CPO Confidential

Levelling the playing field between KAM/SAM and SRM practitioners

This week I've been hosting a number of workshops in London for procurement and supplier relationship management (SRM) practitioners. The purpose is to share some of the preliminary findings of our 2010 SRM survey and to get their thoughts on the state of play in this emerging business discipline.

Overall, the results show that there has been some progress on the SRM front during the past 12 months - particularly in the areas of executive sponsorship, internal stakeholder buy-in and process development -but that more than three-quarters of organisations are still at the early stages of relationship building initiatives with their most strategic suppliers. Most are still focused on largely one-way contract and performance management, rather than truly collaborative initiatives that deliver value for both parties.

One of the most striking contrasts is between the relatively well-trained and equipped key or strategic account managers (KAMs/SAMs) on the sales side and the generally understaffed and poorly equipped (both in terms of training and tools/systems) folk on the buy side. Only about half of respondents had invested in any sort of SRM-specific training for those staff managing strategic supplier relationships - and most of those only to a modest extent. Not surprisingly, it's "soft" skills such as communication, change management, influencing, facilitation and leadership that are lacking most - and these are also viewed the most critical competencies for successful SRM.

In an effort to redress this imbalance, the International Association for Contract and Commercial Management (IACCM) and State of Flux, the consultancy I now work for, recently announced that we will launch an accredited SRM training programme this autumn. The shape, content and pricing of this programme are being finalised at the moment, but the feedback we've had from a number of major international companies so far has been extremely positive. There is clearly a need in the market for training that gives SRM practitioners - whether at the programme management, category or individual supplier relationship level - the knowledge, skills and tools they need to do a professional and effective job.

More information will be released soon, but in the meantime if you are interested in knowing more about this pioneering initiative, feel free to get in touch.

The need for stronger leadership in commodity risk management

Despite a series of events over the past few years - volatile commodity prices, supplier bankruptcies and natural disasters such as the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud - the perception that procurement professionals still aren't taking supply chain risk management seriously enough lingers. One reason, of course, is that during difficult economic times many organisations have concentrated on short-term cost-cutting and cash flow - righting the ship, as it were, rather than worrying about its future direction and factors that might throw it off course.

So it's always encouraging to witness minds and energies being channelled to manage risk more effectively and proactively. Last week I attended (and helped to facilitate) a very interesting one-day conference in Copenhagen on strategic commodity risk management organised by the Danish Purchasing and Logistics Forum (DILF) and Kairos Commodities, a specialist research and analyst unit. Although the audience was quite small  - about 40 people from Scandinavia, Germany and the UK - their interest in learning about some of the key methodologies now being applied in the commodity buying arena (some of them quite mathematically orientated) was commendable.

However, the results of a new survey among 300 European companies presented at the start of the conference showed that there is still some way to go before techniques such as "Value at Risk" (VaR) are applied in practice to enable well-informed decision-making to take place across major commodity spend areas. Almost two-thirds of companies did not have an enterprise-wide risk strategy, while 45% of purchasing departments did not have a strategy for tackling commodity risk.

The study's authors concluded that:

• Too much commodity risk is handled at the category, rather than portfolio, level.
• There is insufficient communication and co-ordination between procurement, finance and sales.
• Only a minority of companies hedge risk through the financial markets.
• Procurement departments generally lead on commodity risk, but they are understaffed.
• There is a limited understanding of the cost drivers behind major categories.
• Even when this knowledge exists, fact-based negotiations are not used sufficiently.
• Only half of companies have quantified the effect of commodity price fluctuations on their bottom lines.
• Renegotiations of commodity contracts typically take place at fixed intervals, rather than being driven by market analysis.

Overall, the message was that although commodity prices are likely to remain volatile, "commodity risk is not hot - yet".

Some companies are pushing ahead on commodity risk management - Diageo, the drinks giant, and Danfoss, a Danish industrial group, were two that shared details of their approaches at the conference. But the evidence suggests that there's a lot more work to be done over the next few years if procurement is to play a truly strategic role in this area.

Shining a spotlight on SRM practices and maturity levels

Supplier relationship management (SRM) may have taken a back seat in many organisations during the depths of the recession, as short-term cost cutting took precedence, but interest in its potential remains strong among forward-thinking procurement professionals.

