Oracle Modern Procurement - From Facebook to Supplier Collaboration

I attended the Oracle Modern Procurement event in London yesterday (October 9th) hosted in conjunction with Enrich.It was a really fun session looking to explore the growth of social media and the impact on procurement. Following opening remarks by Phil Burgess of Oracle, the affable Peter Smith of Spendmatters UK took to the stage.Peter took us on a light hearted journey through the evolution of social media. In terms of the application of social media, he highlighted Al Collier of Norfolk as being one of the more innovative councils embracing it in the context of procurement. He left the audience with three key messages:

1. Those working in procurement need to enhance their familiarity of the leading social media tools.
2. It is important to think about the ways the different social media platforms can be deployed.
3. Finally, he stressed the importance of keeping an eye out on the latest innovations.

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Next up was Padraic Phelan a Consulting Director with Enrich (an Oracle partner) who took us back to the days of typing pools and the need for business cases for using email. He stressed the importance of being aware of the different communication styles of users when using social media. He also talked about the need for internal evangelists to champion the different applications.Finally, the event concluded with Tim Hughes of Oracle, who talked about the use of social media within Oracle. He described how the use of an internal social networking platform increased employee productivity by 25%. He also advised that social media gave companies a competitive advantage.Overall, it was an excellent event and certainly helped to start the debate about how the world of procurement can benefit from using the various social media platforms being used by people around the world.

Report by Alan Gleeson, Head of Sales and Marketing at Keelvar.