Enterprise Level Presentation Techniques (March 2022)
For procurement teams within large organizations, more is needed from a presentation than just telling a good story. This old school presentation method no longer provides the value that it once did.
Enterprise Level Communications focuses on the essential tools that SMDBs need to successfully present their products, solutions and value to large firms in the marketplace.
This two-day in-residence (or virtual, TBD) program is designed for innovative SMDBs who are looking to build, improve or reinvent a strong corporate-level presentation for procurement teams at Fortune 1,000 enterprises. Presenting your ideas to a customer is the foundation of every business. However, today the required elements of enterprise level presentations go well beyond just telling a good story about yourself and your firm.
During this program, participants work closely with SDI’s accomplished advisors, faculty and business professionals on key areas that SMDBs need to master for successful, customer-focused, problem-solving, new school presentations. Participants learn to research the problem impacting the customer; showcase their value; and hone their approach to communicating with stakeholders, procurement professionals and executives, so they can differentiate their companies, ideas, products and solutions from the competition.
This program is offered once annually and open to SMDBs from all industries.
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Procurement Practices (June 2022)
Due to the increases in global competition and the negative impacts of COVID-19, today procurement teams are confronting new challenges within their supply chains. As a result of this, they seek to parter with suppliers that can provide new value to their organizations.
Aligning your business offerings to current procurement practices enables SMDBs to partner faster with procurement teams and accelerate their growth.
This follow-up program to Enterprise Level Presentation Techniques helps participants stay abreast on the challenges that procurement teams are currently encountering and how they are attempting to solve these issues.
This one-day virtual program gives SMDBs the vital frameworks and tools they need to expand their relationships with procurement customers. It is a critical Performance Lab for any SMDB attempting to establish or improve their relationship with current procurement professionals, or seeking to prepare their firms for the next disruption that procurement teams will need to address.
Procurement Practices focuses on a range of topics related to the successful introduction and continuous partnership with procurement teams within large enterprises. These sessions will be devoted to quarterly business review design and execution, including short- and long-term planning, industry forecasting and costing models, while also delivering the insights needed to develop strong relationships within procurement units that aid in driving growth.
This program is offered once annually, and is open to SMDBs from all industries.
New School Negotiations (October 2022)
New School negotiators not only play their cards well, they design the game in their favor even before they get to the table.
What stands between you and the yes you want? The Negotiations Performance Lab helps SMDB leaders leverage cutting-edge negotiation techniques that drive commercial opportunities.
Everything we’ve previously been taught about negotiations is outdated. BATNA (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement) and ZOPA (Zone of Possible Agreement) are no longer cutting-edge negotiation theories, today they’re table stakes. Buyers aren’t emotionless opponents; your pricing and their budget aren’t written in stone; and lacking a negotiation process today is an act of self-sabotage.
With the rise in customer expectations, and the emergence of business management tools like insourcing, supply chain resiliency and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), and access to data globally, this has created unprecedented challenges for suppliers while also offering new growth opportunities for businesses of all sizes. To help SMDBs better understand and execute on the full potential of these commercial opportunities, SDI seeks to provide SMDBs with the negotiation knowledge and skills they need to leverage tactics, scope and deal design techniques to expand their business.
The real art of modern negotiations lie in mastering the intricacies of productivity and partnership, and not your proposal or pitch. These helpful tactics—which radically diverge from conventional negotiating strategies—weren’t created in a classroom, but are the field-tested tools that leading negotiators use to talk clients, potential clients and business leaders into—or out of—most commercial opportunities you can imagine. The Negotiations Performance Lab breaks down these strategies into action steps so that you can use them in your workplace or business.
This program is offered once annually, and is open to SMDBs from all industries.
Strategic Ideation and Planning (February 2023)
Can you summarize your company’s strategy in 35 words or less? Does it identify the trade-offs your firm will make to distinguish itself from competitors? If so, would your executives, managers or team members describe it the same way?
It is our experience that very few executives can honestly answer these three simple questions in the affirmative. And those that can, are often the most successful. SMDB leaders are confused when what they thought was a beautifully crafted strategy is never implemented. They assume that the initiatives and statements described in the 100 page document that emerges from an annual budget or strategic-planning process will ensure internal alignment and competitive success.
That’s why participating in the Strategic Ideation and Planning Performance Lab to learn how to identify key findings and structure performance indicators at the outset is so important. When SMDBs do, they are better able to discover the real choices and constraints facing their organizations and to see which approaches are likely to matter most given the situation at hand. Unfortunately, many executives feel that taking the time to frame strategy choices thoroughly and to decide where to focus is a luxury or worse, a skill set they don’t have.
The value of this exercise should not be underestimated. Increase your likelihood of developing effective strategies through an approach that’s thorough, process-driven, action-oriented and comfortable with debate and disruption. A 35 word statement and supporting Action Plan, can have substantial impact on an SMDBs success. Words leads to alignment and alignment leads to action. Spending the time to develop the few ideas and action measures that truly capture your strategy and that will energize and empower your team, will raise the long-term financial performance of your organization.
This program is offered once annually, and is open to SMDBs from all industries.
For more information about the Performance Lab or the Supplier Diversity Institute, please contact: Christopher “Chris” Boles at: christopher.boles@austin.utexas.edu