A new year is a great time to make changes and try new things. And that's exactly what we're doing with the latest addition to our lineup of expert contributors to Supply Chain Executive Insight and its parent publication, SCMP's Supply Chain Quarterly.

In this edition of our monthly electronic newsletter, we introduce Procurement Priorities, a column about issues and trends affecting procurement practices and policies. The author, Susan Avery, is a veteran journalist who has written about purchasing and procurement for more than 30 years. She spent much of her career at Purchasing magazine, where she was a senior editor covering products, office technology, and other procurement categories, and was responsible for the annual salary survey and the Medal of Professional Excellence reports. Currently, she is editor-in-chief of the online publication My Purchasing Center.

In her first column, Avery explains how lower oil, gas, and commodity prices are shaping procurement professionals' approach to pricing in 2016. Examples of other topics she'll discuss in the months ahead include compensation trends, the challenge of managing talent, and procurement's role in mergers and acquisitions.

Procurement, of course, is a critical link in the supply chain; the procurement organization's decisions have a direct or indirect impact on almost every stage of a product's lifecycle. So even if procurement is not your primary responsibility, it's a subject you need to know about.

Over the years, you've told us that you'd like to see more coverage of procurement in our publications. That's why we'll be bringing Procurement Priorities to you in Supply Chain Executive Insight each month, and in the print and online editions of Supply Chain Quarterly. I'm sure you'll find it both thought-provoking and informative.