A Strategic Convergence: Bridging Staff Augmentation and Managed Services

Procurement leaders aren’t just rethinking talent, they’re redesigning how work gets done. The real question isn’t “Do we hire or augment?” It’s "What delivery model will best drive outcomes in an increasingly complex and demanding environment?

In this episode, Stacy sits down with colleagues Kim Neisen, Director of Workforce Talent, and Ani Roy Chowdhury, Advisory Director, to challenge the traditional decision framework and explore how organizations leading procurement into the future are  orchestrating service models in order to build a procurement function that is adaptive, scalable, and aligned to enterprise value creation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Welcome to Procurability's Procurement Pathways. A journey into the dynamic world of procurement told through the voices of its most trusted leaders. Here, every story, every lesson, and every hard-won insight reveals how personal passion fuels professional impact and how those moments taken together shape the future of our field. Today's guests are Procurability's Director of Advisory Services, Ani Roy Chowdry, and Director of Talent, Kim Nyson. Ani and Kim, thank you very much for joining us today. I'm really excited to have this conversation with you. Let's start off by having you both introduce yourselves for the audience, and we can kind of continue from there. So, Kim Nyson, I will ask you to go first, please.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Sure. Thank you, Stacey. I am Kim Nyson. Um, I have been with Procurability for eight years. I am the director of our recruiting and staffing division. So I oversee all of our recruiting and staffing for our external clients. I've been in the staffing and recruiting world for over 20 years. Um, everything from uh recruiting and talent management all the way up through even managing um contingent labor category from a procurement perspective. Um I'm glad to be here, and I'll turn it over to Ani.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Thank you, Kim, and glad to be here as well. Uh my name is Ani Rajodhri. I'm a director of advisory and managed services here at Procurability. I've been with Procurability uh about three and a half years now, but overall doing procurement supply chain and operations in some form or shape for the last 20 plus years. Um focused on doing professional services for clients, especially like procurement managed services and advisory work. Um currently at procurability, I oversee a couple of managed services programs with a utility client and a high-tech client, and then also leading one advisory project to set up a center of excellence for a government client. Um yeah, so uh have had experience working with clients from different industries, starting from high-tech telecom, CPG retail to even federal government. Uh and uh happy to be chatting with this team here.

SPEAKER_02 2:30

This is this is great. Thank you for being here. And Ani, just in terms of geography, you are located in Seattle, correct?

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Yes, I'm in Seattle.

unknown 2:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

And Kim, remind me exactly where you live again. I am in Chicago. That's okay. Okay. Excellent. I'd like to spend a minute before we kind of get into the meat of the conversation, talking a little bit more in detail about each of your roles. Okay. So Kim, first, we have two, we talked with Lauren Gallagher in our first uh podcast around our chief, and she's our chief talent officer, around the particularities of her role and the internal hiring work that she does. So you are more focused on our external hires. Is that safe to say?

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Yes, that is correct. I manage the external hiring for our clients. So we operate as like a boutique staffing firm within procurability. And we only focus on roles that are procurement supply chain related. So my team will recruit for our clients when they have a need themselves for a like a temporary worker, attempt to hire role or direct hire role.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

So just as an example, if I were working at Johnson ⁇ Johnson and I needed a category manager, a full-time category manager for professional services, that is something that you and your team are able to support.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Correct. Yep, exactly. So we have clients that come to us for filling their needs.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

Fantastic. And we also work, and this this kind of captures into Ani's category a little bit as well, uh, staff augmentation kinds of roles. So for anybody listening that isn't familiar with that, what you just spoke of was direct hire, full-time F what we call FTE full time equivalent at an organization. And how does that, how does that distinguish from staff augmentation?

