The Four Topics Procurement Conferences Should be Addressing

Last week I wrote a post about my (very positive) experience at the Procurecon Asia 2015 conference. You can read my thoughts here.

Attending the conference and indeed, writing up my thoughts, got me thinking about what I would have liked to have heard more about. So with this in mind, I’d like to present four topics that I feel upcoming conferences should be addressing.

1. Social Procurement and Ethical Procurement

This has a different meanings across different countries, something I came to understand at the Procurecon event. Luckily, there is now a consistent way to measure it. An organisation called the Centre for Citizenship Enterprise and Governance has developed the go-to metric for measuring social value. The metric is what sits behind the UK Social Value Act 2012 and Modern Slavery Act 2015. The organisation works with more than 20,000 members and has measured the social value of organisations with a combined value of £2.7 trillion

Given the rise of modern slavery and exploitation of vulnerable people globally (especially within Asia), CPO’s, leaders and progressive companies need to be more active. We need to discuss this at our conferences and measure progress every year.

2. Anti-Corruption

Currently Thailand, China and Japan are going through an anti-corruption push. This topic should always be on the agenda at major procurement conferences to share insight, provide support and continue to show leadership to eliminate criminals from our profession.

Total transparency of procurement and supply chain is the future and will reduce the opportunity for fraud. Technology is helping us achieve this high standard of accountability.

3. Business Analytics

Procurement has an amazing opportunity to create significant commercial value with world-class analytical tools and technology that can provide 360-degree visibility and business reporting of your corporate data.

We can be seen as key facilitators and leaders by adopting cloud computing, data analytics and machine learning which have been instrumental in recent times. These areas will continue to hold strategic importance as procurement becomes increasingly viewed as trusted business advisors.

4. Disruption technologies – The Internet of everything and 3D printing

Much has been written on these topics so I won’t recover them much, i.e. (read: http://www.topfunded.com/iot/internet-of-things-iot-growth-in-southeast-asia/)

Technology is driving significant change in business and all things. It would be great to hear from procurement thought or industry leaders on the topic. Both will have major impacts on procurement and supply chain in the future.