Today Buyers Meeting Point welcomes two guests: Brian Seipel and James Patounas, both from Source One. Source One recently announced the launch of Spend Consultant, a Spend Analysis as a Service web platform, and Brian and James each played a key role in its development. Brian Seipel is one of Source One’s Strategic Sourcing Analysts, focused on helping companies implement innovative solutions to drive revenue and expand market share through procurement and strategic sourcing best practices.  His combined a background in Business Analysis, Information Technology, and Marketing allowed him to play an instrumental role in developing the proprietary spend classification taxonomy and user experience for Spend Consultant. James Patounas is Source One's Senior Data Scientist. His background has focused heavily on the practical application of data mining, acquisition, normalization, and visualization to facilitate procurement and strategic sourcing. He is the team lead and primary architect of Spend Consultant.   In this conversation we discuss: How the 'scientific method' can be applied to spend anaytics with the help of data scienceWhy procurement must strive to resist the effects of 'analysis paralysis' or the trap of conducting analysis for its own sakeThe importance of using a taxonomy that matches the procurement perspective (acquisition) rather than relying upon a standard (NAICS, UNSPSC, SIC) that while widely recognized, was developed for production purposes.

Today Buyers Meeting Point welcomes Kasia Katrycz as our guest. Kasia is the Risk Intelligence Director at riskmethods, a cloud-based supply chain risk management solution. Kasia is the ‘lead human’ (if we can call her that) that forms a core part of the riskmethods Risk Intelligence Service. By combining Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning with a Human Touch, a higher level of actionable intelligence is created for companies and supply chains facing the possibility of disruption.  In this conversation we discuss: The filtering process that is required to harness the 'ocean' of informationThe role of artificial intelligence and machine learning in managing risk multiple tiers into the supply chainThe unique partnership between humans and machines that makes it possibleto isolate relevant risk indicators from all the 'noise'How the size of a supplier affects the availability of information and the QA process

The ISM-New York Report on Business is released on the second business day of each month at 9:45am ET. The Report, which was first run in 1917, is a highly regarded indicator of business conditions in the New York Metro area including a six-month outlook, employment index, and current and expected revenues.  The September report, which can be downloaded here, allows us to make the following observations: The majority of the indices held steady month over month or made minor changesThe exception to this observation was Employment, which dropped to 33.9 in September, a marked decrease from the 54.9 seen in August81% of this month's respondents reported that there would either be no change in the number of jobs in their organization or there would be a decrease in jobs

Today Buyers Meeting Point welcomes Kristian Haanes as our guest. Kristian Haanes is the founder and CEO of Webinara, a platform covering webinars on hundreds of topics taking place all around the world. He is a serial entrepreneur with over 15 years in B2B solution sales, management, and marketing and has a solid background with IT companies, SaaS/Cloud services in the Nordic countries and UK, focusing on Market Research, Leads generation, Customer Experience Management, Project Management, and HR. I connected with Kristian a little over a year ago when he first launched the Webinara platform. I’ve been covering webinars for years on Buyers Meeting Point, so we instantly had a lot in common – most of all a shared recognition for the importance of continued learning. In this conversation we discuss: Why continued investment in learning is so critical, regardless of your industry, role, or professional aspirationsThe #1 key to getting impreoved traction and engagement via social mediaHow the content marketing approach is a win for both webinar hosts and webinar attendees   For more information and webinar best practices, don't forget to visit the Webinara Blog.

Today Buyers Meeting Point welcomes Andy Kohm as our guest. Andy is the CEO at VendOp, a B2B review platform.  Through nearly a decade of conducting R&D in the medical device field, Andy experienced the problem of vendor selection firsthand, specifically finding, vetting and qualifying vendors and suppliers. Andy is a serial inventor having 20+ issued patents and over 50 pending patents, as well as a Ph.D. in engineering from Ohio State University and an MBA from The Wharton School. Rather than continuing to toil on in frustration, he decided to work towards a solution. He has been at VendOp since 2013. In this interview we discuss: The popular trend of sharing reviews online that is spreading from the B2C space to corporate purchasingThe background work required to verify the identify of a reviewer while still keeping their identity privateHow more information from multiple perspectives can improve the procurement and strategic sourcing processes

