The latest Procurement Leaders Forum in Amsterdam on 14 October 2009 was a huge success and significant milestone with more than 190 senior procurement executives and innovators sharing ideas and best practice.

Presentations by sourcing professionals from global giants such as Diageo, Schindler and Akzo Nobel were complemented with panel discussions and presentations from finance professionals and economists, making it an extremely rounded day’s learning.

Grace Puma, CPO of United Airlines; Lothar Steinbach, executive VP and CFO of Henkel; and Guy Verberne, head of economics and investment strategy at Fortis Bank, all added to the quality of the programme. The event was chaired by Sammy Rashed, head of global sourcing, global sites, Novartis, who pointed out the truly global nature of the audience which was represented by 25 countries, 19 languages and 38 industries.

“The Procurement Leaders Forum in Amsterdam really touched the next level with excellent presenters and networking on a global scale,” said Forum delegate Gert van Beek, global procurement category director at Reed Elsevier.

The chief procurement officer of Microsoft is one of the keynote speakers at the 2010 Procurement Leaders Forum to be held in North America.

Tim McBride, CPO of the Redmond-based software giant, will be joined by Frank Crespo, VP and chief procurement officer of Honeywell, in delivering keynote presentations to an audience of senior US purchasing, sourcing and supply chain executives. Delegate passes will be allocated on an invitation only basis.

The Forum, which will be held on 24 March 2010 at River East Art Center, Chicago, is being supported by some of the most prestigious consulting firms in procurement, with Accenture, CapGemini and BrainNet all sponsoring the event.

“North America is an extremely important market for us and it was imperative that we got the timing and approach right,” said Alex Martinez, managing director, publishing at Sigaria. “Following the widespread success of the PLN in Europe, we have conducted extensive research with US based CPO's this year and feel that March is perfect timing for our first major conference in the region. With the global economy recovering it offers the perfect opportunity for procurement executives to step back and think about the long term again.”

Procurement executives now have access to world-class executive and operational research, critical market intelligence and competitor benchmarking following the launch of the Procurement Intelligence Unit.

The PIU, launched by Sigaria earlier this year, is a vendor-free membership community that provides a single destination for understanding the market conditions, best practices, cross-industry approaches and hot topics in procurement from all corners of the world.

With some of the largest companies in the world already signed up as chartered members, the PIU promises to differentiate leading companies from followers and help strategic sourcing executives make better decisions in innovative areas such as supply chain finance and demand management.

Mark Perera, chief executive of the PIU, explained just how crucial market intelligence is. “One of our clients experienced a rate of inflation in one of its commodities of 1100% in a single year,” he said. “Proper intelligence allows you to prepare for such events.”

The truly global nature of the procurement profession has been reflected by the Procurement Leaders Network as it successfully launched in the US with a series of high-level events which attracted scores of US-based procurement executives.

The PLN has held four separate events in the US, attracting senior sourcing professionals to roundtable discussions in New York and San Francisco. And the success of those events has left Matthias Gutzmann, vice president of international operations at Sigaria, in no doubt that the US offers an exciting opportunity.

“The procurement profession is a global one,” said Gutzmann. “To reflect that, our first step is to offer knowledge sharing between our European members and North American colleagues. This will be followed in 2010 with further events in Asia. While there are subtle differences in approach, the challenges remain common regardless of where in the world these executives are based. Cost control, supplier innovation, risk management and CSR are all global issues.”

Procurement Leaders magazine has been shortlisted for two major awards in the UK's most prestigious publishing awards, the PPA Awards for Publishing Excellence 2009.

The flagship title of publishing and information provider Sigaria was shortlisted in two categories, Monthly Business Magazine of the Year and Columnist of the Year (Business Media), for which its regular columnist Neil Deverill was picked out.

The awards are seen as the 'Oscars' of the British publishing industry, and will see Procurement Leaders fight it out with magazines and writers from many of the biggest publishing companies in the world.

"These shortlists are testament to how far Procurement Leaders has come in such a short space of time," said Alex Martinez, managing director of Sigaria's publishing division. "Providing cutting-edge, insightful products has always been the core objective of this company and it's gratifying to see that independent assessment by industry experts backs this up."

David Rae, editorial director of Sigaria, said that the content of the magazine made it difficult for the judges to ignore. "The aim of the magazine is to provide a window into the thoughts and beliefs of some of the most senior procurement executives in the profession," he said. "Neil Deverill's shortlist is a good example of this."