An ethical lapse can harm not just a company's reputation but also its bottom line. Chief procurement officers need to make sure they have an ethics policy in place that is up-to-date and well communicated.
Two events—the Summer Olympics and the U.S. presidential campaign—bring to mind people who do—or should be doing—the right thing.
With that comes thoughts of procurement and ethics. Chief procurement officers (CPOs) are responsible for sourcing goods and services on behalf of their companies with the utmost integrity. To do so, they develop policy and procedures for communicating the standards inside their own companies and to suppliers. They're aware that an ethical lapse, even the perception of one, can harm a company's reputation, sales, and stock price.
Once, an ethical lapse meant a purchasing agent was accepting tickets for a sporting event from a supplier, perhaps in exchange for additional business. It still does. But today, as the supply chain becomes more complex, (that is, global) companies expect more from procurement and suppliers, even tier-two and tier-three suppliers. They want to do business all along the supply chain with companies that pay workers fairly, provide safe working conditions, and respect the environment. Consumers do too.
The stakes are high, and an ethical organization and its supply chain doesn't just happen; it has to be managed. To ensure ethical procurement, CPOs should follow these best practices:
Ensure the procurement ethics policy is current and aligns with company policy. The technology company Philips, for example, has made its Procurement Code of Ethics an integral part of its General Business Principles. Like Philips, companies should make sure that their procurement ethics policy is clear and that it is communicated throughout the procurement organization. Additionally, CPOs should ensure that employees receive proper training about the policy as needed.
Measure performance of direct reports on metrics other than price or cost. While price and cost metrics, of course, still need to be included, procurement professionals should also be measured in terms of quality, service, and innovation. Be aware that too much pressure to meet financial goals can cause an ethical slip.
With the CEO's support, establish procurement as the lead on supply chain ethics. Procurement should be responsible for sharing the ethics policy with cross-functional sourcing team members, stakeholders, and internal customers. For example, colleagues may need reminders about why it's not okay to talk about a supplier's competition with an incumbent.
Include high ethical standards as a criterion in the supplier-selection process. Procurement professionals may need to explain to stakeholders and internal customers why the company may pay more for goods and services provided by suppliers adhering to ethical guidelines. Additionally, supplier performance on this criterion should be measured, and the results should be discussed during quarterly business reviews. These efforts will help to reinforce the behavior that procurement leaders seek from the providers.
These standards need to be clearly communicated to all suppliers, according to Shelley Stewart Jr., DuPont CPO and vice president, DuPont Sourcing and Logistics. In an article that he recently wrote for Ethisphere magazine, Stewart explains that DuPont's Supplier Code of Conduct clarifies expectations for suppliers in four areas, each corresponding to a corporate core value: safety, environmental stewardship, respect for people, and ethics. "[It's] important to establish early and stress that there are no gray areas," he says. "Each communication with suppliers is another opportunity to reinforce good behavior."
Procurement leaders like Stewart understand the importance of establishing policy, communicating it, and managing it. For best practices, resources, and advice on how to accomplish this, industry associations and professional organizations like Ethisphere Institute—which defines and advances ethical business practices—can help. So too can benchmarking and sharing best practices with colleagues at other world-class companies.
Specifically, 48% of respondents identified rising tariffs and trade barriers as their top concern, followed by supply chain disruptions at 45% and geopolitical instability at 41%. Moreover, tariffs and trade barriers ranked as the priority issue regardless of company size, as respondents at companies with less than 250 employees, 251-500, 501-1,000, 1,001-50,000 and 50,000+ employees all cited it as the most significant issue they are currently facing.
“Evolving tariffs and trade policies are one of a number of complex issues requiring organizations to build more resilience into their supply chains through compliance, technology and strategic planning,” Jackson Wood, Director, Industry Strategy at Descartes, said in a release. “With the potential for the incoming U.S. administration to impose new and additional tariffs on a wide variety of goods and countries of origin, U.S. importers may need to significantly re-engineer their sourcing strategies to mitigate potentially higher costs.”
The new funding brings Amazon's total investment in Anthropic to $8 billion, while maintaining the e-commerce giant’s position as a minority investor, according to Anthropic. The partnership was launched in 2023, when Amazon invested its first $4 billion round in the firm.
Anthropic’s “Claude” family of AI assistant models is available on AWS’s Amazon Bedrock, which is a cloud-based managed service that lets companies build specialized generative AI applications by choosing from an array of foundation models (FMs) developed by AI providers like AI21 Labs, Anthropic, Cohere, Meta, Mistral AI, Stability AI, and Amazon itself.
According to Amazon, tens of thousands of customers, from startups to enterprises and government institutions, are currently running their generative AI workloads using Anthropic’s models in the AWS cloud. Those GenAI tools are powering tasks such as customer service chatbots, coding assistants, translation applications, drug discovery, engineering design, and complex business processes.
