James Lucier of Workspend™/USTS Group, a Master Services Provider (MSP) at the upcoming marcus evans Chief Procurement Officer Summit 2013, on the areas of the talent supply chain management function that deserve more attention. Interview with: James Lucier, VP Workforce Solutions, Workspend™/USTS Group talent supply management

1. Managing Supply Chain Vulnerability
Cost reduction has driven a lot of supply the next step. This involves constantly
offshore, making the supply chain more monitoring events and conditions that
vulnerable to geographic, weather, may disrupt the supply chain, and
security, and political risks. Many taking proactive steps to address them,
companies have also leveraged the such as positioning inventories,
volume of their purchases, consolidating informing customers, and switching to
to fewer suppliers or even sole sourcing, secondary suppliers. The best practice is
resulting in more single points of failure that even these actions should not be
in the supply chain. improvised.
Lean principles, rightly, emphasize Rather, they should be part of a
keeping inventories low, but doing so “playbook” developed in advance and
without a full view of supply chain risk ready to put into action when
Interview with: Thom McLeod, can deplete the inventories that act as a disruptions occur or are imminent. This
Founder and Managing Director, “shock absorber” for supply chain is what drives better resiliency.
Tenzing Consulting disruptions.
How can procurement become
relevant to every function in the
“Supply chains are now more organization?
vulnerable than ever,” says Thom
McLeod, Founder and Managing The procurement as a service function
Director, Tenzing Consulting. “Being
able to systematically manage supply
chain risk is a very important issue
The supply has to successfully and effectively reach
out to all key stakeholders in the
organization. In other words, it must
today, because Boards of Directors are
waking up to it. Audit Committees are
now required to look at overall
chain is only export the value of procurement to
other functions in ways that clearly align
with those stakeholders’ mission,
enterprise risk, and the supply chain is
often an area where there is a
tremendous amount of business risk to
as strong objectives, and measurable business
value. Marketing is a good example of a
function that can be a challenge to
be managed,” he explains.
As a solution provider attending the
as its partner with as a procurement team.
Marketing sees its mission as driving
revenues and sees itself as a high-ROI
marcus evans Chief Procurement
Officer Summit 2013, in Atlanta,
Georgia, April 22-23, McLeod takes the
weakest link investment for the company. Rather
than approaching marketing to help
them “save” money, as many
focus to supply chain risk procurement professionals do, it is
management, and discusses why better to focus on procurement
procurement is relevant to every strategies that drive greater value from
function in an organization. What should they look at first? their investments and higher
effectiveness from suppliers in
Why is supply chain vulnerability a Really understanding how a supply supporting marketing’s mission. If they
big issue today? Where is this chain is put together is the first critical save money, too, who can complain?
vulnerability coming from? step, because a supply chain is only as
strong as its weakest link. Do you have any final words of
Companies are only now starting to advice?
understand where supply chain risk fits Many organizations look at their first-
into overall enterprise risk. Many tier suppliers and manage the largest of Become completely invaluable as a
organizations look primarily at financial them vigorously, but a smaller second- partner to every functional executive
and market risks, without giving the or third-tier supplier can be a major and senior executive in the company.
supply chain the attention it needs. The single point of failure, leaving them That means reaching out to those
first challenge for supply chain- extremely vulnerable. people, understanding their business
dependent organizations is to make sure and how they need to accomplish what
that supply chain risk is elevated to and For example, one of our clients found they do, then figuring out how your
visible at an executive or Board level. that many of its first-tier suppliers were procurement organization can deliver
buying sub-components from the same on that. The biggest challenge is making
The effort that procurement and supply manufacturing location of a single third- sure your procurement team has
chain organizations have invested to tier supplier. The entire supply chain the skills and temperament for this
improve productivity, reduce cost, and could collapse if that single site were mission - great communication, listening
become leaner have paid big dividends. disrupted. and problem solving skills are more
But in many respects, these important to accomplishing this than the
improvements have made supply chains Once a company knows where it is technical knowledge we often
more vulnerable than ever. vulnerable, becoming more resilient is emphasize in hiring.

2. About the Chief Procurement Officer Summit 2013
The Finance Network - marcus
This unique forum will take place at The Ritz Carlton, Buckhead, Atlanta, Georgia,
evans Summits group delivers
April 22-23, 2013. Offering much more than any conference, exhibition or trade
peer-to-peer information on
show, this exclusive meeting will bring together esteemed industry thought leaders
strategic matters, professional
and solution providers to a highly focused and interactive networking event.
trends and breakthrough
innovations.
www.cpo-summit.com
Please note that the Summit is a Contact
closed business event and the
Sarin Kouyoumdjian-Gurunlian, Press Manager, marcus evans, Summits
number of participants strictly
Division
limited.
Tel: + 357 22 849 313
Email: press@marcusevanscy.com
For more information please send an email to info@marcusevanscy.com
All rights reserved. The above content may be republished or reproduced. Kindly
inform us by sending an email to press@marcusevanscy.com
About Tenzing Consulting
Tenzing Consulting is a management consulting firm that delivers results across the value chain from procurement through supply
chain and operations. Our senior, expert consultants work shoulder to shoulder with our clients at all levels as “player coaches.” We
bring the insights and execution support necessary to achieve client objectives while helping build their capability to sustain those
results in the future.
www.tenzingconsulting.com
About marcus evans Summits
marcus evans Summits are high level business forums for the world’s leading decision-makers to meet, learn and discuss
strategies and solutions. Held at exclusive locations around the world, these events provide attendees with a unique opportunity to
individually tailor their schedules of keynote presentations, think tanks, seminars and one-on-one business meetings.
For more information, please visit: www.marcusevans.com
To view the web version of this interview, please click here: www.cpo-summit.com/ThomMcLeod