Gary Levitan's guest appearances

Gary Levitan

Art of Procurement

The Sourcing Hero

OwlTail

Far more teams talk about category management than successfully carry it out, but is the challenge one of talent or scale? It is certainly one of the more creative processes procurement engages in, which opens the door to more value creation - as long as procurement has the right metrics and KPIs guiding their work. In this week’s episode, we bring you a session from our recent AOP Digital Outcomes 2022 virtual event. Kelly Barner was joined by Gary Levitan from WeWork and Remko Van Hoek from the University of Arkansas to discuss whether or not category management initiatives can be executed at scale. Key takeaways from the interview include:  Category management can facilitate stakeholder collaboration when products, services, and/or suppliers overlap How the automation of rote and even ‘boring’ procurement tasks can make it possible for procurement to invest more time and effort in strategy  Why it is important to consider automation part of a process or a subset of spend categories instead of waiting to include 100% at the same time 

Far more teams talk about category management than successfully carry it out, but is the challenge one of talent or scale? It is certainly one of the more creative processes procurement engages in, which opens the door to more value creation - as long as procurement has the right metrics and KPIs guiding their work. In this week’s episode, we bring you a session from our recent AOP Digital Outcomes 2022 virtual event. Kelly Barner was joined by Gary Levitan from WeWork and Remko Van Hoek from the University of Arkansas to discuss whether or not category management initiatives can be executed at scale. Key takeaways from the interview include: <ul> <li>Category management can facilitate stakeholder collaboration when products, services, and/or suppliers overlap</li> <li>How the automation of rote and even ‘boring’ procurement tasks can make it possible for procurement to invest more time and effort in strategy </li> <li>Why it is important to consider automation part of a process or a subset of spend categories instead of waiting to include 100% at the same time</li> </ul>

479: Can Digital Help Scale Category Management Best Practices? w/ Remko Van Hoek and Gary Levitan

Everyone wants to be at the intersection of ‘right place and right time’ - procurement included. Our guest in this episode was able to hit that intersection in two ways. His company went public in a time when everyone was forced to find creative new working arrangements, and he was tasked with rebuilding their procurement organization just as ideas about category management and procurement’s relationship with the business were becoming more nuanced. In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Gary Levitan. Gary is the Global Head of Procurement, Sourcing, &amp; Supply Chain at WeWork, a flexible workspace company that went public in October. He has over 15 years experience in procurement, and during that time he has worked to ensure that various stakeholder groups within the business are able to meet or exceed their objectives through contracts and supplier relationships. In this conversation, Gary shares his theory about the best way to build out procurement organizations through people and process: What is it like to be a Chief Procurement Officer through a high-visibility IPO? What does creative category management look like? What are the potential downsides of procurement having more category expertise than their point of contact in the business?

Everyone wants to be at the intersection of ‘right place and right time’ - procurement included. Our guest in this episode was able to hit that intersection in two ways. His company went public in a time when everyone was forced to find creative new working arrangements, and he was tasked with rebuilding their procurement organization just as ideas about category management and procurement’s relationship with the business were becoming more nuanced. In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Gary Levitan. Gary is the Global Head of Procurement, Sourcing, &amp; Supply Chain at WeWork, a flexible workspace company that went public in October. He has over 15 years experience in procurement, and during that time he has worked to ensure that various stakeholder groups within the business are able to meet or exceed their objectives through contracts and supplier relationships. In this conversation, Gary shares his theory about the best way to build out procurement organizations through people and process: <ul><li>What is it like to be a Chief Procurement Officer through a high-visibility IPO?</li> <li>What does creative category management look like?</li> <li>What are the potential downsides of procurement having more category expertise than their point of contact in the business?</li></ul>