Welcome from the chair
I am delighted to invite you to the 29th International IPSERA Conference! I am excited to host the first IPSERA conference in the United States since 2006 and to invite you to the first IPSERA conference hosted in Knoxville, Tennessee. This conference helps bring together the international purchasing community with the purchasing community in the U.S., allowing us to showcase some of the interesting and innovative ideas that come from the procurement area.
The University of Tennessee is proud to host the 2020 IPSERA Conference. At UT’s Haslam College of Business, with its many highly ranked supply chain programs, we look forward to engaging with all the academics and practitioners in purchasing and supply. Together, we can show how important purchasing is in all regions of the world. We can talk about “What is the future of procurement?” Building off the conference in Milan, with the theme of procurement innovation, we will show how we get to that future and continue to add value to our end-to-end supply chains. As Dolly Parton said, “Find out who you are, and do it on purpose.” We in procurement need to find our way and strategically position ourselves to make that happen.
Dolly also said, “You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.” Let’s be confident that we can advance the process of ensuring that procurement continues to build value for organizations. Through innovation in the procurement space we can do just that. I look forward to welcoming you to East Tennessee and sincerely hope you enjoy your visit.
– Wendy Tate, IPSERA 2020 chair and associate professor of supply chain management in UT’s Haslam College of Business