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🎣 The Catch Up

Hey Readers,

2023 flew by didn’t it?

Time flies when you’re having fun, as they say. It sure helps when most of the year is free of a global pandemic…😅 I wish you and yours nothing but the best in 2024.

Speaking of 2024, I’ve got big plans for the newsletter next year.

As a teaser, I’m currently organizing live ‘fireside chat’ type events with ProcureTech product development leaders.

You’ll be able to hear about:

• What’s coming in each vertical (e.g. sourcing, contract management, Procure-to-Pay, etc.) with a leader in each space

• How to prepare for optimal use of these Procurement technologies (e.g. Data, processes, tech pre-requisites, etc.)

• How to think about using technology in these different verticals and integrate it with the rest of the Procurement process.

The answers will come from the people actually developing these solutions (and not their marketing teams). No sales speech. No B.S.

There will also be live Q&A so you can ask questions related to your specific context… If you have a piece of ProcureTech, you know how hard it can be to get a hold of these people.

So how about it?

As another reminder, don’t forget that premium subscription pricing goes up forever on January 2nd at noon.

It’s you’re last chance to secure a premium subscription at “founder pricing” of 35$/year.

After January 2nd, yearly subscriptions will be $80/year given we’re going full throttle in 2024.

Best,

Joël
Consulting Principal
Pure Procurement

P.S. In case you missed it, here was my most popular LinkedIn post of the YEAR (and it wasn’t even close…):
$1 saved by Procurement is the same as $10 in additional sales

🌙 Sunday Night Note

3 Resolutions for Procurement in 2024

As we head into 2024, here are the top three resolutions every Procurement team should adopt:

1/ Develop a “Digital-First” Mindset (and the skills to go with it)

You may not have budget or time to implement a tool for a new process you have to support in 2024… However, you should already be thinking about the roadmap to digitalize these new business capabilities you’re developing (i.e. how will this new process fit into your existing system architecture? Your reporting and business analytics?).

Ask yourself what you need to do right now (e.g. how to structure and capture data in your “temporary” SharePoint solution), to minimize future “technological debts” and facilitate digitalization.

2/ Adjust Your Foundations to Enable Speed and Innovation

Aim to remove structural barriers to speed and innovation in 2024.

First example, let’s say you don’t have a change control procedure in your Procurement policy. You need to go up to the board if you change a comma in your policy… Change that this year. Example: “All non-governance related changes can be enacted single-handedly by Procurement.” Increasingly, you need to be nimble and the Procurement policy is the tip of your spear. Give yourself the mechanisms to keep it sharp.

Second example, if you do have technology budget, put in place flexible low-code/no-code process orchestration applications that reduce the need for new technology budget and resources in the future. You can use these tools to design and deploy new processes in hours instead of months because you greatly reduce the need for IT involvement.

You need to become a continuous improvement / process iteration machine!

3/ Prepare for the Age of “No Employees”

The World Bank projects that most countries will lose around 50% of their working age population in the next 30 years (from 2/3 in 2020 to 1/3 in 2050). Your business needs to be equipped to support the same amount of work as today + everything else we’re asking of you + the next 30 years of growth while slowly losing half your workforce and being unable to replace them…

The term “labor shortage” makes it seem like it is temporary… It is not. And it’s only going to get worse. We need to get efficient (and fast) or drift into irrelevancy!

There you have it. My top 3 resolutions for Procurement teams in 2024. Did I miss an important one? Reply to this email and let’s discuss.

Happy New Year!

💭 Quote of the Week

📊 How Did I Do This Week?

Best comment from last week:

Thank you! I took way too much time to make it 😅

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