Ep. 20 - Driving Procurement Excellence through Digitalisation at Scale - with Karl Poulsen

Procurement transformation isn't just about systems. It's about scale, culture, and strategy.

In this episode, host Richard McIntosh speaks with Karl Poulsen, CPO at Hiscox, about leading a greenfield procurement transformation by leveraging digital tools not just to modernise, but to embed excellence at scale.

Karl shares how he moved the organisation from spreadsheets and silos to a centralised, tech-enabled function. He explains how automation, governance, and scalability were built with compliance in mind—but designed to support consistency and growth across a complex, international business. From reducing a 10,000-supplier sprawl to navigating cultural change across regions, Karl reveals what it takes to turn procurement into a true engine of business value—and why the hardest part wasn’t the technology, but shifting mindsets and ways of working.


You’ll learn:

1. How to build a business case for procurement tech from a greenfield start
2. Why cultural change is harder and more important than system implementation
3. How automation drives compliance, risk management, and sustainability
4. Where the biggest financial gains come from in digital procurement
5. What to prioritise post-rollout to improve adoption and user experience

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Get in touch with Karl Poulsen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karl-poulsen-a6bb2112/


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About the host Richard McIntosh:
Richard McIntosh, Partner at H&Z Management Consulting, has spent over 23 years helping procurement leaders succeed. Richard is an avid rugby fan, and a children's rugby coach, with a passion for helping children to become their best selves through sports. He spends his time outside of work with his wife and children.

Get in touch with Richard McIntosh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcintosh-richard/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

We eventually went with i i value and we've launched it in geographic ways across our global business. Primarily because we felt that for go from here with the first shot, it's going to be like a massive cultural change right out. I am I'm always more concerned about the cultural transition we're trying to achieve here than I am the technological one.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Welcome to the Procurement Initiative Leaders Podcast, the ultimate resource for top-level procurement professionals looking to stay ahead of the curve and drive meaningful change within their organization. I'm your host, Richard McIntosh, partner at H and Z, Europe's leading procurement consultancy. Join me as I sit down with Global Leaders in Procurement to uncover the latest trends, strategies, and insights that are shaping the future of procurement. We tackle crucial topics like leadership, technology, value creation, cost management, supply chain resilience, and many more. Ready to up your game as a leader in procurement. Let's jump into this episode of the Procurement Initiative Leaders Podcast with me, Richard McIntosh. So today Carl Paulson, CPO at Hisscox, joins me on the show. Carl, welcome, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Richard, thank you very much for the invitation. Looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Yeah, great to have you. So Carl, Hisscox is a name that many, many business people will know. But can you can you tell us about Hisscox? What does the company do? Where does it operate?

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Sure, look, we're uh we're a specialty um in insurance uh company. So um what do I mean by that, right? We have a variety of different business lines from big ticket uh in out of the London market, a reinsurance business, and and then we spun up over the last few decades a series of retail businesses, not just here in the UK, but across many of the countries in continental Europe and in uh and in the United States um as as well. So we're known, I guess, for some of our high net worth um products uh here in the UK, but we're also uh a fabulous uh insurer of a really dynamic micro business economy as well. I know when I ran my own um small business, uh Hiscox was uh was my go-to uh insurer uh as well. So I see it not just as an employee over the last three and a half years, uh, but as a customer and before that um as as well.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Great, great. Um and can you tell us about your your role in the company and what does what does that encompass?

