procureconwest.wbresearch.com/

Left something to be desired. I expected the presentation topics to really take a deeper dive on tips and tricks of those in the indirect procurement world, however most were high level overviews that kept me waiting for the punchline. Presentations by vendors were clearly marketing ploys (see Coretrust and Amazon Business) and power points were a crutch to lean on for presenters. The best session that I attended was where the PowerPoint stopped working and a discussion opened up about real life scenarios, albeit it was about SOW's that were geared toward those in more "direct procurement." Which brings me to the fact that there was SO MUCH talk about direct procurement topics that it seemed to overtake many conversations that did take place. Moderators in the breakout sessions Day 1 were too focused on getting down the 5 “main points” (i.e. TOTALLY OBVIOUS THINGS THAT EVERYONE KNOWS) they were asked to retrieve, it was impossible to take away anything useful in such a short amount of time. Small Indirect procurement teams basically left with nothing except brochures from analytics vendors selling products that we could never possibly convince c-level execs to allow us to purchase. "Innovation" and "Disruption" are other totally obvious things that procurement teams need to implement to be successful, but not all of us have the luxury, and I basically took away that the only way to accomplish these ideals was to purchase the products vendors were hawking in the "Solutions Zone." Purchasing people are inundated with sales ploys EVERY SINGLE DAY and attending a conference for procurement professionals only to be inundated by sales pitches when attempting to feed yourself is just wrong. This conference should be a safe place for procurement people to connect. I have been in procurement for 6 years, and if I feel this way, I can’t imagine how more tenured purchasing professionals were able to hold their attention to the topics and discussions. Maybe this conference needs a hype man?? I truly believe that for ProcureCon to continue to be successful at all going forward, planners are going to need to cut out the “fillers”, get to the point (our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter!), and put the sales people in a room where they can’t get out and bother people trying to eat their yogurt.

Content was under developed and rushed. Work to share more best practices and usable takeaways to make solid impact in our organizations.

Hello, I guess I was expecting more from the $1.400. Didn't like the "sales pitch" after each case study. Also, geared to very large companies.

I thought there was some select good material. The agenda was a bit disorganized at times. I was also not a fan of the workgroup style sessions. They were disorganized and really brought no educational value. Also, make sure room temperature is pleasant. I had to walk out of two sessions for a bit to cool off. In a sport coat, that's miserable. Also, if you're going to have an app, put locations in the schedule and keep the agenda updated.

Too much selling from the vendors. Breakout sessions were also vendors selling. Would like more instructional or informative sessions.