SPEAKER_00 4:24

So the staff augmentation piece would be the temporary or temp to hire piece. So if we have a client that has an interim need, maybe they are looking to hire themselves, but they need to fill a gap in the interim, or possibly someone's out on a leave. Um, maybe they have a new project that came online and they just need someone for a few months. Um, those are different ways that we would be able to help them fill that gap in employment so that we would be augmenting their staff in those areas. Um, and so a lot of our clients do come to us for temporary needs, um, as well as the direct hire needs, which is when we would be helping them fill a full-time role. So maybe they're struggling to find candidates on their own for a category manager or something like that. We could help them with those searches as well.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Perfect. So in both of those cases, the the resource really serves as an extension of the company, whether it's temporary or permanent.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Correct. They're an extension of the company. They operate almost as though they're an employee of the company. They're usually um managed by the client directly. Um, so it differs a little bit from Ani's area when we look more at the managed services piece. Um, in this realm, if you're gonna bring in a staff augmentation person, usually you have a defined workload, defined project that they're gonna come in and work. The client would want to oversee that work. Um, and there may be some budget constraints, too, that um they want to follow or be within, or possibly maybe they want to hire the person eventually. So we kind of call that try before you buy. Yeah. So um, not only can the client, you know, try out the resource, but also the resource is trying out the client. So kind of it goes both ways where both individual and the client could determine is this the right fit for me? And will I eventually get a full-time role?

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Got it, got it. And I do want to move over and talk to Ani a little bit about how that managed services space differs. But before I do, just to double click a little bit on your team, because you you gave me a data point uh when we were chatting last week that I thought was really meaningful that a lot of your team has been doing this work, this recruiting work specifically for 10, 15, 20 years. Um, and you you gave me a figure of how many folks you have in your kind of professional role index.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Yep. Talk to me a little bit about that. Sure. So um I have a team of three recruiters. Um, like I said, we operate more as a boutique staffing firm. So we're smaller. We focus on, you know, a niche type of roles, procurement, all the way through supply chain buyer to sea level. Um, but it out of my recruiters, um, I would say we have a combined years of experience of probably over 75 years of recruiting just for procurement roles. And our network is huge. So I've been here eight years. Um, one of my recruiters has been here eight years with me. Um, and the other two have been here five years or longer. And we've just built this huge network. Most of our network is from our referral base. So we, when we are talking to candidates or even our clients, everyone's referring everyone to us. So I would say we have over 8,000 procurement individuals within our network that we've spoken, spoken with, connected with, or engaged with in one way or another. So it's a very large network. We, when we're recruiting, we're not posting our jobs. We're primarily just going to our network or asking for more referrals again.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

That's fantastic. And I mean it's one thing I didn't know until I joined is how rich that is. And it's it's so meaningful.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Yeah. A lot of times I can fill a job in an hour. I'm not just saying that because I am already I already know a name. I'm like, oh, I know exactly who's gonna fill that. So um And you've been doing this for so long that you do.

SPEAKER_02 8:16

You have the names in your head, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:18

It's just my brain is a database. There you go. Yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Gosh. So, Ani, moving over to you. So we've been talking about staff og and permanent hire external. Lauren works in our internal permanent hire. Let's start here. What is managed services?

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Managed services is a more programmatic and structured approach to delivering services to a client. Uh, it usually uh has a very well-defined scope, all right, like what you are going to be providing to the client. Uh the client has kind of decided that okay, these are the processes that we will do in-house. This is a process where I need an outside provider to come in and help us. And then we understand what that uh service is, and we uh deploy a team to provide those services. We define outcomes that the client is uh expecting to receive out of these services in terms of SLAs and KPIs. Um and these services uh could be in like a wide variety of areas, right? You see a lot of IT managed services, finance managed services. For us in procurability, we focus on procurement uh managed services uh as kind of our core focus areas. And within procurement, it could be say a ProCOPS uh support or a source to contract support. Uh and sometimes uh you build upon those services to even help the client with category management, analytics, uh COE type activities. Uh but at the core of it, it's a structured team uh which is deployed to provide a focused service where outcomes are very clearly defined, and you have SLS KPS to measure it. Uh you establish a governance model to monitor how the program is doing, make uh changes to the program if you need to make changes as as the clients need evolves over time.