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Sure, look, so I I joined about three and a half years ago um now with a very clear brief um that his cox um wanted to uh mature its approach to all of uh all things um sourcing procurement um related at the time. There was some um buying activity um going on pretty much in in silos, and and we got what we saw right off the back of that. Very different data points with similar sorts of um uh uh of things. So over that um three and a half year period, we've I've been bringing uh that together, concentrating on spinning up a small team of category um experts uh and really working um with them uh in their own category expertise uh areas, developing that out, supporting the business, understanding how the business wants to develop and marrying the two together, right? That's that's where the alchemy model, our profession um occurs. But to make that in very much a greenfield site work, which it we recognized early on, I recognised early on my boss did that we have to invest in some sort of technology. Yeah. Um right now, the massive advantage was we had nothing. So we were largely unencumbered uh by legacy on that. And that was also our massive disadvantage uh as well, because we had to get out and talk to people about what this would be like. Yes. Uh and where you have colleagues who experienced that elsewhere, that's a really easy conversation. Where you haven't, that's difficult, right? Because people don't know what they um uh what they don't know. But the way that I solved for that was to get a small uh collaborative cross-functional team together to scan the market, to come up with our requirements, yeah, uh, and then really to you know do a classic procurement exercise of shortlisting that down to a small number of potential suppliers, and then really spending some time with the last two going through and deeply understanding their solution, one as opposed to the other, how they matched our pain points, and how we could utilize that to build a really significant business case uh to deliver greater value throughout the business. And um, gosh, I've summarized probably months and uh years worth of activity. But we've been launching that. We we eventually went with um I iValua and um we've launched it in geographic waves across our global business, primarily because we felt that from going from here with the first shot, it's gonna be like a massive cultural change. I um I am always more concerned about the cultural transition we're trying to achieve here than I am the technological one. The technological one is is significant, and look, we haven't got everything right so we've gone along that uh journey. There's been bumps in the road, there's always any technological change. Yeah, but it's a cultural transition which is far more significant and where we've spent far more time, where I spent more far more time uh as a leader in the business with um with my peers uh trying to land that change and learn by our lessons in the in the waves, and that that's it. Yeah um that has been useful uh for that to ensure that uh we are not only landing something that's fit for purpose, but we're landing the business case, right? We're delivering the runs um on the board, which is uh fundamental as well. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

And then just going so that stakeholder piece is really interesting. So, what was it at the beginning you said it was like a greenfield site. So, what kind of how was procurement working at that point? What were the business doing? And then of course, what how how does it work for them now now that they've they've got the technology?

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Yeah, so look, I mean, I suppose you'd have to ask some other people, panel question, right, to to do that. But I can I'll I'll I'll try and give you all what's an all um honest answer. So yeah, what we had before was, I guess what many uh people would recognise, right? We were held together with Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint decks and running like that. We had an ERP system, which is really handy for spend control information. The data out of ERP is always, you know, data from everywhere is always needs a bit of interpretation, right? Yeah, on that. Um, but the guys and girls who were around before we started the journey of centralizing procurement were using those sorts of exercises. Yes, but we were sourcing in business unit silos, which is great. We're delivering a point solution, yeah, but you're not making your dollars work as hard as they could, right? Because that piece of of sharing out to everybody's benefit, largely, there were some ex actions, largely um that wasn't wasn't happening. And that's one of things that uh that I wanted to address at pace with hence the early steps of this are around creating that category uh management uh centre of expertise in our bigger spend uh profiles. Broadly, we spend about um $400 million a year non-claims um with with our third parties. That was across over 10,000 suppliers when I joined.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Okay, right.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

So you can you can do the maths on that. I mean 10,000 is just a totally, in some ways, nuts number, right? Yeah. And we had to look at that and just ask why. You know, why are we constantly putting on that level of new suppliers? Yes. And the real answer was it was easier to put a new supplier on there was to find out if you already had a supplier to to to do stuff and to to leverage that. So one of our early exercises in getting ready for an iValua rollout was to simplify that supply chain down.

SPEAKER_00 7:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Um now sounds easy. Yeah, yeah, um, on one level, but that was an incredibly hard process. I'm very grateful to my colleagues that we worked with extensively, um, especially in the finance community, to achieve uh that uh that rationalization. We got it down to just a bit south of 3,000 since grown as we go through our Rollout program. Um and then we'll we'll do some further rounds of simplification on that, because even that is too high.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Yeah, and Carl, did that come through the the category approach? Was that through analysis of suppliers and you know how how did that how did that work on the ground to get to that?

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Yeah, look, a little bit a little bit of both, right? So there was some strategic rationalization, right? Do we need quite as many of you know whatever type of suppliers in whatever spend profile with the team uh implementing their category approach? There was a natural kind of reduction there, which was um good and actually relatively straightforward to achieve, right? People could see that. And then frankly, there was just a bit of top-down in this as well. So we were then looking looked at what the spend profile was to this, and on an enormous tail, you find there's quite you know hundreds and hundreds of suppliers that you're spending not very much with, uh shall we shall we say? Now, again, you can spend not very much, and that not very much to be a really critical puzzle, right? So it was not a kill below below this. We you know did a fair amount of analysis talking to uh the cost center owners that were consuming um those services, yeah, and then collectively agreeing that we can switch off you know whatever whatever um uh reliance on those suppliers was. So there was a number of different approaches uh to that as an exam question. But fundamentally, the reason we were doing it, yes, you know, what was simplification designed to do is designed to make the launch of STP more straightforward, right? If we were having to load 10,000 data sets into that system, that is a massive on I mean it felt bad enough having to do kind of three, right? So so having to do 10 would um yeah, I say difficult, right? That's with traditional British understatement, that would have been a huge uh exercise to do and and not worth the squeeze of the lemon, right? In terms of the extra investment necessary to do that.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Yeah, yeah. And then how and then how was that for the you know, you you said there about the the the cultural piece being the the hardest there? So, you know, that you know, if if you've got a uh a stakeholder who could could do what they want through to, you know, how did you manage them through that journey to control?

