The Supplier Risk Assessment Questionnaire is a strategic toolkit designed to help organizations evaluate the resilience and risk posture of their third-party suppliers amid increasing geopolitical uncertainty and operational disruptions. It is centered on two core risk dimensions: Business Continuity Planning (BCP) and geopolitical resilience. The questionnaire is structured to collect actionable insights from suppliers in a clear and organized format. The toolkit is meant to be distributed by clients to their suppliers during elevated regional or global risk, such as conflicts, sanctions, or infrastructure instability. It helps assess how such risks may impact service delivery, staffing, supply chains, or regulatory compliance. It is intended to serve as a diagnostic tool and to initiate transparency and risk mitigation planning between clients and suppliers.

Do you have an exceptional procurement and category management organization model? As you know firsthand, an effective one is needed to meet your stakeholders’ expectations in today’s uncertain economic environment. With emerging trends such as Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices, next-gen technologies, and cost optimization imperatives, category management structures need to continuously evolve to meet changing demands. Watch this webinar where our expert analysts discussed the crucial design factors in evolving procurement and category management organizations, covering aspects such as accountability structures, emerging roles and skillsets, governance, policies, and outsourcing adoption. What questions did the webinar answer for the participants? What are the various category management organization models prevalent in the market? What are the factors that impact procurement and category management organizational structures? How is resource management conducted in best-in-class procurement organizations? How do organizations enable effective collaboration between category managers, suppliers, and business stakeholders? How are emerging technologies affecting existing procurement structures? What are the best practices in outsourcing procurement and category management? How can effective category management structures help deal with uncertainties arising from shifting macroeconomic trends?

Evolution in the IT function is inevitable. The very nature of technology is constantly shifting. Sourcing teams can better manage value from emerging technologies across the adoption cycle, from Research and Development (R&D) and exploration to scaled adoption. In this webinar, we explored six things sourcing teams can do to stay ahead of new technology trends, including: How to understand the emerging technologies landscape in the near term (12-24 months) and medium term (2-5 years) How to recognize where these emerging technologies are on the adoption curve, and what their impact could be on sourcing dynamics and strategy When to adapt existing category strategies and when to create new categories to support the adoption of emerging technologies How to align the evolution of supplier segmentation and portfolio strategy to the new IT landscape How to identify the roles and skills of the future to stay ahead of business and IT demand Ways to measure value from emerging tech services category management

On November 19, Everest Group hosted a webinar titled, "Managing Services Categories for Maximum Value." Services spend is significant for most companies, but few have developed strong category management capacities for services categories. And when they have developed it – let’s just say, all Category Management is not equal. We see significant differences in the capabilities that companies develop across services categories, even among the best-of-the-best companies. In this session, we share new data that’s focused on best practice implementation across the services categories. You’ll learn which services categories have the most opportunity for capability development and where to focus your efforts for the most impact. Questions we answer: What are the differentiating capabilities of services category management? What technologies and tools are critical to managing services categories? Where can all companies do better?

As business environments change at a rapid pace, procurement functions are under increasing pressure to deliver benefits beyond cost savings. By leveraging approaches such as category management and transforming processes using digital solutions, organizations have derived significant business value. However, most of these efforts have primarily focused on indirect spend management. Today, many organizations manage direct spend categories through traditional ERP and legacy systems, which limit the benefits they can achieve – even with effective category management. Going forward, organizations are likely to realize a new wave of benefits by leveraging digital solutions such as advanced analytics, intelligent automation, Internet of Things (IoT), mobility, and blockchain to drive real value from category management. This viewpoint discusses the need for a robust digital category management approach to manage direct spend categories and includes the following topics: Digital solutions that are driving more effective category management for direct spend Potential business outcomes companies can achieve by integrating these digital solutions Key considerations that companies need to keep in mind when deploying digital solutions to manage direct spend categories Membership(s)Procurement Outsourcing

Procurement, once considered a back-office function, has seen a lot of changes in the last couple of years, with enterprises centralizing and streamlining entire processes, adopting strategic and collaborative approaches with suppliers, and outsourcing to leverage third-party expertise. However, most of these changes are focused on indirect procurement. The direct spend space has seen fewer changes due to enterprise reluctance to outsource a core function, and, therefore, remains riddled with inefficiencies, resulting in huge areas of untapped opportunity. This is where third-party technology and process expertise can help, by mitigating these concerns and guiding enterprises on a transformation journey to innovate direct spend management. This paper explores the intrinsic differences between direct and indirect procurement and discusses challenges in direct spend management. It highlights the benefits of tapping into external expertise, as well as current adoption drivers. Finally, it discusses the key issues for CPOs to consider when planning to outsource direct spend. Membership(s)   Procurement Outsourcing