Monthly Top 5 - April 2023

Dear readers,

This month’s newsletter is fill with “firsts”… I’m excited to share them with you.

It’s the first time that:

• Someone makes me question whether the term “Procurement Digital Transformation” is the right one to encapsulate a Digital Procurement journey (more below).

• I have a newsletter sponsor. I’ve resisted doing this for a long time but this partnership made sense. Please don’t just skip the ad at the end of the newsletter. Wynter wants to pay you for your opinion.

• Two sources make the Top 5 two months in a row (Vizibl and Peter Smith). Can they keep the streak going next month with great writing??

• I’m posting on my new platform, Substack. I’ve changed platforms for a few reasons… First, the newsletter was getting too big for the last platform to work optmally (never thought I would be saying that about a Digital Procurement newsletter but hey…). Second, I can now offer you a single place where you can go through the entire archives of my content instead of rummaging through old emails. Third, I can now offer paid subscriptions and, as this piece grows, spend more time on creating high quality content for you.

That being said, this monthly newsletter will always be free. But, going forward, deep dive articles will only be available to paid subscribers (5$/month).

Whether you’re new here or have been reading for a long time, if you enjoy my content, I hope you’ll consider subscribing. You can probably even get your company to pay for it as a professional subscription expense - Just ask your manager 😉

Whatever you decide, I appreciate you. Thanks for taking the time to read and enjoy my content. I hope you have as much fun reading as I have writing.

Best, 

Joël

Top 5 Source-to-Pay Articles - April 2023

#1 - How to Reduce Cognitive Overload for your Team

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how organizational capacity (time, knowledge, competence, soft skills) is one the most influential factors in determining whether or not your organization will successfully adopt digital procurement tools.

However, what I’ve realized is there is no easy, standard way to measure your capacity in the S2P space (At least not yet… My thinking continues… Stay tuned.). Therefore, most organizations are piloting in the dark on this front.

Along this same vein, Focal Point examines how we can manage our team’s mental capacity in their recent article. It’s definitely a part of the puzzle.

3 Ways CPOs Can Help Reduce Cognitive Overload for their Teamsby Focal Point

#2 - Innovation: It’s Required for Partnerships

Vizibl makes the list again this month with a great piece on the high level steps required to unlock supplier innovation. My take: putting in place a continuous improvement process and regular check-ins with your “partner” suppliers (suppliers that are integrated into your Procurement activities) is absolutely essential to a high performing long-term relationship.

Innovation sometimes awakes thoughts of giant leaps from one maturity level to the next. The truth is innovation always happens at the edges of the known and possible. It must be cultivated. It just seems like a giant leap from the outside.

I prefer calling it continuous improvement. It’s a repeatable process.Unlocking Supplier Innovation: 8 Key Stepsby Vizibl

#3 - Rethinking Guided Buying

In this article, Nick very aptly challenges the notion that “the Amazon-like buying experience” is the gold standard for achieving our B2B “Guided Buying” objectives.

For example, Amazon’s goal is to get you engaged and spending more time on the website to ultimately increase the size of your basket ($). This isn’t the objective of our a corporate purchasing experience.

However you want to define a user-centric B2B buying experience, Nick lists some great guiding principles to keep in mind as you work through this challenge in your business.

P.S. Nick recently started his newsletter and it is EXCELLENT. A highly recommended follow.Beyond Guided Buying and the “Amazon-like” Interfaceby Nick Heinzmann at Zip

#4 - Procurement Digital Transformation is DEAD?!

Peter Smith makes the list again this month with his thought provoking article on Procurement transformation. He knocked me off my chair right at the start with this beauty:

While his article was not about Digital Transformation per say, it got me thinking that transformation may not be the right term for organizations chasing Digital Procurement as a standard… As I mentioned in bullet #2, innovation is a process. If you chase “transformation” too quickly and don’t have the organizational capacity to realize your ambitions, you are destined to fail… Thinking about it as Digital Procurement Evolution is more helpful.

I posted about this on LinkedIn last week and the post still has legs if you want to get involved in the discussion… Seems I hit a nerve…Procurement “Transformation” And Supply Base Reductionby Peter Smith at Bad Buying

#5 - Is It Time to Move Away from EDI?

For sending transactional documents (e.g. PO) electronically from your system to your supplier’s system, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) has been the standard for over 40 years… It’s like the Sabre airline reservation system which has been around since the 60s… Nobody has really come up with anything better since so they survive…

The challenge is that while EDI integration is cheaper than it used to be, it remains a labor intensive activity after all this time.

Erik does a great job of summarizing the state of EDI today and the opportunities that lie ahead in his article. You want a business idea to revolutionize the supply chain? Solve the integration enablement problem.

Modernization of EDI to Bring Supply Chains Together Fasterby Erik Kiser at Supply Chain Brain

What was you favorite article out of the Top 5? Let me know in the comments.