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Yeah, you know, that's a really interesting point, right? One of the strap lines I say was uh that it felt like anybody could buy what they like when they like probably they like paying what they like. Yeah. Now that's a slight exaggeration in in total fairness, yeah, but it did it did feel um like that. And you're right, to a lot of colleagues, that was an incredibly um incredibly agile, digital, speedy type of service because they would decide what they wanted and how they get it, right? Yeah, um, but I can point out that largely, again, there's always some exceptions, but largely that was producing some optimal outcomes commercially um from that. So some of this was just around having to have those stations, right? And to show that the value of the system was really allowing us to leverage our scale in the market, right? In running competitive processes which engender commercial tension, right? And using that commercial tension that we know as sourcing professionals to drive a great outcome, not just price, right? Where we are, of course, we're focused on price, but we're focused on service, we're on sustainability outcomes as well as kind of a the our our core trio of uh of what we're seeking to drive and why that was important, but underpinning that core trio in a heavily regulated industry is how we are doing our due diligence, right? Not just the point of sourcing, but on an ongoing basis throughout um as as well. And that part of it, of course, is something that colleagues can rapidly buy into, right? Um in a regulated industry, it's very important that you you are able to do that and sub substantiate it. The benefit of investing in STP technology, right, is that you're able to do that at scale and in a highly efficient way. We have a number of API call acts out of the system to do things like credit referencing, bank account checking, and validations, um, as well as more traditional kind of risk appetite vetting, you know, the controls that are there for information security, data protection, modern slavery. You know, I could go on and on. We take in sustainability ratings uh into that as well and utilize those. So the the system's able to do that in a lot more of an efficient way. Our current stats on onboarding um that's time. Now, bearing in mind, right, averages can hide things, yeah. But we're we're just under 30 days, right? Which is pretty decent in terms of uh where we are in that in a 30 30 day time frame.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

That is that to to risk to source for your stakeholders. What's the metric?

SPEAKER_01 13:07

That that is that is that our average across a sourcing piece of activity, yeah. And you know, general onboarding, right? So of course we don't source everything, you know. Some um, but we do do due diligence, we do appropriate due diligence on everything. So there's a range there, right? And clearly, if we were running a really big outsourcing project, it's nowhere near 30 minutes. Right. It's it's uh yeah, it's a lot further to the right. So, but that that's an average across, last time I looked at Richard, about 600 different initiatives, yeah. Um, right. So um yeah, it it averages its it itself um yeah over that. But that's that's a that you know very decent in the market. Really, yes, absolutely on a like for like average um average basis. Of course, colleagues would always prefer that I could go quicker on everything, yeah. Um, right. And we we constantly in this period we launched um on an MVP basis, we're looking at things and we're re-engineering parts of the process because we can get micro data about that particular step. You know, what's the elapsed period of that step, say bank account validation, right? One of the things that always amazes me is how long it takes suppliers to give you their bank account details. Yeah, I don't think that people would be, there they are. You think that would be the case?

SPEAKER_00 14:18

No interest to get you to that, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Yeah, exactly. And but of course, you know, that's sensitive information. So of course our suppliers have controls about who has access to that information, you know. The more you think about that, you get the logicality of it. Um, but yeah, so that was one of our tricky points. Uh, how yeah, we we we address that uh as well.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

