The shaky recovery that has reared its head in some parts of the global economy continues to divide analysts opinion on what businesses are going to be facing over the next six months. As you’d expect though, recovery or not, the concerns of procurement chiefs have mutated into a difficult combination of global risk, talent and top-line influencing agendas, like CSR - all of which reared their heads this week.

Barbara Kux’s rumoured departure from Siemens should give a few pause for thought. On paper at least, Kux has had a remarkable 5 years - but if she is on her way out, what does she leave behind?

The question that companies are often confronted with is whether they have learned lessons from the floods and earthquakes and revolutions that left them short on parts and scrambling to minimize the impact on revenue. But its not necessarily the right question.

As you might expect, there’s an American flavo(u)r to this week’s news. Not just the attention-sucking elections, but the Procurement Leaders Boston Forum too. Now, after the dust has settled on a hectic couple of weeks, there’s plenty to consider both Stateside and beyond.

Of all the frontiers of procurement technology, predictive analytics software is perhaps the best bet to generate a great leap forward for procurement managers.

Boston is a special place this time of year and in a week of momentous events and massive clean-up operations all eyes will be on the US. For procurement, the biggest event on the Autumn Calendar comes at a time of change and influential events.

Disruptions, political disputes, security flaws and an air of ambition at the Procurement Leaders Forum – it’s been another busy week.

For Europe, the agenda over the past year has been a seemingly unending cycle of risk and decline, with businesses becoming increasingly aware of their exposure to all sorts of risk and vulnerability. Suddenly, there are few businesses that can say that they're confident of their future.

It’s been a week of political debates, some modest economic progress from both sides of the Atlantic, but also some signs of the pressure that supply chains in several industries are under.

Whether yours is an industry characterised by cautious growth or facing another bleak winter, there’s no ignoring the increasing intensity of the cash flow struggle across key sectors.