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A Review of CPO Rising 2017: Tools of the Trade

The CPO Rising 2017: Tools of the Trade report from Ardent Partners was a big focus last year. It was the first of their benchmark reports to explore the technology perspective of procurement, and it was revealing. Before the release of CPO Rising 2018: The Age of Intelligence happens, we thought it was worth reviewing Tools of the Trade to check some highlights. It’s also good to have a reminder of where procurement leaders stand in their efforts to achieve Process Under Management.

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Customer advocacy isn’t an event or a milestone: it is a natural progression that predates implementation.

Just weeks after joining the Determine team as their Senior Vice President of Customer Success, Kevin Turner was in attendance at the annual user group conference in Laguna Beach. Between meeting customers for the first time and hearing their feedback through presentations and informal exchanges, it was a critical and well timed opportunity to ensure that the Determine product roadmap is aligned with a broad range of definitions for customer success.

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March is what we used to call in Vermont one of the “shoulder seasons.” That is, it can’t decide whether to focus on winter or spring so it just throws curve balls at you all day. Luckily for us, as we cover in this March DetermiNews, Determine has incredible customers for us to focus on regardless of what the weather is doing. There are many pathways to achieving customer success; we’re success agnostic – whatever works for them works for us.

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For strategic procurement, customer success metrics are measured in two categories: efficiency and effectiveness.

As I mentioned in Part 1 of this series — Do you have a strategic relationship with your technology provider? — I recently joined Determine as Senior Vice President of Customer Success. On March 14 we held our West Region User Group in Laguna Beach, which brought together valued customers to share their experiences, feedback and ideas about our solutions and Determine as a company. That openness and reinforcing of trust are critical components to establishing a sustainable Customer Success Management program .

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Strike now while the eSourcing opportunity is hot – Trump tax law changes offer a unique saving opportunity.

I recently read this brilliant analysis about the impact of the Trump tax law changes. I couldn’t help thinking that this offers a unique one off saving opportunity that I would like to share with my procurement colleagues.

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Make sure your procurement team is focused on the right eSourcing solution features.

In a recent blog post here on Determine, I shared my list of 10 questions I think every procurement team should ask at all solution provider demos. Some of them you’d probably expect, like questions about integration and the administration of configuration settings. Others you might not have thought of, for instance asking to what degree the company “takes their own medicine” by using the technology themselves.

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