SPEAKER_02 10:19

And these could be ongoing as well. So a managed services program that you're saying, it it's it could be a multi-year engagement where we are managing this piece of the puzzle for the client, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Aaron Powell Yes. They are generally longer term. So you would see uh at least a year-long uh contract or ideally say a three-year-long program, right? Where you can then plan better with the client on how uh this program should evolve uh over time. Uh and uh the client also has benefits of getting a consistent support, right, over a longer term. The individuals who are supporting these programs, they also learn about the client and they become more efficient and effective as time goes on. So managed services, yeah, generally one to three years is the norm. I have also seen five-year long managed services programs with some clients, but that's uh that's usually rare. I think three is probably the magic number, but many clients often do budgeting year over year. So they would go with like a one-year contract and then they continue to renew as a services uh uh when it comes to you, and they they want, they like the service. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:27

Got it. Got it. Makes sense. So we have these different project formats. We have direct hire, staff, og, managed services, and the other work that we do within procurability with as a third party. How do you know which talent is right for which type of work?

SPEAKER_00 11:45

I'll go first. Um, so I tend to look at the business need. So, what is the business trying to do? Um, what are they driving towards? Um, is it more temporary work? Is it strategic work? Is it transformational work? So if I have a client reach out to me um needing a resource, and as I'm talking with them and trying to figure out exactly what their need is and what they're trying to solve, I kind of can determine, okay, are they really just looking for one person to come in, augment their staff, complete a project, and then leave? Or are they trying to complete a bigger project? Maybe they just um had a merger or an acquisition that just happened. And they need to reassign all of these contracts, renegotiate contracts, um, and it's going to be a bigger project long-term over time. Maybe they have a couple other acquisitions they're planning in the future. That to me might be a sign to say, oh, maybe I should reach out to Ani. Maybe this is more of a managed service, and his team could come in and have a small team of contract specialists that can help them with this project. So I really feel like it's it's kind of looking at the need and determining um what they're trying to solve in the strategy, the, you know, of the role. Um, and then also the length. Is it just a short-term, you know, we're gonna do this project when it's done, it's done, and then we don't need this person anymore? Or is it something longer term and we're trying to transform something here?

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Yep. Uh just to add to that, uh, I think one one more piece of like how much time does the client has to train and manage people as well. So if they have like a smaller need, one to two people, and they just they they do have the time to train on board like you would a new employee, then I think Star Fog is the way to go. But if you don't have, say, the time to train uh and the and as a rule of thumb, generally you need a team rather than one or two individuals, right? Uh, then you would you should look more for a managed services provider because in those cases we can come in, we initially uh look at your processes, we uh develop uh say process documents if there are if one doesn't exist, we uh very clearly define the process steps that need to be followed as the work is performed, whether it's source to contract or proc ops, and then we uh use all of that documentation to build a training program that you can train any new individual on uh as they onboard on the program and start supporting the client. So if if you want the structure where you are trying to not retain the responsibility to manage those individuals, where you want, say, the provider to come and manage that team and deliver you the outcome, uh, you want a more outcome-based contract, then I think manage services is what you ideally should go for.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

Yeah. Do you ever find that the client uh may not know specifically what they need? And so that becomes a conversation.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

