Blog


Want Responsible and Resilient Supply Chains? Wise Negotiation is the Key

Let’s be blunt. Negotiating with large enterprises is not the same as negotiating with small businesses. More specifically, we cannot apply the same risk management standards to a small company that we can to a larger one. It’s a pickle, because we want small businesses to be a part of…

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The Category Management Playbook: The Procurement Bible Your Organisation Needs

Category Management Playbook

We need to change our perception of procurement. For too long, it’s been synonymous with red tape and roadblocks. When people think of procurement, they think of a lumbering, complex, process-heavy beast that slows everything down. But that’s procurement done wrong. Procurement is meant to make life easier and more…

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5 Best Practices in Supply Chain Resilience

A chain held together by rope, indicating supply chain resilience.

The world is a riskier place. Before COVID hit, companies expected to see disruptions to their supply chains lasting one to two months every three-and-a-half to four years, interspersed with several shorter-lived hiccoughs. This grim outlook reflects two realities. One, the climate is warming and serving up more frequent, more…

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eLearning: Retain, Reward & Build Capable Teams

Engineers practice something called torture testing. It involves stretching a system beyond its normal operational capacity, pushing it to breaking point, in order to find underlying weaknesses. Procurement teams around the globe were put through their own torture test recently, courtesy of the COVID-19 pandemic. Weaknesses were exposed. A McKinsey…

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The Spend Profile: It’s Time You Got to Know Your Own Company

No, procurement officers, it’s not your imagination. People are staring. All eyes are on you. Hellish 2020 may be over, but now it’s February 2021 and companies are desperately trying to identify areas of cost-saving opportunity while shoring up a teetering supply chain. It’s time to step into the breach.

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Be at the Forefront of Digital Transformation

digital transformation

Big events have the knack of etching themselves into our cultural timeline. Previous generations spoke of pre-war and post-war, and now, it seems, current generations have their own reference point: pre- and post-COVID. Only the events that clearly mark a point of change in our society achieve this privilege, and…

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The Post-COVID Workplace: Can Your Systems Cope?

It’s a testament to what humanity can achieve when we work together that vaccines for COVID-19 are already being administered. While it’s a cause for celebration, it’s important to remember that it will be a long time before we reach worldwide herd immunity (if ever). As procurement professionals, we know…

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Contingent Workers: You Never Stop Learning

Contingent workers

Life is full of things that come and go. Friends, money, health, a 32-inch waistline. Education, however, is the one thing you get to hold on to for life. Once you have it, no one can take it away from you. Continually building upon it and developing skills is any…

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Don’t Be a Statistic: Take an Active Role in Stakeholder Decision Making

Shaking hands with stakeholders in the procurement process

Look away now. We’re about to tell you the cost of poorly executed procurement projects. A 2015 Deloitte report estimates that poor procurement practices cost the Australian government $239 million per annum. That’s not an insignificant number, needless to say, especially in light of 2020. ‘Poor procurement practice’ is an…

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The Fragility of Our Supply Chains Has Been Exposed. Now What?

For Barrett’s 12 Sales Trends Report last year, my article – We change, or we burn – argued that the Bronze Age collapse was a warning we should heed. Due to the complex logistical nature of the procurement process behind the production of bronze, the world of the Bronze Age…

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Comprara acknowledges the traditional Aboriginal owners of country, recognises their continuing connection to land, water and community and pays respect to Elders past, present and future.