Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

“Paladin Associates and VitalSmarts Partner to Help Procurement Drive Lasting Change”
Atlanta

November 6, 2013

Paladin Associates Inc., a procurement services provider, and VitalSmarts, an innovator in corporate training and leadership development, are pleased to announce their partnership aimed at addressing procurement’s numerous and complex change challenges.Paladin’s new service offering, Influencing Change, developed in cooperation with VitalSmarts, is a change management approach focused on targeted change initiatives and is designed specifically for procurement and sourcing organizations. Unlike traditional change management approaches, Influencing Change identifies the underlying status quo behaviors that impede most change efforts and outlines strategies for creating new behaviors that support, rather than prevent, change. The approach combines VitalSmarts’award-winning Influencer Training® with a playbook development workshop and on-going success checks to ensure effective and enduring change.

The Influencer model, taught in Influencer Training was named the Change Management Approach of the Year by MIT Sloan Management Review for its multifaceted approach to securing long-standing organizational change. Executives at Paladin and VitalSmarts believe this model, combined with a playbook of strategies designed specifically for procurement initiatives, is the long-awaited change management solutions for procurement professionals.

“The variety of influence challenges procurement professionals face range from sourcing strategy implementations to non-traditional spend penetration to procurement transformation to technology implementations, and more,” says Barbara Ardell, vice president at Paladin. “VitalSmarts’ proven Influencer methodology brings a revolutionary approach to boost procurement’s success rate at driving lasting change.”

“We are excited to partner with Paladin Associates Inc. who provide a breadth and depth of procurement experience,” says Andy Shimberg, chief executive officer at VitalSmarts. “There is great synergy in combining Influencer skills with Paladin’s expertise to conquer the numerous change challenges procurement professionals face.”

Influencing Change is available now. For product information contact Barbara Ardell at (770) 315-1581 or BMArdell(at)PaladinAssociatesInc(dot)com.

About Paladin Associates Inc.:

Paladin Associates Inc. is a procurement services company staffed by veteran professionals. Services include strategic sourcing, staff augmentation, technology implementations, spend analysis, strategic sourcing skills training, procurement transformation, and various cost reduction and efficiency improvement initiatives. Paladin offers technology alternatives and flexibility through numerous partnerships with world-class technology providers. Visit http://www.PaladinAssociatesInc.com for additional information, case studies, and client testimonials.

About VitalSmarts:

An innovator in corporate training and leadership development, VitalSmarts combines three decades of original research with 50 years of the best social science thinking to help leaders and organizations change human behavior and achieve new levels of performance. VitalSmarts has identified four high-leverage skill sets that, when used in combination, create healthy corporate cultures. These skills are taught in the Company’s award-winning training programs and New York Times bestselling books of the same titles: Crucial Conversations, Crucial Accountability, Influencer, and Change Anything. VitalSmarts has consulted with more than 300 of the Fortune 500 companies and trained more than one million people worldwide. http://www.vitalsmarts.com

Press contact:

Renee L. Libby
RLLibby@PaladinAssociatesInc.com
(770) 335-2020