Uh yeah, it does. And uh often like uh what solution is right for the client gets determined as we uh have those conversations with the client, right? They may just start with, hey, I just need a couple of people uh to start with. Uh but then as we start talking, they identify, okay, maybe uh we want you guys to manage because we just don't have the time. Uh so if if there is a person who can manage these individuals to train them on our processes, uh, then that would be better. Uh then often the conversation then starts shifting towards more of a managed services type engagement. They would then often say that, hey, instead of just doing this process, maybe we need some help with analytics as well, right? Uh or we lack certain defined documentation on certain areas. So maybe we need help there uh uh to build some of that documentation policies, procedures for us as well. So then you start seeing that okay, there are more things you can do for the client there. And then in that case, a managed services solution where you can bring in people with the right skill set and form a team to address all those different problems makes more of uh more sense than just giving them a couple of individuals uh for kind of short-term uh and the kind of immediate need that they initially started with.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Yeah, I was gonna say um to you know bounce off of what Ani was saying is that a lot of times our clients do come to us and they don't always know exactly what they need. Um and so we can partner with them to help them kind of decide. I feel like when I get staff augmentation requests, they don't always have a fully defined scope necessarily of what they're looking for, unless it's truly someone's on leave and we just need to backfill this role for a temporary time frame. Right. But but sometimes they'll come and it's just more complex than that. And they're they think they need staph aug. And so they're coming to us saying, uh, you know, I just have this project or I'm trying to solve for this. And so maybe they have the capacity right now to manage that person, try and manage the process, the project. So we'll bring in a staph aug person for them. And then once that person is there, getting settled in and doing the work, I feel that then the scope becomes more defined and they're really starting to see, okay, this is what we really need. Um, and so once that role starts to stabilize and they start to see this is bigger than we thought, sometimes staph aug can evolve, I'm sorry, evolve into managed services. And so we've seen that happen where we start with just one or two staph aug resources, and then the they're wanting to add a couple more people because they realize that the work is evolving, that they're starting to stabilize processes, that they have metrics established, and they're now wanting to run some KPIs and SLAs around those. And that's a great turning point to when it can turn over to managed services as well.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Yeah, I was gonna just give an example to what Kim just spoke. Like I had a telecom client a few years back where we started with a Star Fock program, just two individuals supporting the client, one supporting technology uh as a technology sourcing manager, other supporting as a professional services sourcing manager. It started like that. The team then grew to four or five people as we identified needs in other teams within the client space. Uh, and then finally the client said, hey, rather than having individuals supporting different categories in different places, uh why don't we look at more of a structured program where you can have a larger team? And what we can do is that we can define some thresholds of say if a project is under a million, your team does it. If it's above a million, then our team does it, and maybe above a million, sometimes we will give those projects to you as well as need arises, right? So then we crafted a managed services program for them with a much larger team. So I think we started with like a 20 people team, and we kind of created a blend of uh say US and India resources. And this was during the COVID time, so everybody was remote. And we hired like a team of 20, uh, with I think seven in US and the remaining in India, and we created like a source to contract execution support for them. And we created uh kind of uh uh definitions within their system on how any new request comes in would flow to our team and what would go to their team. So all the rules were built into their system, and then we created a really structured program around that, and we defined SLAs KPIs that we were tracking almost weekly at the beginning, and then gradually we kind of changed those to uh monthly tracking. Uh, and I also established a governance process to kind of provide their leaders a quarterly um kind of update on how we were progressing. Um of the SLAs we were looking at were like cycle time, savings, ROI overall, uh, for like different uh different processes that we were supporting, like uh by different categories, different teams. Uh so overall I think that kind of shows like how a team evolves, right? Uh like from say you start with Starfall, but then as the need changes, the client's business model changes, uh, you can get into managed services type engagement.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

I have an example of a client of ours that came to us um actually wanting to hire a direct hire um procurement director. And they were a university and they the the person had resigned in the role, and so they needed to backfill it. And as I was talking to them about a direct hire role, uh I started to ask just some questions, you know, scoping questions of like what they were really looking for, what they were trying to solve, and came to realize that I felt it was bigger than really just bringing in a procurement director. The main thing was that no one in the organization had procurement in their background, but there was a lot to get done. We had asked them, you know, if they could send us a couple of the categories that they source for, um, some spend analysis and as we, you know, contracts, how many suppliers you have. And as we started to look at the data, we realized this is a lot of work for one person. And so, you know, it was tactical, a lot of tactical work too, a lot of repeatable tactical, tactical work, excuse me. Um, and so as we started talking, I pulled in um some people from my our advisory side and said, you know, hey, can you join this conversation with me? Scheduled another call, and just uh through discovery, realized this is bigger than just bringing in a full time uh direct higher procurement director. And so we ended up uh solving it and contracting with them for a small team, managed service. Team. And it was two resources in India and a resource in the US to help get all their contracts aligned, help them with some sourcing projects that they had going on. And then actually it just helped them define procurement as a whole and how their organization should look. And so it it's a great story of how someone came to us just wanting a full-time direct hire and we ended up solving a larger problem for them that they didn't realize they had.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

These are fantastic stories. And what I'm what I'm learning from both of those examples is that the learning is important where you have a conversation and that first role or that first set of discussions is educational for the client as well or the requester, because it's like the seven whys, or five, how many whys are there? I forget. Five whys, seven whys, however many whys there are.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

