In the fourth CPO Challenge series we discuss the pitfalls and tips for success in order to close the procure to pay loop and how you can grasp savings opportunity. You will get answers to pain such as; low contract compliance, unclear organization and process ownership.

By using IBX Value Assessment Methodology, which benchmarks your organisation with others within your industry based, is another way to find out your cost saving potential. You can read more in the article by Per Svanberg below.

I hope you have checked out the "The Purchasing Transformation Blog" that IBX recently started (www.ibxeurope.com/purchasingtransformation). It provides you with relevant, up-to-date perspectives on the development of purchasing and supply chain.

I wish you a nice summer and joyful reading!

The procurement and the payment processes both carry huge cost saving potentials regarding process cost savings and in an even higher portion as lever for getting spend visibility and streamlining the contract compliance. And you can gain even higher results and synergies if these two processes are connected to each other. In this issues CPO Challenge series; we discuss the pitfalls and tips for success in order to close the procure to pay loop.

Over the past few decades, few business functions have been subject to more change than purchasing. Corporations specialize and as they become more and more horizontal, more goods and services will need to be purchased from external sources. Add the globalization of international trade and you see a business function with an enormous potential for change; be it good or bad. To identify this potential, IBX has developed the IBX Value Assessment methodology which benchmarks your organisation with others within your industry based on the dimensions in the IBX purchasing framework.

Over the past few decades, few business functions have been subject to more change than purchasing. Corporations specialize and as they become more and more horizontal, more goods and services will need to be purchased from external sources. Add the globalization of international trade and you see a business function with an enormous potential for change; be it good or bad.

To identify this potential, IBX has developed the IBX Value Assessment methodology which benchmarks your organisation with others within your industry based on the dimensions in the IBX purchasing framework.

IBX was very pleased to support the Procurement Leaders Forum at Lord's Cricket Ground in May this year. The theme of the conference was "Procurement in the fast lane: Driving next generation strategy for improved business performance", and once again it was obvious that the purchasing function in leading companies across the world is continuing to create ever more value by developing new approaches to supplier management, outsourcing and performance measurement.

On the evening before we attended the Procurement Leaders 2nd annual awards ceremony and we would like to congratulate our friends at Deutsche Post WorldNet for winning the highly coveted flagship award for Procurement Excellence

Each year IBX brings a network of companies and individuals together to share and discuss the latest purchasing and sourcing trends, developments and best practices. The IBX Purchasing Executive Summit combines social networking with entertainment and this year more than 130 purchasing executives met at Clarion Hotel Sign in Stockholm.

Topping the agenda this year was purchasing transformation and most of the speakers touched upon this subject. The conference also featured two different break-out sessions to stimulate participant interaction. Notable speakers included Dr. Ulrich Piepel, CPO of RWE Systems, Barbro Falke-Almgren, VP Group Sourcing at Ericsson, Trevor Latham Group Purchasing Director at JCB and Ken James, CEO of CIPS. All touched upon the subject of transformation and what needs to be done in order to tackle the challenges purchasing is facing in today's competitive global business environment.