Today Buyers Meeting Point welcomes Charles Findlay as our guest. Charles graduated from the University of Oxford with a degree in Engineering Science and then spent five years with GEC as an industrial engineer working in various manufacturing industries in Europe and the United States. Following an MBA from London Business School, he joined Andersen Consulting, now Accenture, first in the Strategy practice, then running the UK Supply Chain practice and finally helping set up the Procurement out- sourcing business. For the last few years he has worked as an independent consultant, an angel investor in early stage technology companies and a founder member of the Supply Chain Finance Community. Earlier this year, Charles co-authored Financing the End to End Supply Chain with Simon Templar and Erik Hofmann. My review of the book is available on Buyers Meeting Point. Listeners may also be interested in reading Charles' recent blog post, 'Supply Chain Finance - Who Wins?' In this conversation, we discuss: The structure and players in the supply chain finance 'ecosystem'How a cross functional group can come together to implement a supply chain finance programThe wide variety of supply chain finance starting points, and whether they lead to blue sky opportunities or problems with standardizationThe impact of the public sector, regulatory bodies, and political climate on supply chain finance

The ISM-New York Report on Business is released on the second business day of each month at 9:45am ET. The purpose of the survey is to quickly assess business conditions among firms in the New York City area.  The ISM-New York Report on Business began in 1917, and it was originally started to provide the United States government with information on manufacturing activity in the New York metro area against the backdrop of World War I. To this day it remains a highly regarded indicator of business conditions in the New York Metro area including a six-month outlook, employment index, and current and expected revenues.  The August report, which can be downloaded here, allows us to make the following observations: Short term expectations seem measured, with volume of purchases, revenues, and expected revenues all either contracting or staying flat.The Six-Month Outlook increased to 65.5 in August, a significant increase in activity and the highest level reported since February.The combination of short term concern and longer term optimism may be a reaction to the uncertainty connected to the coming Presidential election – not the candidates themselves, but the lingering unknown of who will win.

Today Buyers Meeting Point welcomes Ken Ballard as our guest. Ken is a supply chain Project Manager at Source One Management Services, responsible for leading sourcing events to optimize the spend and operations of clients in the areas of supply chain and IT, working directly with clients and their suppliers through all stages of the strategic sourcing project – from data collection, through selecting and conducting go-to-market strategies, to negotiation and contracting, to implementation.  Ken recently wrote a two-part guest series for Buyers Meeting Point on the advantages and challenges of nearshoring, and that is what he joins us today to discuss. Ken's two post are available here: Nearshoring - Why Now? Nearshoring - Why Now? Warnings

The ISM-New York Report on Business is released on the second business day of each month at 9:45am ET. The purpose of the survey is to quickly assess business conditions among firms in the New York City area.  Effective August 1, Buyers Meeting Point Editor Kelly Barner will begin serving as the Business Survey Chair, compiling the monthly responses from ISM-New York members, updating all of the indexes in the monthly report, and providing observations and commentary.  The ISM-New York Report on Business began in 1917, and it was originally started to provide the United States government with information on manufacturing activity in the New York metro area against the backdrop of World War I. To this day it remains a highly regarded indicator of business conditions in the New York Metro area including a six-month outlook, employment index, and current and expected revenues.  The July report, which can be downloaded here, provides us with the following observations: Despite the concerns that affected the tail end of the June report, July demonstrated no initial ill effects from the UK’s decision to leave the EUCurrent Business Conditions and Current Revenues align in that they are stableOn the other hand, the Six-Month Outlook and Expected Revenues contradict each other coming in down and up, respectively.

Today Buyers Meeting Point welcomes back two of our regular guests: Dr. Jim Narus and Dr. Michelle Steward from Wake Forest University.  Dr. Jim Narus serves as a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Business Markets at Pennsylvania State University and Dr. Michelle Steward is an Associate Professor at the School of Business at Wake Forest University. This is the third time they have joined us here on BMP radio to discuss the findings of their research into how the customer journey has changed because of the use of digital tools – and what that means for B2B procurement. Today, they are back to provide us with an update on their work, including: The implications of the fact that procurement is the slowest growing management practice area, and trends that show it will be 50% Millennial in 5 yearsThe analytical experience procurement professionals are faced with when they have to reconcile positive and negative reviews of the same supplier from different sourcesThe critical learning process prompted by incorporating sometimes conflicting information from multiple sources   Please also listen to their previous podcasts: Incorporating online supplier reviews and evaluations in procurement and The Influence of the Digital Environment on Decision-making in Procurement.