In talking to a variety of CPOs and companies in recent months, however, three things have struck me. First, that interpretations of SRM - in terms of its definition, scope and business drivers - vary considerably. Second, that many procurement functions still haven't really got out of the starting blocks when it comes to developing SRM initiatives. And third, that, differences aside, there is a lack of solid information about what good SRM looks like in practice.

In an effort to shed some light on this, I've just launched an online benchmarking survey aimed at procurement and other practitioners (see http://bit.ly/bJp3qY). It is designed to capture data from several hundred organisations around the globe and give a "state of the nation" view of SRM maturity and practice. As well as general questions about progress during the past 12 months and the challenges encountered, the survey digs deeper into areas such as stakeholder engagement, governance & processes, skills & resources, tools and metrics.

In just a few days, more than 150 people have taken part, which just shows the level of interest there is in SRM. Over the next few weeks I hope that many others will participate, allowing us to present a representative picture of current trends.

Once the data has been collected, we'll be organising a series of practitioner workshops to discuss the findings in more detail. I will then use the output of both exercises to write a comprehensive report, which will be made available to all participants.

I see SRM - which at heart is about forging more trusting and collaborative relationships with strategic suppliers - as a huge opportunity for procurement functions that want to deliver greater value to their businesses. It positions them firmly on the competitive advantage, rather than simply tactical, agenda. But it also requires a change in mindset, approach and skills compared with the traditional procurement leverage model.

If you share this perspective, then I encourage you to take part in this exciting project.

Three months in, a few thoughts about my new life as a consultant

After an absence of several months, today I finally got around to blogging again (see my post on the closure of Purchasing and Supply Chain Management Review magazines). Why the tardiness? Quite simply because in recent months I've been busy learning a new trade - namely, management consulting. Shortly before Christmas, after several months of working for myself, I took the decision at the age of 41 to try my hand at something different. In January, I joined State of Flux, a boutique procurement and supply chain consultancy owned and run by Alan Day, and have had my head down ever since.

It's been a very interesting, if somewhat rollercoaster, ride and with a few notable exceptions I've enjoyed every day of it. Three months on, it seems like a good opportunity to take stock and review what I've learnt so far and how being a consultant compares with being a journalist - a craft I'd been pursuing for almost 20 years until I left the publishing industry last June.

In no particular order, here are a few thoughts:

1. The devil's in the detail. As a journalist - even a specialist one, as I was for a decade covering the procurement world - you only have to master a (fairly superficial) level of detail. Sure, you need to have a broad idea of what your readers do for a living, and be able to ask poignant questions, but that's about as far as it goes. As bright as many journalists are, if you suddenly tasked them with doing their readers' jobs for a few days they wouldn't have a clue (of course, the reverse is also true!).

As a consultant, however, you have to understand detailed business processes and be able to find ways of improving them for your client. After all, part of the reason they are employing you rather than doing it in-house is that they see you as the expert. I confess I haven't done much proper consulting of this kind yet, but already I've had to dig a lot deeper into the detail than I ever did as an editor.

2. It's all about the client. Although I spent 14 years working in contract business publishing, where the magazines we published were on behalf of professional institutes - our clients - we operated in a kind of semi-independent manner. We weren't simply there to do what the client told us (although on occasion they did), but to set our own agenda and build profitable magazines, websites and events that would in turn contribute both to the client's revenues and their credibility in the market. 

And in terms of our other commercial clients - namely, advertisers and sponsors - as editors we could always hide behind the shield of "editorial integrity" (quite properly in many cases) to avoid doing things that they wanted even though they were paying us many thousands of pounds.

In consulting, however, you are basically there to serve the client's requirements, no matter how badly constructed, misguided or utterly insane they might be! This entails a certain amount of deference, politeness and - in many cases - long hours to get a project finished. You might think you are some kind of intellectual partner, but if the client regards you as simply another supplier, as many do, then that dictates the style of working engagement. 

3. Sales and resources are closely linked. As an editor I did a certain amount of sales support work and, in a few cases, even handed ready-made deals to my sales colleagues to seal. But selling wasn't really my job, and in any case there were good reasons for keeping the sales and editorial roles separate. In consulting, however, you have to sell a project before you can deliver it and there's no Chinese wall to hide behind. As a consultant I have an annual sales target to hit and the more I sell over this threshold, the higher my bonus is likely to be.

