Listen, I know I post a lot about procurement-related problems involving Apple. But don\u2019t get the wrong idea \u2013 it\u2019s not that Apple\u2019s procurement is bad, it\u2019s just that when you\u2019re the hottest company out there, a lot of people are gunning for you and the challenges are perhaps greater than they are elsewhere.<\/p>\n
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Apple\u2019s procurement team does a fantastic job of supporting the company\u2019s innovation and speed-to-market. Actually, you\u2019d probably be hard-pressed to find a procurement team that performs better in those respects.<\/p>\n
With that out of the way, let\u2019s talk about the latest procurement problem du jour<\/span> at Apple. Esteemed SPSM and former NLPA Dedicated Member of the Month, Paul Salisbury, tipped me off to a fascinating story involving Apple and its continuing struggle to protect its uber-valuable intellectual property.<\/p>\n The above-linked article describes how an executive of an Apple supplier shared confidential information (including plans for the iPad before its launch) with a research firm for whom he \u201cconsulted\u201d (read: accepted bribes from under the veil of \u201cconsulting\u201d). Apparently, the problem with payoffs in exchange for insider information is big. The article says that the US federal government is investigating \u201c\u2018expert networks\u2019 that solicit employees offering insider information and provide that nonpublic information to Wall Street money managers to facilitate insider trading. A number of arrests have been made over the firm\u2019s collection of insider information on Apple, Dell, AMD, and other tech companies.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, I\u2019m sure that Apple had a confidentiality agreement in place with this supplier. But, obviously, it wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re a procurement professional for an innovative tech company, what are you doing beyond the traditional confidentiality agreement to ensure that your company\u2019s intellectual property and trade secrets are being protected? If your answer is \u201cnothing else,\u201d I\u2019d suggest you investigate some other options sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n There\u2019s money being paid out there for information. And it seems like there is always going to be someone with shady ethics out there eager to accept it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Listen, I know I post a lot about procurement-related problems […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-procurement"],"yoast_head":"\n