We see some progress there. Really interesting there, because you meant you you you you're you're highlighting a real uh uh impact that you've got to work within there. So you mentioned two things there, the you you're working within a regulated environment and also that sustainability. I know it's high on the agenda, but I guess before that, were those those perspectives taken into account? Because it I guess the send you you now have the ability to control and ensure that that regulation is met. Um so that must have been an interesting change for for the business.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Oh, look, I mean, there would be no stage where any of my colleagues ever disregarded regulations that came down any amount regulator, right? They they're they're always really important, and I I I I should say that what of course we wanted to do was to make sure that we can um ensure compliance to those in an efficient as efficient as way as possible, yeah, right? And investing in the system, I think most people, if not all people, could get their heads round automation of this or um supply responses, validation of that and so on, would be uh a really good thing to do if we could achieve it, right? Yeah. So what we've been able to do is move that at scale and to to do that across those you know 600 different initiatives that have so far been through the the process that we've launched. And we're not there yet, right? We're doing this, as I said, in the number of uh waves, and each wave has a parallel run with existing process, primarily so in-flight invoices can run off on the if you like the legacy um systems. We're um fully implemented in the UK, our wave two um geography to do that. We're still in parallel run in the States and and Bermuda, and we're yet to launch the final bit of jigsaw puzzle in continental Europe. So we're still in we're still in this, right? So don't yes, we're still in that, we're still taking that forward. And of course, there are sometimes significant differences territory to territory that we need to take account of. So a small but obvious example of that is when we launch in Europe, we've taken the decision, I think, quite reasonably, to make our supplier portal multilingual. Yeah. And we had a big debate about whether we should do that. Um, you know, some people thinking English is the international language of business and it's in English and it's yeah, kind of more straightforward. And some people, and yeah, I I think very wisely say, are we going to get a sort of automation out of this if people are struggling to understand what it says? Yeah, and and and and and to to achieve that. So when we launch um that element of it in Europe, we will um have I think five different language sets, six if you include English, uh that it's uh available uh in to help in in that part of it. So I mentioned that just as an obvious kind of national difference. The biggest national difference, of course, is tax and sales taxes, yeah, and how the system's able to do that. That has been I mean, of course I was aware there were differences, but I I've sat in um more meetings than I care to remember, designing this and thinking about and listening to colleagues uh from various tax teams uh around our business and like just full of admiration for their um ability to do detail on this, which has massively helped us take uh decisions on design.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Yeah, great, great. I mean, I just I was gonna come back to that. You know, you you mentioned there the the the sort of the phased rollout um and uh you you know you must have a few battle scars.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

I guess put as you learn with each phase, what are the course not what are what are the yeah look so so I'm not sure I'd say they're battle scars, but there's there's definitely some learnings, right? Yeah. And um the the the piece around it is that it's just such it's it's not unlearning because we knew this, right? But it's it's a piece of how big a change this is because fundamentally, right, when you put in the P2P elements, you're moving authorization to the front of the process rather than authorising an invoice that comes in, right? Absolutely. So the bit to land is you don't have to do this work anymore, you have to do this, yeah. Right? And and you have to do it in this sort of logical way of raising a PO. Obviously, it goes on an approval journey, and people may say yes, they may say no to that. Uh, you may they may say yes, but right, there are a number of different things that could happen on that. But how you um what you tell the put short you want to do is also really important, right? Some of the more um esoteric financing surround it, like multi-period accounting. Again, I know way more about multi-period accounting as a CPA now than I probably ever should, yeah. Having sat through all of the design workshops on that and why that's really important. Having to get that out to someone who's never had to understand that before, yeah, that's a fundamental challenge, right? And we also recognize that colleagues have got very different learning styles, one from another. So we have uh an in-guide. If you do detail, you'll love the in-depth um user guide, lots of screenshots, lots of detail on it telling you how to do this. We've also done a whole series of bite-sized videos, 60, 90 seconds on really common transactions. If if that's your learning style, you can do that. We've done webinar-based um training. And the more I'm super proud of my team for our clinic sessions, and that's yeah, a one-to-one session. Requisitioners um need a little bit of further support. They can just say, Yeah, hold our hand up, arrange that 15, 30 minutes, whatever it is, with uh one of my team, and they can be walked through something in some more detail, right? Or if they've got a particularly thorny issue that they're not quite sure on, we're we're offering that um as well. And those those clinics have been really well received. And um, yeah, that's a real testament to uh the ability of um those colleagues in my team who delivered that. So James, Pablo, Paul, Eva, Geely particularly, um, on their knowledge of the system as as super users and their ability to explain stuff achievements is really good.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Yeah, and and that just highlights the the the change effort that that's needed there. You know, it's you know, technology is fantastic, of course, but actually, you know, what you're reflecting there is the the human uh the human use piece there to make it.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Yeah, look, and and whilst we encourage people to turn up to webinars and and all the rest of it, right? We've not mandated any of it, right? Because you know, you shouldn't be forced into into a training. And and again, it's a it is a learning style just to pick up the guide, have a bit of a look at it, and start to start to learn, right, through through trial and error. I'd really rather you didn't make too many errors, right? But but that is some people's learning style as well, right? And yeah, we've probably all done that with stuff we bought in IKEA. Um it's a it's a it's a bit different, and yeah, those some of those learning messages are in how we feed back to people when those mistakes, learning opportunities, yeah, uh come come back through through system. Some things are so fundamental the system won't let you do it, but there are other things which it probably will let you do because yeah, it doesn't know whether you should be multiperiod accounting that or not, as yeah, as a as a as a for instance. And the other piece as well that we're moving on to now. In our most mature locations, is just that transition into BAU as well, Richard, right? Yes. Yeah. Super easy in the project in a any project team for you to be in the drumbeat of this. And what we recognize is that a lot of this will only be truly embed when um leaders out in the wider business start to talk to their teams about it. So as an example, cost center owners reviewing their um uh their PL and talking, well, why is this number here? Why isn't it there? And oh yeah, because there's something on hasn't worked on multi-period accounting, somebody didn't do that. Well, okay, let me talk to them, right? Yeah, you're talking to somebody who's a leader about that mistake, asking them to improve on it, it's a much better chance that's going to embed, rather than some, if you like, random-based comms. Absolutely. So you're getting working very, very closely uh with colleagues in the wider business on that now, um as well as we get more mature. But in in our most mature area, this is still only 22 weeks old. Okay, which in some levels feels like 22 years, but in other, in other, in other ways it feels like 22 minutes, right? It's it's 22 weeks.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Wow, wow. And what's the yeah, what's that that whole journey? Because you mentioned the the 22 weeks. I mean that yes, that that that's 22 weeks from the whole point.

