11th Annual ISM Services Conference

Decideware was a sponsor at the recent ISM Services Conference held at the Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs in early December. The event was very well attended, indicating the rise in importance of the various services categories of spend. There was a good deal of emphasis on the contingent labor and marketing categories.

Marketing Specific

Of specific interest to us were the presentations by both Disney and PepsiCo on managing marketing spend. Lynn Kwiatkowski, Director, Category Sourcing—Marketing & Advertising, provided an interesting perspective on how they manage their creative agency relationships. Lynn spoke about how they very carefully craft their language in this area, making it more "marketing-friendly".

Procurement Is From Mars, Marketing Is From Venus

A real highlight was Anthony Moon, Director, Strategic Supply Management, Advertising & Marketing PepsiCo, who spoke about how he learned as a supply management practitioner to engage with his marketing counterparts.

Aptly titled "Procurement Is From Mars, Marketing Is From Venus", he discussed how he learned the fundamental tenant that delivering top line growth is the critical driver in marketing relationships. This means that the traditional procurement "cost savings" language will be sure to alienate the CMO! However, his team have been able to carefully demonstrate how they can optimize the marketing spend, providing the marketers with more money to re-invest in their brands.

Interest in this presentation was evident from the enthusiastic Q&A session that followed. Given PepsiCo is a giant in the marketing space, Anthony certainly provided plenty of mentoring advice for those with less mature marketing procurement groups.

See you next year?

This was an event well worth attending and for anyone managing indirect spend (specifcially services) I would thoroughly recommend attending next year.

Author: Richard Benyon (Decideware)