Speech Topics

The following topics can be presented in any length from 30 to 90 minutes, or can be incorporated in another seminar or program:

What Every Supply Manager should Know About Economics

From the simplistic world of thirty years ago, the new economic environment has challenged the purchasing professional with a wide variety of problem and opportunities. This presentation will concentrate on a professional purchaser’s prospective of the 21st century economy as it relates to foreign competition, outsourcing, energy, China, shortages, and other economic problems which relate to the supply management environment.

Negotiations for Cost Reduction

This presentation will focus on a contemporary view of how negotiations can and should be used to reduce costs. Despite an ongoing legacy of new negotiation theories, using negotiation successfully has grown increasingly elusive. Emphasis will be given to some of the ideas that actually work in a modern environment.

Ten E-Commerce Questions All Purchasing Managers Must Answer

Every purchaser who logs the net complains that there are too many choices, and not enough time. However, choices made today will probably be one of the greatest factors in determining the success of a purchasing operation in the future. This presentation will discuss ten factors of using the internet that must be managed -- and cannot be avoided.

Strategies for Re-Educating Yourself for the New Millennium

More changes will take place in purchasing in the next ten years than in the previous fifty. How does a purchaser balance a heavy workload with the need to reeducate oneself for the future? This presentation will review the skills necessary for future success, review educational resources, and demonstrate how to build a personal reeducation program.

A Fifteen Point Program For Promoting The Purchasing Function

Most purchasing managers agree that purchasing has not done the best job of promoting itself. This session will show how to augment the visibility and enhance the importance of purchasing to upper management as well as the entire organization. Enhancing purchasing's image in the overall business community is also discussed.

Purchasing Ethics

Purchasing ethics can be broadly defined as a set of moral principles and values which influence and guide business relationships toward effective purchasing decisions and management. This presentation will review the current state of the art in purchasing ethics policies and make specific recommendations for implementation.

Price Forecasting - Making It work In The 1990s

Price forecasting can be defined as an attempt to predicate at some future point in time the price and/or availability of a commodity which is subject to market forces beyond the buyer's immediate control. This presentation involves a do-it-yourself approach to make the task of forecasting simple but meaningful.

Retooling Negotiation Skills for 2001 and Beyond

In the new age of JIT, strategic alliances, single sourcing, and supply chain management, the old methods of purchasing negotiations are no longer viable. This presentation will focus on the new kinds of negotiation skills necessary to implement the modern purchasing practices that are now mandated by new evolutions in the purchasing profession.

MEGATRENDS for the Purchasing Profession

The purchasing profession will change more in the next twenty years than it did in the previous fifty. This session will identify most of these irreversible changes that are now just beginning, and assess their impact on the profession. An old advertisement line says that "the future belongs to those who prepare for it." This session will provide insight to purchasing managers for planning the future direction of their purchasing departments and purchasing careers.

Partnering: A Long Term Approach To Strategic Alliances

Is it possible for buyers and sellers to quit playing games, get down to business, offer a reasonable profit, and work toward each other's mutual goals? Of course it is! Buyers and sellers are doing it every day. Easy? not at all. But those who do manage to do it report that the advantages for both buyers and sellers are substantial.

Outsourcing the Purchasing Function

Outsourcing the purchasing function is one of the biggest challenges that the profession may face in coming years. Will many purchasing departments be replaced by outside purchasing service firms? This presentation will discuss the pros and cons of outsourcing for the purchasing profession.

Value-Added Purchasing

Can a properly run purchasing operation add to the bottom line? Of course. But in order to do so, purchasing concentrates on transactions where value can be added. Non-value-added transactions should be combined, farmed back to the requisitioners, or eliminated altogether.

Converting Central Office Purchasing to Supply Management

This presentation will deal with the strategic issues of the successful operation of a centralized purchasing function in the enlightened age of electronic commerce, inventory reduction and elimination, supply chain management, and continued pressure for cost reduction. Do's and don'ts from successful operations will be highlighted.

Megatrends for Internet Purchasing

Based on the results of interviews with top electronic commerce professionals, this session will classify, clarify, and forecast the major trends for the fast moving phenomena of the internet and how it relates to purchasing. Several strategies for purchasing professionals to get ahead of these trends will also be explored.