At the same time, especially in a smaller firm, there's the constant challenge of controlling cash flow by being relatively lean while balancing this with the need to have staff available to commence a new project at possibly just a few days' notice. This means that in some instances you have to convince potential clients that you can deliver their requirements even if you don't actually know who would do the work if you won it. This tests both your powers of persuasion and your nerve!

4. It's amazing what bright people can do. I worked with many highly talented and creative people in my publishing career. But I reckon most of them would have struggled with being constantly asked to take on unfamiliar tasks - often at close quarters with the paying client - as my young consulting colleagues are every day. 

I've also never worked with such an international group of people before: our current roster includes individuals from Turkey, Greece, Ghana, Nigeria, the Netherlands and Colombia. They are united in having chosen to study, live and work in central London for at least the first few years of their careers. So not only are they out of their comfort zones, but also out of their home countries too. It's an inspiring experience.

So, will I stick with consulting? It's too early to say. But one thing's for sure - I'm certainly glad I decided to step outside of my own (very nicely padded) comfort zone and give it a try.

Closure of Purchasing and SCMR leaves the US market to Procurement Leaders

While having lunch yesterday with a friend who's a senior manager at Reed Business Information here in the UK, I learned that the company had, on Friday, closed a number of its business-to-business titles in the US, including Purchasing and Supply Chain Management Review. Although I knew these magazines hadn't been faring particularly well in recent times, my initial reaction was still one of shock.

The closures decimate the US domestic procurement press, leaving just the ISM's stodgy Inside Supply Management and wafer-thin Supply & Demand Chain Executive to satisfy (or not, depending on your viewpoint) the print publication needs of US-based procurement professionals.

At one level I am sorry for Paul Teague and Frank Quinn and their respective editorial teams on Purchasing and SCMR. I know from personal experience what it's like to be suddenly severed from a magazine you love working on (it's happened to me twice in my career). And it's ironic that at a time when the procurement profession is growing in stature and influence that it should lose two of its longest-standing flag wavers.

I'm particularly sorry to see SCMR go, because when I launched CPO Agenda back in March 2005 it was the nearest thing I could find to the sort of practitioner-orientated "journal" I wanted to create. Although its scope was a little broader than just procurement, it had for several years sought to combine academic, consultant, analyst and practitioner contributions in a thought-provoking, content rich and yet practical format. I don't mind admitting that I studied its commercial model and editorial concept for inspiration and guidance while developing my own plans.

These closures are just the latest example of the devastation being wreaked in B2B publishing by the twin forces of recession and the internet. Flicking through a few recent issues of Supply Management, the UK's leading procurement title and one I edited for five years, I estimate that its advertising revenue is probably 25-30% of what it was even a couple of years ago. Recruitment advertising, which used to be its cash cow, has been particularly hard hit, and the simple truth is that web-based job ads don't come anywhere close to the rates commanded by print advertising.

If Supply Management was a completely independent commercial magazine, rather than one published on contract for the membership of the UK's Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply (CIPS), then it too would be under threat of closure.

Of course, where there are losers there are also winners. Reed's decision to axe Purchasing and SCMR is great news for the London-based Procurement Leaders Network, which is aggressively pushing into the US market with its bi-monthly magazine and CPO-level roundtables and forums. If it can find sufficient resources to expand its physical and sales presence in the US, I reckon it has the market pretty much to itself - at least for now. From a print publication standpoint, CPO Agenda simply doesn't have the resources or the ambition to compete in the US. And again, if it wasn't for its CIPS sponsorship it would almost certainly have closed by now.

I personally believe that specialist business magazines still have a future. But they are going to have to seriously experiment and innovate with both their commercial models and their content, particularly online, if they are to remain profitable. In the long run, only the very best are going to survive. Speaking personally, I'm glad I no longer work in the publishing industry. At the same time, it's sad to see established titles such as Purchasing and SCMR disappearing from our mailboxes.

Innovating to meet the challenges of sustainable procurement

I've just been reading an interesting article headlined "Why sustainability is now the key driver of innovation" in the September issue of Harvard Business Review (subscription required). In it, leading management thinker C.K. Prahalad and his two co-authors argue that the notion that introducing green practices and products means putting social concerns ahead of financial ones is nonsense. In fact, their research among 30 large companies suggests that costs can actually be reduced and revenues increased as a result of better products and new businesses. 

