A new white paper was released by the Internationally-renowned Lean Agile Procurement Alliance at PASA’s Annual Conference, Premier Confex
President of Lean-Agile Procurement Alliance, co-founder Flowdays, and Agile Enterprise Coach Mirko Kleiner attended the conference in Melbourne especially from Switzerland.
Download the whitepaper.
The White Paper, The Future of Procurement: From Function to Capability, challenges procurement to use agile to step out from beyond being just a function. The paper provides eight ground-breaking case studies of lean agile procurement in action, whereby traditionally processes are drastically reduced through collaboration.
“It’s not about Agile, it’s about the outcome, about the impact,” MIrko said in his keynote.
“After years of focusing on improvement of procurement via e.g. digitalization and automation but not questioning the current ways of working, the white paper provides insights about the future of procurement – beyond just a function.”
Mirko’ break-out session with Henriette Kamfer, Procurement Lead, for APA Group, highlighted APA’s internationally-acclaimed smart gas metering procurement.
Case study: ERP System sourced in two days
Of the case studies provided in his keynote, Mirko spoke about Swiss Casinos which sourced an ERP system in two days – a drastic reduction from the six to 12 month benchmark.
Mirko said the application of an Agile Big Room allowed negotiations to happen while bringing together “the right people” at the right time.
“So we had all the right people: decision makers, people from the business etc all from Swiss casinos in the same room, IT guys, even lawyers and the three shortlisted vendors at the same time,” he said.
“The process was built on co-creation,” Mirko says. “The proposal, contract and signing of terms were all completed in the two days.”
Agile: The power of collaboration
“That’s the power of collaboration,” he said. “Was Swiss Casino’s agile as a company? No, definitely not. But it was a first experience.”
Mirko warned procurement not to fall into a trap of being “victims of the current ways of working.”
He said the time was nigh for the profession to take advantage of agile.
“Procurement will become even more important and you have the ingredients for it. And just start, start small,” he said.
Download The Future of Procurement: From Function to Capability,
