This week was a very exciting one for the Procurement Leaders Network with the launch of the new website as well as the closing of the entry phase to the 2012 Procurement Leaders Awards, which saw a record numbers of entries. But it was also an interesting week for the supply chain and suppliers.

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about how Boeing should be applauded for the good work it’s doing in its supply chain - a rather strange claim, considering the problems it’s had with its Dreamliner project. So, perhaps it’s got something to do with the aerospace industry, but Rolls Royce is another company that deserves attention.

Are you changing your business for the better? It’s a simply enough question and I think there’s a convincing case to say that procurement or purchasing always needs to be able to answer that: yes, it is changing itself and the business in a significant way. If you’re not able to manage change effectively, and always be doing that, you can be sure that your competitors probably are.

Proving green credentials isn’t easy. There’s yet no standard measuring system, there’s a lot of different approaches to auditing suppliers and there’s a veneer of cynicism over the value of results. But if investors are beginning to take more notice of how businesses score on sustainability, no one can afford to be ignoring the call for data on the supply chain.

For my next series of posts, I’ll address the remaining six elements for achieving successful, more strategic outsourcing agreements that are aimed at transformation and achieving the often elusive "innovation."

Huge savings, vital partnerships, innovation, securing scarce supply – procurement can impress. But the function doesn’t often get recognition, even if its activities are vital to the survival and success of a business. It’s time the function took the credit for some achievements.

It seems like we've been talking about the retreat of globalisation for some time now. The rise of the middle classes in China, leading to wage inflation and the risk of increased disruption from strike action, combines with the huge variety of risk to be found in global supply chains. The combination is enough, it seems, to have persuaded many companies to pursue different strategies. And, for western economies at least, this is no bad thing.

A recent report from the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and Accenture on the increasing willingness of companies to fire suppliers who don’t meet emissions standards is welcome news - sort of. It’s gratifying that in an era when companies of all stripes brag in everything from annual reports to corporate ads about their sustainability and good-citizenship efforts that some are willing to take concrete action against those in their supply chain who ignore sustainability imperatives. As one procurement executive told me recently, sustainability efforts are nothing but “green wash” unless companies sever ties with suppliers who fail to meet standards, whether they relate to sustainability or other corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts, such as promotion of workers’ safety.

The world's largest advertiser, Procter & Gamble, has always been used as bit of a bellwether for the health of the marketing and advertising sector.