Earlier this week, Procurement Leaders’ Chicago Forum managed to attract a panel of high-profile CPOs: Dr. Volker Pyrtek, CPO, Deutsche Telecom; Tim McBride, CPO, MSFT; Michelle Kumbier, VP and GM, Materials Management and Corporate Quality, Harley Davidson Motor Company; and Johnathon Baker, VP Global Procurement, Starbucks Coffee Company. Panel discussions are usually up and down and I would have liked a bit more debate, but the panelists were surprisingly open to answering questions about their organizations. It was good to see the topics quickly move away from the areas of basic cost reduction and sourcing and progress into more current topics, including supplier management and supply risk. Harley’s Michelle Kumbier shared that their company’s oldest supplier relationship dates back to 1929 and they’ve worked hard to engage their supply base in a collaborative manner counter to the confrontational style of US automotive OEMs.
Kumbier also offered her view that supplier management and engagement requires a process designed around having strategic suppliers choose you as preferred partner to do business with. She was not just revving her procurement engine in saying this. According to others I’ve spoken with…
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