"We find that smart companies now treat sustainability as innovation's new frontier," they write. "Indeed, the quest for sustainability is already starting to transform the competitive landscape." Pioneers in this space include HP, Cisco, GE and FedEx.

Companies typically go through five stages on the path to becoming sustainable, they suggest. First, viewing compliance as an opportunity; second, making value chains sustainable; third, designing sustainable products and services; fourth, developing new business models; and fifth, creating next-practice platforms (ie, pushing the boundaries of innovation). 

At stage one, conforming to the most stringent standards in the world can reduce sourcing costs through economies of scale and optimise supply chain operations. The authors cite the example of HP developing an alternative to the anti-corrosion – and potentially cancer-inducing – coating hexavalent chromium and then transferring the technology to a number of vendors to ensure competition.

At stage two, meanwhile, firms need to work with suppliers to develop more eco-friendly raw materials and components and reduce waste by either offering them incentives or, as in the case of Wal-Mart, using its purchasing power to insist that suppliers (eg, in China) improve their performance.

Prahalad and his colleagues acknowledge that recession has slowed movement towards more sustainable practices, but insist that those companies that have seized the initiative will emerge stronger from it. "The key to progress, particularly in times of economic crisis, is innovation," they write.

This message will resonate with a growing number of procurement leaders. At the hotel group NH Hotels, for example, CPO Pedro Martinez has started an initiative called the NH Sustainable Club. Launched in June, it brings together key suppliers such as TV manufacturer Philips and non-food consumables distributor Bunzl, to discuss ways to help NH meet its targets of 20% less consumption of water, less energy spend, less waste and lower carbon emissions by 2012. The programme has the full backing and involvement of the hotel group's CEO, Gabriele Burgio, as this YouTube video illustrates. 

Pedro tells me that "the Club is a way to 'distill' innovation into NH Hotels, and among suppliers, in order to conduct business in a more sustainable way". He adds: "I didn't expect such a good results. I think we, buyers, need to move on this direction."

I couldn't agree more. And a recently published report by the HEC, a Paris-based business school, suggests that after a slow start procurement organisations are beginning to play their part. Its survey of 75 large European companies found that sustainable development was ranked third in the list of priorities behind direct and indirect cost cutting, with 90% of respondents rating it "critical" or "important" – up from 60% in 2005. More than a third said the resources allocated for sustainable procurement would be greater in 2009 (although I would be a little sceptical about whether this has proved to be the case as the research was actually conducted at the end of last year). Avoiding risk to brand image and complying with regulations topped the list of drivers – in other words, most CPOs are operating at stage one of Prahalad & Co's model. However, a third cited developing "innovative green products", which suggests that some companies are further down the track and are looking to procurement to deliver value at stages three or even four.

Significant challenges must be faced at each stage, note the authors of the HBR piece. For procurement, these include balancing short-term and longer-term cost-cutting initiatives, baking sustainability goals into buyers' objectives and finding appropriate supplier metrics. Overcoming these challenges will require both hard work and some innovative thinking on the part of CPOs. But I have to say I'm more optimistic about their chances of pulling it off than I was just a couple of years ago.  

Siemens' CPO Barbara Kux ranked sixth in global businesswomen power list

Opening the latest issue of Fortune at the breakfast table this morning, I am interested to see that Barbara Kux, head of supply chain management at German industrial giant Siemens, is number six in the magazine's annual ranking of the most powerful international businesswomen (outside the US). Kux missed out last year because she was in the process of moving across from Philips, but prior to that, in her role as its CPO, she had climbed steadily up Fortune's league table from 26th in 2004 to 24th in 2005 to 21st in 2006 and then 19th in 2007.

But her sixth place in 2009 is a massive jump, taking her ahead of female business leaders such as Marina Berlusconi, daughter of Italian prime minister Silvio and chairman of his media company Fininvest (the global list is again led by Anglo American CEO Cynthia Carroll). So what explains Kux's meteoric rise in the eyes of this most revered of American publications? 

A quick look at its website gives a few clues: for starters, there's the fact that she's the first female Siemens board member in its 160-year history, not to mention the only woman on the board of any DAX 30 company in Germany. Then there's the $55 billion annual spend she's responsible for – more than double the budget she had at Philips. Lastly, Kux also holds the position of chief sustainability officer at a firm where a quarter of its sales in 2008 (some $27 billion) came from green technologies (at Philips, where she had a similar role, they accounted for 15 per cent in 2007).

