More than one hundred years after John C. Dinsmore wrote in Purchasing Principles and Practices that "there should be no great chasm between the board of directors who represent the stockholders whose money is spent and the person who does the spending," procurement is still struggling with the same fundamental problem of misalignment.

In the eighth episode of "Buy: The Way…To Purposeful Procurement," Philip Ideson, Kelly Barner, and Rich Ham, CEO at Fine Tune, convene to grapple with the insights – and even a few uncomfortable truths – uncovered in their recent conversations with procurement veterans Rob Hills and Kate Vitasek (episodes 6 and 7, respectively).

Rich, Phil, and Kelly challenge conventional wisdom about cost avoidance (is it just "funny money," after all?), the gap between negotiation and execution, and why procurement's performance metrics have remained largely unchanged over the years, despite their obvious flaws.

This conversation challenges procurement to think about the practices, processes, or assumptions that no longer serve them, and it also sets the stage for upcoming episodes that will begin to explore tangible solutions to these and other challenge areas. Tune in as the co-hosts gear up for their upcoming discussion with David McCarty and prepare to tackle new definitions of procurement value that could finally liberate procurement from its self-imposed "savings jail."

The path to purposeful procurement is becoming clearer with each episode…