The CIPSA Conferences Special Interest Forums Survey
And the Winner is…
Thanks to the 502 respondents to the recent CIPSA Conferences Special Interest Forums Survey. The winner of the Free Ticket to attend the CIPSA Conference of their choice in 2010 is Russell Menere from Integral Energy.
Survey Findings
The survey was broken down into four key sections, the first three looking at the Special Interest Forums planned for July and August on:
· Low Cost Country Sourcing
· Outsourcing Procurement
· Sustainable and Socially Responsible Procurement
The final section considered demand for and issues people would like to see covered on future Special Interest Forums.
Low Cost Country Sourcing
The first question relating to LCCS offered respondents a number of options in terms of their current position with regard to LCCS. 65% were either doing it or considering doing it. Of these the highest ranked answer was the 37% (of total) who “Were already doing it, but felt they could do it better”.
The second question asked respondents to rate a number of issues on a scale of 1-5 in terms of their importance. While we won’t go into detail on the results here, we can confirm that “Managing supplier relationships” and “Contracting issues” were seen as the most important. This information, along with the suggestions made by respondents about “other issues” they would like to see addressed, are currently being used to develop the conference programme.
Fully 67% of respondents indicated that they would be “Definitely or Maybe” interested in attending the Low Cost Country Sourcing Special Interest Forum.
Outsourcing Procurement
When we asked the question Which statement best describes your organisations position with regard to Outsourcing Procurement?” the results were 37% were doing it, 10% were considering it, and 53% had no intention to go that path. Of those who are doing it, again there was a great deal of honesty, with approximately 70% acknowledging that while they are doing it, the felt they could do it better.
The second question again asked respondents to rate a number of issues on a scale of 1-5 in terms of their importance. A common theme emerged here with “Managing supplier relationships” rating the most important of the issues named. Again we received a huge number of intelligent suggestions for issues that respondents felt should be addressed and are using these to develop the conference programme.
Interestingly, while fewer people were involved with Outsourcing, a greater percentage of respondents (69%) indicated that they would be “Definitely or Maybe” interested in attending.
Green is the New Black
Socially Responsible and Sustainable Procurement in Action
We started off by asking whether, in light of the failure of Copenhagen and the reduction in likelihood of Australia being subjected to an ETS, focus on measuring and managing CO2 emissions in the supply chain had changed.
16% thought it had reduced significantly, 42% that it had reduced a bit, 35% felt there was no change, while 7% thought it had increased.
When we asked how important measurement and management of CO2 emissions was within their organisations, 54% felt it was either very or moderately high, 36% felt it was low priority, while 105 admitted that it just wasn’t on the agenda.
The next question addressed Socially Responsible Procurement, with 44% of respondents agreeing that it was very important to their organisation, 46% saying it was moderately important, and 10% acknowledging that it was not on the agenda.
When we asked how high a priority “sustainability in the broader environmental sense” was when making procurement decisions, we learned that 20% rated it high priority, 54% moderately high, 25% low priority, and only 2% stating that it was not on the agenda.
Future Topics for Special Interest Forums
As we don’t want to reveal too much to potential competitors out there, we won’t go into much detail on the outcome of the general questions relating to interest in and suggested topics for future Special interest Forums. Suffice to say, there were a few issues that were clearly high on the agenda and we are already planning to develop forums on these topics early next year.
The second question addressed whether there would be interest in one-day forums dedicated to specific categories of supply (similar to the BTTB Conferences which have addressed issues surrounding managing the Travel Category for the last ten years). The response was almost unanimously positive with 92% of respondents indicating interest in the idea.
Again this information, along with the suggestions respondents made about categories they would like to see addressed, will be used to develop next years programme.
Demographics
Of the 502 respondents:
· 57% were private sector, 43% public sector
· 72% were CIPSA Members
· 79% of respondents were in Australia, 19% in NZ, and 2% other international
Thanks again to all those who participated.