"The response from AWS customers who are developing generative AI applications powered by Anthropic in Amazon Bedrock has been remarkable," Matt Garman, AWS CEO, said in a release. "By continuing to deploy Anthropic models in Amazon Bedrock and collaborating with Anthropic on the development of our custom Trainium chips, we’ll keep pushing the boundaries of what customers can achieve with generative AI technologies. We’ve been impressed by Anthropic’s pace of innovation and commitment to responsible development of generative AI, and look forward to deepening our collaboration."
Specifically, the new global average robot density has reached a record 162 units per 10,000 employees in 2023, which is more than double the mark of 74 units measured seven years ago.
Broken into geographical regions, the European Union has a robot density of 219 units per 10,000 employees, an increase of 5.2%, with Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Slovenia in the global top ten. Next, North America’s robot density is 197 units per 10,000 employees – up 4.2%. And Asia has a robot density of 182 units per 10,000 persons employed in manufacturing - an increase of 7.6%. The economies of Korea, Singapore, mainland China and Japan are among the top ten most automated countries.
Broken into individual countries, the U.S. ranked in 10th place in 2023, with a robot density of 295 units. Higher up on the list, the top five are:
The Republic of Korea, with 1,012 robot units, showing a 5% increase on average each year since 2018 thanks to its strong electronics and automotive industries.
Singapore had 770 robot units, in part because it is a small country with a very low number of employees in the manufacturing industry, so it can reach a high robot density with a relatively small operational stock.
China took third place in 2023, surpassing Germany and Japan with a mark of 470 robot units as the nation has managed to double its robot density within four years.
Germany ranks fourth with 429 robot units for a 5% CAGR since 2018.
Japan is in fifth place with 419 robot units, showing growth of 7% on average each year from 2018 to 2023.
Progress in generative AI (GenAI) is poised to impact business procurement processes through advancements in three areas—agentic reasoning, multimodality, and AI agents—according to Gartner Inc.
Those functions will redefine how procurement operates and significantly impact the agendas of chief procurement officers (CPOs). And 72% of procurement leaders are already prioritizing the integration of GenAI into their strategies, thus highlighting the recognition of its potential to drive significant improvements in efficiency and effectiveness, Gartner found in a survey conducted in July, 2024, with 258 global respondents.
Gartner defined the new functions as follows:
Agentic reasoning in GenAI allows for advanced decision-making processes that mimic human-like cognition. This capability will enable procurement functions to leverage GenAI to analyze complex scenarios and make informed decisions with greater accuracy and speed.
Multimodality refers to the ability of GenAI to process and integrate multiple forms of data, such as text, images, and audio. This will make GenAI more intuitively consumable to users and enhance procurement's ability to gather and analyze diverse information sources, leading to more comprehensive insights and better-informed strategies.
AI agents are autonomous systems that can perform tasks and make decisions on behalf of human operators. In procurement, these agents will automate procurement tasks and activities, freeing up human resources to focus on strategic initiatives, complex problem-solving and edge cases.
As CPOs look to maximize the value of GenAI in procurement, the study recommended three starting points: double down on data governance, develop and incorporate privacy standards into contracts, and increase procurement thresholds.
“These advancements will usher procurement into an era where the distance between ideas, insights, and actions will shorten rapidly,” Ryan Polk, senior director analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Procurement leaders who build their foundation now through a focus on data quality, privacy and risk management have the potential to reap new levels of productivity and strategic value from the technology."
Businesses are cautiously optimistic as peak holiday shipping season draws near, with many anticipating year-over-year sales increases as they continue to battle challenging supply chain conditions.
That’s according to the DHL 2024 Peak Season Shipping Survey, released today by express shipping service provider DHL Express U.S. The company surveyed small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to gauge their holiday business outlook compared to last year and found that a mix of optimism and “strategic caution” prevail ahead of this year’s peak.
Nearly half (48%) of the SMEs surveyed said they expect higher holiday sales compared to 2023, while 44% said they expect sales to remain on par with last year, and just 8% said they foresee a decline. Respondents said the main challenges to hitting those goals are supply chain problems (35%), inflation and fluctuating consumer demand (34%), staffing (16%), and inventory challenges (14%).
But respondents said they have strategies in place to tackle those issues. Many said they began preparing for holiday season earlier this year—with 45% saying they started planning in Q2 or earlier, up from 39% last year. Other strategies include expanding into international markets (35%) and leveraging holiday discounts (32%).
Sixty percent of respondents said they will prioritize personalized customer service as a way to enhance customer interactions and loyalty this year. Still others said they will invest in enhanced web and mobile experiences (23%) and eco-friendly practices (13%) to draw customers this holiday season.