5.Process immaturity is an ongoing battle. One member highlighted a key point that resonated across all the executives: best practices and challenges often swim in the same pool. For example, having the right data necessary for decisions is considered a best practice; however, many organizations still struggle with data quality. In George's post, he notes that everyone thinks they are negotiators. However, by improving marketing of sourcing and vendor management groups, organizations are reducing the number of rogue procurement efforts. The business expects low risk in their third-party sourcing strategy, which cannot happen if these issues are not addressed.

6.Monitor and manage risk. There is a renewed focus on risk management. Dave Higham, Director of Vendor Management Services and John Nickens, Senior Consultant of Vendor Management Services, both of Russell Investments, presented to the group their risk management program and methodologies. Their robust and overly successful program has led to savings for Russell and is clearly defined, stage by stage, process step by process step. All the effort of marketing sourcing and vendor management, consolidating vendors and segmenting appropriately, may be for naught if organizations fail to monitor the risk of their key strategic or vital members. Like Russell, organizations must closely monitor suppliers operating within their business.

Our next Council meeting will be in October - hopefully, by that time, we will all be comparing notes on our optimization success stories while discussing our organizations new challenge: too much revenue. Because remember: revenue also SOLVES a lot of problems!