HBR Live Webinar: Profit from the Source

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Transforming Your Business by Putting Suppliers at the Core with Christian Schuh and Wolfgang Schnellbächer It may never been more challenging to run a business than it is right now, with supply chain disruptions, rampant inflation and the growing energy crisis. But leaders who think they can ride out today’s storms with short-term fixes will only find themselves falling further behind. A path forward lies in transforming the way they collaborate with their suppliers by better leveraging their procurement.

A new book Profit from the Source by Boston Consulting Group’s Christian Schuh and Wolfgang Schnellbächer, focuses on the huge importance of the procurement function. Because it "owns" the corporate relationship with suppliers, it not only controls more than half of a company’s budget (because this is spent on suppliers), it also determines the quality and sustainability of a company’s products and services; it affects the speed of a company’s operations; it has the potential to transform (or quash) a company’s innovative spirit, and it can protect a company from as-yet-unknown risks in the supply chain.

Proprietary BCG research has shown that only 35% of the 150 top companies in the S&P 500 have a Chief Procurement Officer (or equivalent) on the leadership team, but those 50 companies outperformed the market by 134% from 2000 to 2020.

On 30 June, Wolfgang and Christian will join us to talk about procurement as a deeply undervalued corporate capability and will outline practical steps we can all take to develop the procurement function and exploit its full potential.

By using the procurement capability wisely, we can do more than simply contain costs – procurement really can become a secret weapon in these troubled times—and long after, too.

With

Christian Schuh is a senior partner and managing director based in BCG’s Vienna office. He has led procurement projects for companies in the Automotive, Construction-Equipment, Defense, High-Tech, Packaging, and Steel sectors in Asia, Europe, and the United States, and he is best known for the book The Purchasing Chessboard and his YouTube channel, Procurement in the Park.

Wolfgang Schnellbächer is a partner and managing director based in BCG’s Stuttgart office. He wrote his PhD thesis on game-theory-based negotiations in procurement, with a focus on auctions. He leads BCG's procurement activities in Europe, and he advises global leaders in the Industrial Goods and Consumer Goods sectors.