It\u2019s taken me a while to catch up afterwards, but I am now ready to declare the 2014 NLPA Conference an overwhelming victory!\u00a0 Procurement professionals from throughout the US and the world gathered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from September 15th to 17th, 2014 and I\u2019m pretty sure that I saw each one leave with a smile on their faces!<\/p>\n
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We had such a special inaugural conference in 2013 that exceeded expectations, those of both attendees and NLPA staff alike.\u00a0 Could we top that amazing event in 2014?\u00a0 Let\u2019s review some highlights!<\/p>\n
The first two days of the event were held at the beautiful and super-classy Renaissance Hotel along the shore of the Allegheny River.\u00a0 I knew when I arrived the night before the event and looked out my hotel window to see PNC Park, Heinz Field, and the beautiful bridges of Pittsburgh that attendees\u2019 first impression of the event would be awe inspiring.<\/p>\n
I kicked off the event with an always-provocative keynote speech in which I encouraged today\u2019s procurement professionals to completely rethink the way they interact with CEO\u2019s in order to advance the procurement professionals to heights never before reached.\u00a0 I closed the speech by challenging the attendees to use the week to get into a creative mindset to create new models for procurement where they are lacking today.<\/p>\n
One of the things I always preach about our conference is the diversity of perspectives that attendees will get exposed to (unlike our competition \u2013 who I call \u201cthe Dinosaur\u201d \u2013 whose old-boy-network gives the same presentations every year and who never invites \u201coutsiders\u201d with certifications other than their own).\u00a0 After my speech, I dispatched the audience to break out sessions, the first group of which were conducted by top supply chain executives.<\/p>\n
That first morning was heavy with real-world education.\u00a0 So, for our lunch keynote speech, we invited former Pittsburgh Steeler football great, Craig Wolfley, to lighten things up a bit with his belly-laugh-inspiring, but still motivational, speech:\u00a0 \u201cTeambuilding Through Storytelling.\u201d\u00a0 His stories of how the late four-time Superbowl-winning coach, Chuck Noll, led his teams to success had as many business takeaways as they had chuckles.\u00a0 And the crowd appreciated the opportunity to shake hands with a true celebrity.<\/p>\n
I invited our top two speakers from last year to return again this year.\u00a0 And Day 1 closed with a general session conducted by one of them, David Hargraves.\u00a0 Did he deliver the goods again this year?\u00a0 I\u2019ll get back to that in a bit\u2026<\/p>\n
The education portion of Day 2 got started with another constituency of speakers that we like to have represented:\u00a0 consultants!\u00a0 The thing I love about having consultants speak is that they get to see, first-hand, how things work in multiple procurement departments, not just one.\u00a0 So, they get to share practices that are truly transferable.\u00a0 Ron Larimer from Procurement Done Right and Julie Brignac and Ashley Hatcher from Vantage Partners delighted the audience with practices that they\u2019ve seen work consistently for their clients.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve followed this blog for a while, you know that I love to keep abreast of what\u2019s going on in the sales profession and encourage all procurement professionals to do the same.\u00a0 So, as part of my commitment to provide a diverse array of speakers, I asked master sales trainer Scot Teachout, from Peak Performance Management, to share some seller\u2019s secrets with attendees.\u00a0 Attendees were pleasantly surprised at how much they could learn from a sales specialist!<\/p>\n
Throughout the first day and the first half of the second, attendees made good use of their opportunity to meet in the exhibit hall with our friendly sponsors, ThomasNet and Puridiom, who had the chance to demonstrate why they are among the leading providers of procurement technology tools.<\/p>\n
PNC Financial Services Group Vice President and Economist, Kurt Rankin, gave a compelling and extremely up-to-the-minute lunchtime keynote speech on the state of the economy.\u00a0 He declared that the economy has fully recovered from the \u201cGreat Recession.\u201d\u00a0 He also expertly fielded some questions about what current economic indicators mean for the pricing and supply concerns of procurement professionals.\u00a0 A very authoritative and relevant speech!<\/p>\n
