Q4 Regional Member Meeting Recaps

Midwest Meeting
On October 9, Corporate United held its Q4 Midwest Member Meeting at Lifetouch Headquarters in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Corporate United’s Gary Klco and David Plantan led the event, which featured guest keynote speaker, Dr. Ernie Goss, Professor of Economics at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. Over 60 representatives from Corporate United member companies attended the meeting to learn more about Corporate United’s strategic sourcing resources as well as to network with their peers. Ara Arslanian, Corporate United’s Director of Market Development kicked off the event with a brief update on the company’s supplier management initiatives and a sneak peek at the new Corporate United website.

Attendees were treated to an insightful and timely overview of both global and domestic economic trends and hurdles by Dr. Goss, whose comments resonated at both the personal consumption and corporate procurement level. Much of his presentation explained how shifts in interest rates, globalization and inflation impact business competitiveness and how the Federal Reserve’s actions influence outcomes. Perhaps most striking was his insight into how the foreclosure crisis has rippled through the economy and his prediction as to when the credit crunch will subside.

Mid-Atlantic Meeting
On October 28, the Mid-Atlantic members of Corporate United met in Annapolis, Maryland to discuss intra-company and supplier collaboration and to receive a general Corporate United update from President Marc Rosen, including a review of the status of ongoing and future sourcing activities. Ed Benevides from Genworth Financial and Jack Quarles with Sallie Mae began the meeting with presentations about the tools used internally to explain the procurement function to other departments. Pat Drissel from Intelsat then covered the process and results of an IT Governance Council model that Intelsat employs. The process combines a strong role for procurement in the development and selection of IT projects together with participation by the internal functions that are the end users of these IT projects. The final presentation was an example of driving “next generation” savings from supplier and cross functional collaboration at Vertis Communications. From a starting point of multiple suppliers and no standardization, Steve Hughes explained how Vertis realized incremental savings by moving toward a standardized set of Choctaw-Kaul safety supplies for their more than 15 plants.

Great Lakes Meeting
As the final Q4 meeting, the Cleveland-based members gathered at the Great Lakes Member Meeting on November 6. The meeting’s focus was on the importance of supplier relationship management (SRM). Three members presented their experience with SRM. Mike Rager, Vice President of Procurement for Diebold Inc., began the meeting by sharing a presentation on the value SRM brings to collaboratively engage suppliers, leveraging assets and capabilities to yield a competitive advantage. Sherry Tyrrell, Category Manager for Progressive Insurance, followed. She presented Progressive’s supplier scorecard model and survey program, which was developed to evaluate their suppliers’ business impact. The last presentation of the day was from Steve Feliccia, Director of Sourcing, Logistics and Site Services for PolyOne, who shared an overview of PolyOne’s current approach to the sourcing function and the strategic approach for their SRM program over the next few years. After the SRM presentations, members had the opportunity to network over lunch.