Consultants participate in inaugural World Procurement Congress

Hundreds of procurement thought leaders gathered in London for a three-day event exploring the future of the industry. A number of consulting firms attended the inaugural World Procurement Congress, including representatives from Capita, IBM, Ayming and Bain & Company.

Procurement is a major part of the business ecosystem, and plays an instrumental role in helping businesses cut costs, ensuring external disruptions are kept to minimum, and facilitating a smooth supply chain at the start of many important procedures. As a result, it is acutely impacted by changing client demands. Amid rapidly shifting needs and digitalised modes of business, the procurement function is seeing every part of operations affected by new, agile competitors.

Amid this, the demand for consulting work in the procurement sector is understandably high. Many firms are seeking external expertise to help with the delivery of transformation exercises, or with drawing up plans to find areas for improvement. As a result, it will come as little surprise that a number of the consulting sector’s top names were in attendance at the World Procurement Congress in London, at the end of May 2019.

Consulting firms at the event included Capita, IBM, Ayming and Bain & Company, as the inaugural World Procurement Week brought close to 1,000 procurement thought leaders together for three days of networking and cross-pollination in the Intercontinental Hotel at the O2 Arena. Co-chairs Jet Antonio and Joe Agresta encouraged delegates to “Be bold in your vision. Be fearless in all you do”, at a conference aimed at breaking down barriers to channel high velocity procurement across thought-provoking sessions.

The event was closed out by the distribution of the World Procurement Awards. The ceremony, which aimed to celebrate the top performers and share best practices of the procurement sector, saw gongs handed to a number of leading professionals, including two consultancies. While PwC was highly commended for the Procurement Consultancy Project Award prize, IBM walked away with the trophy for the Supply Chain Initiative Award. IBM won the award having recently announced the launch of a new supply chain management solution deploying artificial intelligence to detect anomalies in the supply chain.

Related: 4C Associates boosts procurement services with Scanmarket partnership.