The education portion of Day 2 closed with perhaps the most provocative speech of the event.\u00a0 Highmark\u2019s Vice President of Procurement, Michael DeWitt, gave a brutally honest view of what the first six months of a procurement transformation are like.\u00a0 While some in attendance were a little overwhelmed by a discussion of some of the negative aspects of a procurement transformation, most attendees appreciated that Mr. DeWitt refused to sugarcoat the unavoidable conflict that a procurement leader will face when trying to drive a successful plan from vision to execution.\u00a0 This was a real-world discussion at its most raw.<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s anything that people who\u2019ve attended either of our conferences know about the Next Level Purchasing Association, it\u2019s that we believe in having fun \u2013 like loads and loads of fun!\u00a0 So, after we challenged our brains during the day, we walked across the Roberto Clemente Bridge to PNC Park to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates demolish the reigning World Series champion Boston Red Sox, 4-0.\u00a0 (Yes, the fun is included at no additional charge!)<\/p>\n
For the third and final day of the conference, we moved to Heinz Field for a boatload of additional education and, yes, a little fun, too.\u00a0 Attendees were split up into two groups:\u00a0 one would go on a supply chain-themed tour of Heinz Field while the others got to learn from the other of the top two speakers from last year, Dr. Soheila Lunney.\u00a0 Then, the groups switched and each got to do what the other did.<\/p>\n
When I asked the Heinz Field team to include supply chain elements to the tour, they said \u201cHuh?\u00a0 No one\u2019s ever asked us to do that<\/i> before.\u201d\u00a0 But with a little coaching, they prepared something that only a procurement crowd would love like they did.\u00a0 We got to peek into their warehouse and hear from a member of their supply chain team who discussed issues like how they approach supplier quality.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a pic from that segment of the tour\u2026can you guess what the supplier error being discussed here is?<\/p>\n And more visuals from the tour\u2026<\/p>\n I mentioned that David Hargraves and Dr. Soheila Lunney were the top two rated speakers from last year.\u00a0 And they were again, despite the fact that we worked hard to top last year\u2019s amazing speaker quality and got some crazy-good speakers on board.\u00a0 In fact, our average speaker rating (on a scale of 1 to 4) increased to 3.53 in 2014 from 3.42 in 2013.\u00a0 Speaker quality is such a high priority for us, so it is rewarding to know that our attendees acknowledge that quality!<\/p>\n The event ended with a scintillating and interactive panel discussion featuring panelists from vastly different backgrounds:\u00a0 Dick Locke, SPSM, SPSM2, SPSM3 author of Global Supply Management <\/i>and former procurement executive for HP; Stephen Yuter, SPSM, Deputy Director of Acquisition and Acting Head of Contracting Activity for US Department of Health & Human Services\/Indian Health Services; and Brad Carlson, Director of Supplier Relationship Management for SourceOne Management Services.<\/p>\n It was a triumphant feeling to conclude the conference.\u00a0 Attendees told us that it was the best procurement conference ever.\u00a0 At the NLPA, we certainly strive to put on a great event that blows away the competition and it was awesome to know that we succeeded.<\/p>\n If it sounds like a great event, it was.\u00a0 And you\u2019ve only read some of the highlights!\u00a0 There were plenty more speakers and activities that made these three days special!<\/p>\n As they were filing out, attendees asked \u201cWhere is the next one gonna be?\u201d and \u201cWhen is the next one gonna be?\u201d and \u201cHow in the world will you ever top yourselves after this<\/i>?\u201d<\/p>\n Well, we have our thinking caps on.\u00a0 We definitely set the bar very high and it will indeed be very difficult to top the 2014 NLPA Conference.\u00a0 But our goal is to do just that!<\/p>\n No decisions have been made yet.\u00a0 But we have some ideas that we think can make our next conference even better.\u00a0 And it may take more than a year to be able to accomplish something so groundbreaking.\u00a0 We are thinking somewhere other than our hometown of Pittsburgh.\u00a0 And we are thinking May 2016.\u00a0 And, yes, that is around the same time the Dinosaur will be doing its conference.\u00a0 But, now that we\u2019ve proven that we can host an event so far above procurement professionals\u2019 other options, we are ready to go head-to-head and show the Dinosaur\u2019s crowd (who prefer a Spring event) how much better a procurement conference can be done.<\/p>\n Procurement professionals deserve a breathtaking conference experience.\u00a0 The NLPA wants to deliver that and more.<\/p>\n Thanks to everyone who came and helped to make the 2014 NLPA Conference an event that will have a lasting impact on careers and memories!<\/p>\n (see our Facebook page for more photos!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s taken me a while to catch up afterwards, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-procurement"],"yoast_head":"\n