NAFA Wows Procurement Execs at ISM Show, Receives Encore Request

Procurement executives gave NAFA rave reviews for its presentation on The Economics of Fleet at the recent Institute for Supply Management (ISM) annual conference in Orlando, Florida.

Nearly 150 supply chain experts attended the fleet-centric session presented by NAFA’s Director of Professional Development, Katherine Vigneau, CAFM^®. Using a hands-on exercise directly from NAFA’s best-in-class fleet management tools, Vigneau taught the audience how to apply a lifecycle approach to their fleet and calculate the optimal replacement point for a given vehicle.  

"Your fleet is not just another commodity that can be managed like any other widget," Vigneau said.  "Applying a lifecycle approach to fleet management requires specialty knowledge and experience that is not gained simply because you own your own vehicle. You need a fleet management expert on your staff to make sure this is done consistently and done correctly."

NAFA’s message clearly resonated with, and brought value to, the audience. The post-session evaluations showed the course scored an overall 4.33 out of a possible high score of 5. The course was evaluated on speaker effectiveness, timeliness and relevancy of content, usefulness for attendees’ jobs, use of visuals/materials, response to questions, and ability to hold attendees’ interest.

A sampling of the attendees’ comments includes:

• "This was a very informative and educational session. Lots of great tips, tools and techniques delivered that can help in my job."
• "Awesome presenter and information...Vehicles are a major category of spend with most companies."
• "Bring her back next year!"
• "Opportunity for a great partnership every year between ISM and NAFA."

On the heels of those reviews, ISM invited NAFA to make an encore presentation at its Indirect Procurement Conference this November in Las Vegas. For more information about that conference, go to https://ecommerce.instituteforsupplymanagement.org/ and click on the "Conferences & Events" link.
"NAFA is proud and honored to be invited by ISM to speak at its next conference," said Phillip E. Russo, CAE, NAFA’s Chief Executive Officer. "It is important for our two groups to collaborate so that NAFA members know about and understand procurement, and so that ISM members know about and understand fleet.  This really is a perfect match and a fantastic blending of our strengths to make everyone better."