I feel like it all, it's how you partner and listen to the client. You really have to listen to what their need is. Sometimes people are just quick to jump in and solve it, but I feel like there is a, you know, some discovery that you have to do. And through partnering with them and talking with them and speaking with them, you start to realize, like, okay, what are they really trying to solve here? Because it goes back to my first point is what are you, what are you trying to solve in the end? What are you, what are you trying to get to? And that will help define kind of what you need to get to that point versus saying, I I just need, you know, someone to come in, uh, a button to see to do the job. Well, in the end, is that really, really what you need, or what are you trying to solve? And we can help you get there. Um, because I think it shows shows true partnership when you know you can have an open conversation with a potential client and really kind of just talk through all of those things to determine um where they should go and what what their answer is to solve their problem. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

And I think that's really important, right? If if if I'm the client, I want somebody to, you know, to to gracefully challenge me sometimes to say, well, have you thought about this angle? Because at the end of the day, taking one path may only uh support 25% of what you're really needing at the end of the day. And it's sometimes it's hard to tease out what the actual need is. And it's good to have somebody with that consulting background who's been through the through the mire multiple times to be able to work through that with you.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Yeah. One more uh point that just came to my mind, like Kim was you know giving uh sharing that example, was like we we often think that managed services works only for large teams, right? Uh like, oh, I have to at least need 10 people to go into a managed services model. But at procurability, and uh I was at the same school of thought, like back in my early roles, but coming to procurability now, we have set up so many smaller managed services programs here as well. Like we have a managed services program with a high-tech client with just three people on it, right? But it's like we are defined, we have SLAs defined, we have a programmatic approach on how we track the outcome of the team, right? We manage the individuals, say onboarding, offboarding, as they join. Like somebody leads a team, or if you know somebody goes on say long-term uh vacation, then we provide a backfill to make sure that the client is supported. So managed services doesn't always mean that I have to have everything defined, a large team, like a big ProCOPS program or S2C. You can also have like smaller teams of managed services, right? It's just changing the delivery model rather than say individuals to having that programmatic approach, even smaller teams.

SPEAKER_02 26:30

And it's not rubber stamp. What we do, at least here procurability, there's no there's no rubber stamp stamp. Every and this is what I've learned just in the few months I've been here, every client engagement we do is different than another one, right? Of course. And the examples that you showed, Kim, yours was in um nonprofit. You mentioned it was university, right? Right. And Ani, what was the what was the industry that in your example? Uh telecom. Telecom, yeah. So completely different approaches to solve a problem. But you know, you in each case you think about what's what's the actual need, right? And it's it's not cookie cutter.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Right. Well, I would just one last point is talent, the great thing about talent is it's modular, it's scalable. And so you might think you start with one and you get to 10. Or maybe you start with 10 and you go you go down to two, you know, and that's the great thing about talent. It's so flexible.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Yep. It's a great point. I think Kim, that point also makes me think that at the core of all services is is the talent, right? Uh we we have really talented, great people that do want to do good work for the client. Uh the delivery model is different. Like say whether it's staff or managed service or even advisory. But at the core of everything that we're doing is the great talented people that are supporting the clients.

SPEAKER_02 27:48

That's right. As um our podcast guest for next week, or recording him next week, one of my former leaders always says, right, talent, people aren't your most important asset, they're your only asset. And that's what we're talking about here, right? Good segue, Kim, onto the the question of the talent itself. So this is my last formal question, then we can chat over anything else we want before I get into the um the pathways question. But if I'm talent and I'm looking for a position, what are some key things that I should know about because there are a lot of people looking for roles right now. What are some key things that I should know about staff og, permanent hire, managed services, and the candidacy for those roles?

