As I mentioned , I was away at the CIPS Past Presidents ‘do’ yesterday.  An interesting session.  There’s not many meetings I go to these days where I’m the youngest participant….so that’s a big plus!  We had 11 Past Presidents present yesterday afternoon and for dinner, including the President from 1975, and several guys in their eighties; still pretty damn sharp and very interested in what CIPS is going.

It really fees like the Institute is at a real key point in its history.  Biggest in the world now on most measures; 15,000 students in China for instance (yet there cannot be a branch structure apparently because that isn’t allowed in China)!  And CIPS is winning work in education and training all over the world, and developing links with the UN and other key organisations.

On the other hand, UK membership is pretty static, the recession  and the cuts in public spending still to come have had and will have an impact on revenues.  And (my personal opinion now) organisations such as Procurement Leaders in the big corporate market, and IIAPS (see here) as an education provider are or could be serious competitors.    The Past Presidents tried to contribute something to the debate; I’m never sure whether we are just seen as a nuisance or whether the current executives get something useful out of the combined 300 years or so of relevant experience in the room!

So where does CIPS go next?  How does it appeal to the emerging generation who have grown up with Facebook, Twitter and so on?  How does it meet local needs while developing a global brand (if indeed this is what it wants to do?)  How does it work with commercial partners and other stakeholders while managing risk and protecting its special attributes?

Fascinating questions to be answered;  good luck to the team at Easton and the volunteers who have to answer them; and thanks for a very good day yesterday.

I’m off to the CIPS (Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply) annual “Past Presidents’” meeting this afternoon.

This is a great opportunity to get together with other old CIPS folk, hear about the current CIPS performance and strategy, then moan about how the current President, management team etc are getting it all wrong, it wasn’t like this in my day, what is the world coming to etc etc.

Actually now we have Past Presidents who are still relatively young – and even some who are female – it’s hopefully not quite like that…

But CIPS faces some very interesting challenges and opportuntities, the greatest of which (in both senses) is around international expansion, so it should be an informative and I suspect lively session!

Spend Matters has a longer post about the CIPS / ISM mutual recognition and various educational options in the US. Interesting that they have a greater range of options than in the UK, where CIPS is pretty dominant.

However, there is a new kid on the block.  I will feature this at greater length later this week; a friend of mine attended an event held last week and I will get his report on it.

But look out for more about the International Institute for Advanced Purchasing and Supply. One of (or possibly the) main force behind this is Professor Andrew Cox, one of the most important thinkers about procurement of the last 20 years; pretty much everything Andrew does is interesting, so this shoud be worth watching!  Anyway, more to come.

As usual, my friend Jason at Spend Matters is far more eloquent than me about issues, and he has written a very intersting piece about the CIPS / ISM tie-up that I blogged about earlier this week.

I spoke to Jason about this and he is good enough to accept that the CIPS qualification is gaining significant traction in countries such as China.  But then he  spoils it all by saying;

“Perhaps this international support and recognition might lend some credence to CIPS having a more appropriate global training program relative to ISM — or it could just be a continuation of the British export of supply chain bureaucracy and imperialism going back over five centuries …”

Bureaucracy??  Jason, please substantiate that claim.  In triplicate if you don’t mind.

I think he should withdraw that scurrilous remark or we may have to throw a boat load of Budweiser into Poole harbour…

He also introduces a term I have never heard before,

“Let’s just hope this initial certification partnership amounts to more than a credentializing Barney deal“.

I’ll leave you to look it up.