Arizona

Had a great time today speaking at the ProcureCon conference in Phoenix today, and spent a good deal of time talking to a number of the different solutions providers in…