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Well, I would say, you know, it's not always a one size fits all, right? Just because your background has always been in one doesn't mean you can't transfer over to another. Um, I feel that you as a candidate need to be open to applying to all different roles, even if you feel like I might not be the best fit for that. I also feel that employers need to be open to really looking at each candidate from a diverse perspective, meaning their background and what they've done and their experience and how it can come to that role. Um, I feel like sometimes uh we bucket, you know, just naturally, we bucket people into certain areas and we feel like, well, this person's gonna be great at this, and this person's gonna be great at this. But, you know, people evolve in their roles over time and they learn new things, and it's just how they apply the things they've learned to the job that they're doing. Um but if you know, there are a lot of people right now that I will say are in the market looking for roles. Um, I will say that hiring times can be longer now, you know, and just to be patient, like roles will come. Um, don't give up. Um, you know, there's obviously you can go to job boards and things like that, but I really feel that the best way to find a job is your network, right? Reach out to everyone you know. I mean, you don't want to be a pest and bother them, but at the same time, they're your best resource. You know, your friends, your neighbors, your family, people you've worked with in the past, past clients, even, um, just reaching out to everybody and just letting them know you're in the market for a new role really helps. LinkedIn is a great source. Um, just to, you know, put it out there. I I see a lot of people posting profiles of just themselves saying, hey, I'm in the market again. I'm looking for a job. Um, but you know, I my biggest piece of advice is don't not apply to a job just because you don't feel that you have all the skills and qualifications that are listed, um, because it doesn't mean you're not a fit. And uh, you know, employers often look not only at your technical ability, but your cultural and soft skills as well. And so if you can land that interview, um, and they can interview you and see that you're this great person, that you're trainable, you're coachable, um, or whatever, or that you're just a great cultural fit for the organization, it might win you the job over your technical skills for the job. Um, so I guess my advice is just if you if it's a job that you see out there and it excites you, just apply. Go for it. Apply. You never know what will happen.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Great advice.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Ani, anything to add on that one?

SPEAKER_01 31:28

I think Kim pretty much covered it. Only thing I I would probably say is that if if you're in the market looking for jobs, uh don't be hesitant to cold call people over LinkedIn as well. Like uh, even if you don't know the individual, but you are interested in the role in that company, uh, you should probably ping that individual, just introduce yourself uh and share your bio, right? Like it doesn't hurt. Like I get sometimes uh these requests for somebody interested in procurability, and I look at the bio and it looks good fit for us. I pass it on to a recruiting team. Um so yeah, so there are people who are out there to help you. So just reach out.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

I was just gonna add one thing our recruiters always do when they're recruiting is um if they're talking to a candidate, in the end, it's just not a match for whatever reason. Maybe the candidate says, you know, this isn't the job for me, or maybe the recruiter's like, yeah, that it's not gonna work out. Um, we always ask them, okay, do you have a referral? Like maybe you're not a fit, but do you have anyone you can refer? And so again, it just goes back to that network. And so talking to everybody and letting them know that you're looking for a job, you never know. Someone might be interviewing for a job and refer you during that interview for that job. So, you know, you just never know.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Also, they get into Kim's 8,000 database. So you have Kim Laura, okay. I have the candidate. Now you're in my brain.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

That's it. I'll remember your name forever. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 32:57

That would be that would be just really an interesting glass of wine conversation. Just okay, who does this stuff? And then the name comes up.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Well, Ani Ani's on calls with me, and I'm always like, oh, I have a person.

SPEAKER_02 33:10

Yeah, exactly. That's awesome. That is awesome. It's so awesome that it just made me forget my my last question. Um the other thing that came through, and oh, uh the comment that I wanted to make was I think this comment about networking has come through in three podcasts now that we've recorded. And I I I think it's so important. We've had people who are practitioners saying it, we've had uh you both and Lauren saying it, and and one of our one of our folks that has yet to to be released. It's just really uh crucial, right? That network is everything is just coming through time and time and time again. Um and then the last thing I wanted to touch on, and you've both mentioned it as we've been talking, is that just as the role itself may be something you as a candidate would be good at, but you have to look at it a little bit more liberally, right? The job type might be something that you didn't know you could look at. So maybe you're only looking at permanent hire, but maybe a consulting role might be something that that you could work with or a staff og or something like that. Um does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Yeah, definitely. I mean, um in the staff og world, you know, we often have a lot of people that come to us looking for full-time. And maybe we have a job that's a contract temporary role. Um, and they weren't really thinking of that before, open to that. But um, it is a great way to get your foot in the door to a company um that maybe you're interested in. A lot of times our um temporary jobs turn into full-time jobs. Um, and like I said, it's that try before you buy. It's almost like a six-month interview. Um, and again, I if it goes both ways, right? It's for you as the as the candidate to try out a company, you know, and then as the company to try you out. And so it's kind of a great way, in my opinion, to, you know, find your next job and say, is this really what I want to be doing? You know, yeah, I'm here. I'm enjoying it here, and just getting your foot in the door. And people don't always think about that with contract work. And contract work, you know, depending on uh how you're coming in and contracting, but it, you know, you can get benefits and other things too. So if you need medical health care, like some people shy away from contracting because they think they're not gonna get all that, but um, most um talent organizations offer those benefits for their temporary workers.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

