Technology In Procurement:
How Embracing It Can Make Procurement a Change Partner By Andy Beth Miller It all began with a most fortuitous fall. As I sit down to interview procurement expert Christopher Robert, Director of Procurement at Comcast NBC Universal, he shared with me how he inadvertently stumbled into the world of procurement. “I somewhat fell into it. I did not realize that I was going to be in the procurement world at first,” Robert recalled. “I went down the business track, and the University that I went to had a great opportunity in this new field that had a major called business logistics, which had logistics and procurement, and was an area that I had never heard anything about.”
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His curiosity sparked, Robert then described how he excitedly rocketed down that proverbial procurement rabbit hole, soon discovering that he had quite an affinity—and penchant— for it. Robert described how, after falling into this business logistics course of study, he also fell head over heels for the procurement niche in particular. “I really started to enjoy [procurement]. I found myself working, even as an intern, with colleagues from around the world, identifying and qualifying new suppliers, and I said, ‘this is the field I want to be in,’ because I had an opportunity to really understand the business, received global exposure, and I was able to go out and really make a difference.”
