I recently posted about the Strategic Sourcing & Procurement LinkedIn group member call on commodities that’ll be conducted this Friday, but wanted to provide a couple updates for those who’d like to listen or participate. Below are the details, format and experts we have lined up.

First, the 1-hour call is this Friday, April 30th at 9am Pacific time (16:00 GMT). The US and international dial-in numbers are available here (Note: you must be a Group member to access that link, but can request to join here).

Second, we have lined up a great panel to tee up the discussion about their respective categories/commodities:

• Lisa Reisman of MetalMiner and SpendMatters fame will share her take on the current metals marketplace.
• Kimberly Davis, a senior category manager for Packaging at Ariba, will discuss her observations and strategies for corrugated.
• Mike Petro, a lead category manager at Ariba, will provide an outlook on the oils/resins market.

Finally for those who have not participated in any of our member calls, let’s talk about the format. It’s not a typical webinar in that we won’t have PowerPoints and long presentations from the panelists. Instead we’ll keep the format fairly loose and encourage dialog among the participants. Each of our commodities experts will take a few minutes to share their perspective. Then I’ll pose some questions to the panel (so if you have questions you want to make sure are asked, submit them in the Comments below). And then we’ll open up the floor for questions and discussion among the members and the panel. It’s an open format that leads to frank discussion among peers. The point is to get our collective heads together to around how best to handle rising commodity prices. So, join us if you can.

Justin Fogarty is Managing Editor of Supply Excellence and community manager of Ariba Exchange. For any questions or feedback on the blog or its contributors, Justin can be reached at jfogarty[at]ariba.com.