Procuri Empower: Dispatch Seven

At Procuri Empower, I had the chance to drop by Tim Cummin's presentation titled "Reshaping contract management for the 21st century". For those who don't know Tim, in addition to heading up IACCM, perhaps the fastest growing Spend Management industry association -- which Tim likes to point out is also a non-profit -- he is also one of the leading thinkers and futurists in the procurement world. During his presentation, Tim shared how he believes the future of procurement will be based as much on such concepts as social networking, cross cultural relationships, global values and global standards as the letter of the law and traditional negotiations. For Tim, contract management is not just an application that one licenses. Rather, it's a new way of thinking about working with trading partners. He believes that the act of contracting is "a mechanism for developing trust, a discipline for supply chain coordination, [and] a tool for the management of change." Heady stuff. But once you've heard Tim in person, you’ll realize that he's not just onto something -- he's actively reshaping how leaders in the industry think about creating new levels of value from supplier relationships.

- Jason Busch