Procurement Weekly - GPT-4, Digitalisation, Lithium Supply Chains, Banks Bust.
Insights from the World of Procurement
Hey Procurement Legends,
I’m coming across more stories about Modern Slavery in Supply Chains. For that reason, I’ll be sharing what I’m seeing as often as possible with you because if I was shocked by what I read - I’m sure many of you will feel the same way.
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Now to the content.
This week started with a crash with Silicon Valley Bank experiencing complete collapse, government and private bailouts. It got me thinking about the delicacies of our supply chains (especially in the tech sector). I spoke with people dealing with the fallout in the UK this week. Suppliers are finding new banks, asking for payment to be held onto and not to go to SVB.
The truth is - our suppliers will fail this year. We should be particularly cautious around VC-backed companies that are not yet profitable if they cannot secure more funding. Even then, staff lay-offs are likely to continue as they look to balance the books. Be cautious of this in your current role, and make sure you are ready to seek new work if the unfortunate happens.
OpenAI released GPT-4 this week. I won’t bore you with it. But I did want to show you this output I got from it when reviewing a contract from DataDog (who have exceptionally friendly T&Cs - this was just one from their website). In my previous role heading up Contract Management at 10x - reviews like this happened daily. But I get the feeling I could chuck my contracts playbook into GPT-4, ask it to ingest the data, and then feed in clauses or entire agreements and have it run a review for me in the first instance. I’m happy to try this out and report back (let me know - I’ll make a fictitious playbook).
5 Pieces of Content you might find helpful:
I just released the latest Procurement Reimagined Podcast with Gatekeeper. This was a killer episode with Rees Thomas, who is Head of Procurement at Graze. Rees provides a lot of value around Procurement Digitalisation.
by Hannah Richie, might be one of my favourite substack publications I’ve come across. is another publication worth a read. This piece provides an incredible overview for you of the SVB Saga. by CJ is another one to read. From a Procurement perspective and how we should collaborate with Finance, there is much to learn in this piece. by is an incredible publication with posts like this that get you thinking about how we do Procurement.
Paid Subscribers:
Finishing Touches on Personal Knowledge Management for Procurement Pros (hope to release today or over the weekend).
The Future of Procurement, WiP Book, Chapter 1, continuation live early next week.
Great stuff and thank you for this shout out.