The Challenge of Legal Sourcing

The Challenge of Legal Sourcing

I used to work in the Procurement group of a Fortune 500 Technology company in Massachusetts. Unlinke many procurement groups, we reported directly to the CFO.

One challenge we found was that many groups had a "free pass" when it comes to sourcing many strategic categories, such as Marketing, Sales and Engineering.  Many of these folks could purchase anything they wanted from any vendor they wanted. The reason being is that these groups had a lot of "pull" with top management.

One group that has such pull in many companies is Legal.  An many (most?) big companies, Legal is not a category that is touched or influenced by the procurement group.

A few smart folks have seemed to unlocked the secret of Legal Procurement, most prominent among them Argopoint a Boston-based consultancy focused on Legal Sourcing at Fortune 500 groups. (Disclaimer: a good friend works there).

Here is a very good overview for those organizations who are thinking of making a move to address some of
their out-of-control legal spending:

"Legal Sourcing Steps into the Spotlight"
By Jason Winmill and Celia Parsons.
Inside Supply Management Magazine Volume 23, No. 9; pgs. 28-31. -  Nov. 15, 2012

Dirty Water Blog - Version 2.0

This was my original blog that I somehow stopped updating when Google bought Blogger.

Not sure why I stopped on this particular one, I think it had to do with the fact that the system forced me to pick one user name across all blogs.

Anyway, here is the link to the new one:

Dirtywaterblog.blogspot.com