CIPS Australasia LinkedIn forum update

Ben Shute, head of procurement practice at CIPS Australia, has posed the following question to CIPS Australasia colleagues: CIPS define category management as “the entire science of the procurement subject applied to a single genre of expenditure” What is your definition?

“I view Category Management as a Supply Chain specific project management framework and methodology,” Daniel Renfrey, Global Sub-category Manager at Schlumberger Houston, Texas Area.

“Category Managers can be viewed as Program Managers looking after a portfolio of related projects defined and grouped by a commodity or service classification.

“Category Management aims to manage this portfolio of projects in a coordinated way, leveraging specialised category knowledge and networks to obtain total cost benefits and enhanced control for the organisation that would otherwise not be achieved by managing the project on an ad-hoc individual basis,” Renfrey said.

Other topics being discussed include:  ‘A question for Australasia's newest online community: if you were the new CEO for one of the region's most trusted procurement advisors, what would be your top 3 issues to tackle for the profession?’ posed by Matthew Perfect.
Shannon Bottrell, Senior Consultant (Procurement) at Vertical Talent in Melbourne has outlined her top three issues.

“Continuing to promote a deeper understanding the holistic value proposition of procurement and ensuring the continued development (recognition) of the profession and it's people (particularly at "C" level in broader industry),” she said.
 
Secondly, “ensuring more opportunity for young talent to enter the discipline and be retained and developed (would also ease some of the pressure on upward salary momentum at some levels).”

And thirdly, “continue to push for synergy and standardisation across the "procurement vernacular", job titles, key procurement responsibilities, etc,” she said.

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