And that's really good to know. And I just have to put in a vote for that as well. If one of one of the jobs that I had in pharma came from that, I was a consultant, and it was the same thing, right? We had an opportunity to get to know each other. And by the time I took a permanent job, I knew exactly what the culture was. I knew I knew the person that I would be working with, the organization, the senior leadership. So, and it was much less stressful because it was a known entity. So, yeah, that's a good thing. I have one more question for each of you. Do you have anything else that you wanted to bring up before we get to the last question?

SPEAKER_00 36:14

No.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Maybe one thing is um, you know, we talked a little bit about staff org and managed services. Uh, one thing I want to call out is that sometimes we have blended programs too. Like we have, say, a managed services client where they suddenly have a staff org need in one of the specific areas. Like, say, for example, they want a carrying manager to buy transformers, like in utility companies. They want a specialized skill set. So often in those case, we then reach knock on Kim's door. We say, hey, Kim, they they are looking for this individual with specialized need. Do you have somebody who can do this work, right? And then you have a staff org person in there as well. So then the program becomes sort of a blended program with some staff resources, some manage services. Um yeah, it doesn't have to be either all, right? You can have a blended program too.

SPEAKER_02 37:00

Right, on it. And the uh secret sauce in this mix, as I think the the audience is clearly getting, is that there's a lot of communication that happens between Kim's organization and Ani's organization. We're very closely communicating here at procurability on all of this stuff. So yeah. Last question of the day, and thank you very much for all of this conversation. When it comes to talent or anything else in procurement, what is one piece of advice that you have for people on their path? What is one thing that you've learned that can help them along their own path? And uh Kim, I'll go to you first.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

So I'm gonna start with I I kind of have two things, but I'm gonna start with one. Uh relationships. I just feel like the key to everything is relationships. It's the key to clients, it's the key to your network, it's the key to candidates. Um, the more relationships you can form throughout your life, throughout your career, the better. Um, networking, um, just building on those relationships. I always look at my clients. Um, I try and be an advisor to them, you know, not just a vendor, so that they can start to trust me. Um, and you know, we become transparent with each other. Um, some of my clients have become friends and um and now we're friends, you know. Um, and so it's just it kind of just makes a full circle and you've got this network. And so, you know, I have clients that have become candidates, and I have candidates that have become clients. And so it just is that whole um circle, like I said, that circle of trust. I'm gonna go there, where everyone kind of fits into that circle of trust and you can um network with each other and help each other, whether it's um finding them a resource, finding them their next opportunity, um, or selling them a managed service program. Um, and then just one other thing, just that kind of piggybacks on that, that goes back to what I was saying before, is just to always stay curious. I feel like that's really, really important. Curiosity, in my opinion, always helps you to learn more. And the more you learn, the more you grow. And it even curiosity with going back to relationships, um, asking people curious questions about themselves helps build stronger relationships. And so um, curiosity and relationships, what I'm gonna say.

SPEAKER_02 39:27

I love that. Thank you, Kim. Ani?

SPEAKER_01 39:31

I think Kim sort of stole my answer there. Like she relationships are definitely my my number one thing here, like building uh relationships and keeping your network uh going. And uh and it I think to build off of on that is also like sometimes you start a relationship but then that kind of fades away with time. Uh then you have to find a way to how to stay connected uh with your network and keep uh those warm. So I think that's one thing to keep in mind. Uh the other piece I would say uh is building your brand, right? Like you want to be known for something. There's just so much you you can do, right? Uh but what is it that you really stand out for, right? So kind of start building your brand, whether it's a category speciality that you have, or whether it's a functional speciality that you have, but think about how do you build your brand, what do you want to be known for. Uh and uh as you are say uh say using your LinkedIn profiles and other other outlets, think about how to project that brand through those outlets, right? So as companies are looking for uh talented individuals in that space, they they can easily find you, right? Uh I think those would be my two things.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

Ani and Kim, thank you so much for this conversation. It's been educational, and I think the audience will get a lot out of it. So thank you for thank you for your time and thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 40:59

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