All very impressive. But, as I found out when I attended Kux's presentation at a press conference in Berlin back in April, she has plenty of work to do if she's to propel Siemens into the premier league of best-practice procurement. Like many other big companies, its various divisions have traditionally operated a decentralised model, with the result that its supply base has sprawled (to 370,000 accounts with 100,000 different suppliers, according to Kux) and opportunities for cross-company leverage and efficiency have been missed. 

Kux has refused to declare a savings target in public, but if she can deliver the number agreed with her CEO Peter Loscher (reckoned by analysts to be around the €2 billion mark), then who knows, perhaps she'll break into the top 5 on next year's list.

A sobering experience for Nestlé's ousted CPO

Corporate culture is a subject that has fascinated me for many years. The way that values, attitudes and behaviours become ingrained in huge international companies over time – and are exhibited on a daily basis by employees from the most senior to the most junior levels – offers powerful insights into human nature. In some cases, this culture is embodied and driven by one person at the top of the organisation (a great example being Larry Ellison, boss of US software company Oracle). 

The benefits of a strong culture are many, but they include a shared sense of purpose, resilience in the face of adversity, consistent decision-making and actions, and a real commitment to people development. But there can also be downsides, not least an inward focus and a resistance to change – characteristics that in today's global and fast-moving markets can be a liability rather than an asset. For CPOs recruited into such an environment from the outside, rather than having been promoted from within after many years of loyal service, it can be a sobering experience.

A recent example of this appears to have taken place at the Swiss food giant Nestlé, a 143-year-old company that is renowned for its strong tradition of developing managers internally and keeping them for life. In 2006, upon the retirement for its long-serving procurement boss, the then CFO Paul Polman – a career Procter & Gamble man who is now the CEO of Unilever – opted to hire externally and chose Malcolm Harrison, who at the time was CPO of the brewer InBev in Belgium. 

Harrison set about upgrading the company's procurement capabilities and practices, creating the Nestlé Procurement University to equip hundreds of buyers with basic technical skills in areas such as strategic sourcing and negotiation; developing a more systematic approach to the purchasing of commodities such as milk and coffee beans; and building a strong senior leadership team for the global procurement function. 

But at the end of June, Harrison was shown the door. His efforts to instill a more co-ordinated approach to procurement appear to have gone against the grain of what remains a very decentralised group. Of course, disagreements about policy, objectives and style are commonplace at the senior executive level of big companies – and they invariably result in a swift departure (albeit one softened by a decent payoff). For without your boss's active sponsorship and support, driving change in the corporate world is virtually impossible, making it a risky environment in which to operate. In that sense, Harrison joins the thousands of executives every year who fall victim to a clash of personalities or cultures.

However, in this case I think the upward march of procurement has probably taken a knock too. The sort of things that Malcolm was trying to do at Nestlé were those that any good CPO at a major company lagging behind best practice ought to do. Not earth shattering or even fast, from a change point of view, but necessary for the long-term prosperity of the business. I therefore wish Malcolm the best of luck in finding a new role – whether as a CPO or in other areas of management. I'm sure that, since he hasn't even hit 50 yet, he's got a lot more to contribute to the development of this profession in the next few years.     

Why procurement is badly served by researchers

This time last week I had lunch with my friend Jason Busch, the pioneering American blogger and editor of SpendMatters, who was over in the UK for a few days. One of Jason's regular fixtures on his blog is the "Friday Rant", which he often uses to vent his spleen at whoever or whatever happens to have pissed him off that week. (Today's posting is the rather more gentile but still opinionated Rebound or Not, Now is the Time to Shine.). Well, taking a leaf out of Jason's book, so to speak, here's a rant of my own that I've been meaning to post for several weeks now but somehow haven't got around to. It concerns the quality of published research in the global procurement community.

Basically, I think that most of the research being conducted right now is pretty poor – and that's putting it mildly. Whether it's academic studies, consultancy surveys or research from supposedly independent analysts, my assessment having read numerous of their reports over the past few years is that most serve CPOs and the cause of procurement development rather badly. There are various reasons for this, in my view, and they vary according to which providers you are looking at. 

