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Garry Mansell is one of the true experts on global sourcing best practices (and where and when to apply technology). As a former Global Sourcing Leader for Mars, Garry has 15 years of real-world experience in the trenches that started before we had software, global trade agreements, and service providers to make it easy. Then, as Managing Director for Freight Traders, he headed one of the first businesses in the world to run online Tenders before merging into Trade Extensions and leading the development of one of the most advanced Strategic Sourcing Decision Optimization platforms, which was ultimately acquired by Coupa where Garry then headed the entire upstream Source-to-Contract function before semi-retiring to focus on modernizing CIPS, advising new startups (as a Board Member on multiple boards), and, hopefully, writing that book! (Hint, Hint!)

Check it out and find out the benefits of “smart money” (which applies to start up functions as well as start-up businesses), becoming a customer of choice (so you get your supply while your competition runs short), building the dream team (and how to do it — because you definitely don’t want to end up with the B-Team), and becoming a better buyer.

(Right now, Garry is penning the best free advice you can get multiple times a week.)

We’ve said twice now that cloud-based solutions — and not just video conferencing applications like Zoom — can help turn your sofa or kitchen table into a mobile procurement command center, we meant it, and we’ve given you eight great examples of activities normally done (mostly) in person that you can do just as well (or better) from your home office, desk, sofa, or even bed.

And, as you guessed, it doesn’t stop there — because the capabilities of modern procurement platforms don’t stop there. However, today we’re going to focus on how to use everyday Procurement tools in creative ways to accomplish more tasks and increase your distributed, virtual productivity. If you examine each and every tool in your software arsenal, we guarantee you can find creative ways to put them to good use to not only maintain, but possibly even increase, overall levels of efficiency in this crisis.

More specifically, with creative application of tools that likely already exist in your Source-to-Contract arsenal, you can:

• find out what your team is doing and what they want to do
• manage and track processes and their efficiency to identify bottlenecks
• track distributed assets AND skillsets
• identify relevant information resources you didn’t know you have

How?

Check out the doctor‘s latest piece over on Spend Matters on how to apply traditional procurement technology in non-traditional, socially distanced ways over on Spend Matters.