Revamped Agenda Unveiled For ProcureCon Indirect 2012 Meeting

Online, February 24, 2012 (Newswire.com) - Building on the success of last year's indirect sourcing meeting, the ProcureCon Indirect team have put together an entirely revamped agenda, focusing only on the critical issues affecting CPOs and senior indirect procurement professionals. Confirmed speakers include:

Lance Younger, Global Co-CPO & EMEA CFO, Goldman Sachs
Kees Gerretse, CPO, Group Director Procurement & Transport, Tata Steel Group
Philippe Robert, Sourcing Vice President, Alstom
Sven Jacobs, Head of Global Strategic Sourcing, Lonza AG
Fabien Krawczyk, Group Head of Indirect Procurement - Professional Services, Groupe La Poste
Alan McQuade, SVP EMEA Supply Chain Management Executive, Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Ed Worthington, Senior Procurement Manager, Virgin Holidays
Heather Rodgers, Chief Procurement Officer, Centrica
Michael Woodburn, Managing Vice President of Business Analysis and Marketing, Capital One
Herve Menassol, Global Capital Purchases Associate Director, Procter & Gamble
Gail Roberts, Head of Supply Chain and Procurement, Royal Mint

And many more - see www.procurecon-indirect for a full list

Each speaker has been specially chosen to speak on a topic relevant to the indirect sourcing projects they're currently working on. Alan McQuade, SVP EMEA Supply Chain Management Executive, Bank of America Merrill Lynch describes his current challenges and areas of interest:

Top Projects for 2012:
At Merrill Lynch, and across much of the financial sector, vendor oversight across the lines of businesses and regions is receiving a much greater Regulatory focus than previous years. This is leading to a range of internal programmes and related change activity to ensure the regions and businesses have clearly evidenced controls, routines, oversight and understanding of their vendor and outsourced activity, and in terms of ensuring the correct escalation and committees are in place around such activity. The EMEA Supply Chain group are central to the implementation activity around this

What do you foresee as being your key challenges in 2012?
The lack of growth in the Eurozone, and the reducing revenues across wholesale and investment banking has created a more visible and significant pressure on expenses, across the Bank. This, combined with the increasing Regulatory focus around 3rd party activity is leading to an environment whereby the group have to come up with new and innovative ways to reduce our 3rd party cost base, whilst also ensuring a stronger control environment across all regions.

How are you going to overcome these challenges?
Rollout of enhanced vendor management routines, especially in our emerging markets environment, as well as close partnering with our business areas to manage down 3rd party reduction initiatives across a range of spend categories and business processes.
ProcureCon Indirect 2012 will take place at the Tower Guoman Hotel London on 24th-26th April 2012

Please visit www.procurecon-indirect to view the final agenda and explore some of the projects our other speakers are currently working on.

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Notes to editors

1. For more information about ProcureCon Indirect 2012 and to request the conference brochure, please email procurecon@wbr.co.uk
2. All media partnership enquiries and requests for press passes should be directed to Simon Anderson, Marketing Director for the ProcureCon portfolio: simon.anderson@wbr.co.uk
3. ProcureCon Indirect 2012 is part of the ProcureCon portfolio, which has been producing high calibre events for Europe's procurement leaders since 1997.
4. ProcureCon is part of Worldwide Business Research, one of the world's leading sources of strategic business intelligence and part of the PLS group. For more information about Worldwide Business Research, visit www.wbresearch.com

About ProcureCon Indirect:

ProcureCon Indirect is Europe's only dedicated indirect procurement conference for indirect procurement leaders from every industry vertical. Each year, over 200 indirect procurement leaders gather at this leading indirect procurement conference to discuss the latest challenges facing the indirect procurement function and share advanced indirect procurement strategies to position indirect procurement as a business partner in value. You'll hear from our speaker panel of 30+ proven indirect procurement leaders on a range of indirect procurement topics, giving you with new ideas, indirect sourcing strategies and - even more crucially - an in-depth understanding of the skills to develop those ideas into achievable solutions to your indirect sourcing challenges. All presentations will be case study led and all speakers will share 3 practical tools and 3 techniques to take away and implement after the indirect procurement conference. Book your place at ProcureCon Indirect 2012 today!
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