Procurement Professional is the official publication of CIPS Australasia

Category Management event a success

30 Mar 2009

More than 200 procurement professionals attended CIPSA’s Category Management forum in Sydney last week to hear from leading practitioners, consultants and suppliers.

Over the first two days, delegates were addressed on topics ranging from portfolio segmentation to legal protections against contract default in tough times. Besides eight plenary sessions, delegates also attended a range of workshops on category-specific topics and a range of category management skills and practices.

A number of delegates also attended a half-day workshop on the third day.

A key message at the event was that category  management spans all the procurement skills and disciplines surrounding a single genre of spend. As one speaker pointed out, a good category manager is actually a mini-CPO and the skills he or she develops prepare the manager well for future advancement.

Topics discussed at the forum included the role of e-procurement in category management; sustainable procurement in tough times; a case study of demand management at Air New Zealand; strategic resource management; and performance measurement.

This year, the conference was moved to Sydney’s Australian Technology Park after outgrowing its former venue, and the sessions were augmented by a lively exhibition.

CIPSA managing director, Jonathan Dutton, says he was impressed with the delegate turn-out and the sponsor support for the event despite the tough economic times. “It goes to show that procurement is proving its worth in the slowdown,” he says, adding that CIPSA’s commitment to relevant and useful agenda  and track record of valuable events also helped grow the event.

A full report on the conference will be published in the June edition of Procurement Professional.