Let's start with the academics. Unlike some procurement practitioners, I happen to think that intellectually and methodologically rigorous research has its part to play in this profession. Indeed, business academics at their best make sense of the corporate world in a way that nobody else can. The trouble is that there aren't many really top-notch academics specialising in procurement. In most cases, what they end up producing from a research standpoint is either of little practical interest to those outside the academic community or it's the sort of basic survey that the big consultancies get their most junior employees to knock out in a fraction of the time that academics take. (Why it takes six months-plus to publish a short report with the findings of a simple online survey of 100 CPOs, such that it's already out of date, I don't know! Perhaps it's my journalistic mentality, but to me when it comes to fast-changing issues like the global recession, timeliness is everything.) 

But if academics are guilty of being slow and inwardly focused, management consultancies are often just downright sloppy. Badly designed questionnaires, unclear objectives, unfathomable charts and a failure to display even the most basic grasp of statistics (eg, the difference between a percentage increase and a percentage point increase) are just some of the common failings I've observed in recent years. Add to that a "me too" research agenda and a reluctance to scratch much below the surface of the companies (read: existing or would-be clients) surveyed – at least publicly – and much of what the consultancies produce today adds little to our knowledge and understanding of procurement issues. 

Lastly, we have the analyst and specialist research firms. While I don't doubt that there are some highly capable and experienced people working for these, in general I find their reports too narrowly focused on process and/or technology, and – in some cases – blatantly swayed in their terms of reference by the business goals of their sponsors (the same criticism also applies to much of the research commissioned by software vendors and other service providers). And let's face it: there aren't that many analyst or research houses specialising in procurement, so there's a dearth of quantity as well as quality.

Despite these failings, the need for data and intelligence in procurement, along with the skills to analyse and translate it into meaningful strategy and decision-making, is growing rapidly. Whether it's information about industries, supply markets and categories, investigations of current good practice or more forward-looking assessments of where the profession is headed, CPOs need the research base – in all its forms – to support them with high-quality, practical and timely insights. My contention is that, at present and in most cases, they are poorly served.

McKinsey survey points the way to economic recovery

One year on from the collapse of Lehman Brothers, those looking for signs of an end to this global recession will find some solace in the findings of McKinsey's latest economic survey (registration required). Conducted last week among almost 1,700 executives worldwide, the poll found that for the first time since the Wall Street bank fell more respondents believe their company's profits will rise in the short term than think they will fall. This optimism, which is in line with stockmarket gains in recent weeks, is reflected in executives' expectations about growth: overall, 40 per cent think their country's GDP will increase in 2009 – up from 26 per cent in July.

This relatively buoyant mood carries through to respondents' future outlook, with almost three-quarters saying their companies will be in a stronger position in five years' time than they were before the financial crisis began. But it is tempered by the finding that a majority believe the recovery will be slow and steady. Only a fifth are pinning their hopes on a fairly quick turnaround and believe the upcycle has already started. And even in China, where 82 per cent of executives expect GDP to increase this year, only 30 per cent think it will regain pre-crisis levels in 2010. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the fragile state of consumer demand, manufacturing companies are generally in a worse state than those in the services sector and are forecasting a slower recovery.   

In terms of current corporate priorities, although operational cost-cutting still tops the list (45 per cent are doing it), significant minorities of respondents said developing new products and services, seeking new markets and long-term strategic planning were high on their agendas. More than half believed that innovation was now more important to growth than before the recession, and innovation was seen by executives as the second most significant structural change likely to affect their industries over the next five years (after industry consolidation). 

From a supply chain perspective, the trend towards globalisation - stalled to some extent during the crisis - is expected to increase between now and 2014. A quarter of respondents foresaw a greater reliance on low-cost suppliers during this period, against just 9 per cent believing that they would switch back to local suppliers in a bid to cut supply chain risk.

What does this mean for CPOs? Well, as I've written in this blog previously, those who have been thinking and planning ahead during the recession will not have used the economic environment as an excuse to bully suppliers for short-term gain but will have cut costs intelligently with the recovery firmly in mind. At the same time, they will have continued to invest whatever time and resources they can spare to upgrade their function's capabilities in areas like risk management and supplier relations, develop closer working relationships with internal stakeholders, and upskill their people. 

I firmly believe that CPOs who have shown strong leadership of this kind during tough business conditions will be well positioned to take advantage of the (hopefully) happier times that lie ahead.