SPEAKER_01 23:23

22 weeks is from the end of the parallel run. Yeah. So that's from so the start of no uh two last 22 weeks since then. The front end with the parallel run was the middle of September, so about three months of last year. Um in that, probably a little longer because we said we'd switch it off after Christmas, right? Just to make the it cleaner. Um, in in that piece. So that's been the most that colleagues here in the UK have had the system since September or Parallel Run, 22 weeks since parallel run came um to an end. Our wave one introduced new sourcing tier tools essentially into my team. So big changes into my team, yeah, and changes for anybody who interacted with our team at that stage. But again, that's the minority of leagues since we went into wave two in the UK. That's the majority of colleagues who certainly got a third-party need, have had to interact with the system.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

Okay, okay. And is the now they're coming through that? Are there is the big business beginning to see the benefits? You know, how do you well, how are you measuring those? And then are they are they coming through now? Is it recognised?

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Yeah, so look, in terms of of benefits, we've we've got a uh a small variety of things that we're we're tracking. The main one are dollars, right? In terms of the financial benefits that are coming through. I'm really pleased to say that through very strongly, right? Significantly ahead of where we expected um to be at this stage, and that is because everybody, not just my team, but the white in the business as well, has been really focused on grateful for that level of focus. There is some noise on user experience in different parts of the business. I think one of the drawbacks to doing a waived approach is people go through the change curves at different times, if that if that makes sense. So it always appears you're getting not exactly the same, but similar bits of oh, this feels a bit different. Yeah, talk to me about this and and and and so on. And there are undoubtedly some things with any minimum viable product launch that of compromise that you've had to make. Yeah. And it's looking at that and working at then what the roadmap post implementation looks like to try and take some more rough edges off. Now, in the here and now we take rough edges as we can, but we can't do it all. And um it's constant um prioritization on that journey. Some of those prioritizations almost inevitably we will have got wrong as well. And it's looking at the list for the future and how we address some of those um as uh as well.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

Yeah, yeah. And and and just going back there, the the dollar savings that you're seeing, are they is that coming from is that coming from sourcing activity? Is that more is that centralized sourcing or is that process efficiency? Where how do you how do you measure those? Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

So so of course we've got um we've got different drivers that we are tracking.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

The sourcing efficiency is our biggest single um driver um of that. Uh we have process efficiency, so small example of that. Yep. Um when we started this journey, we had five separate AP teams around the globe. We are standardizing on one um AP uh team, which is led by Vera out in Lisbon. Uh and they're they're doing great guns uh at the moment on that, but we're not quite getting some of the uh level of automation that that we expected. So we're looking now. Some of my sourcing team um have been some of my category managers involved in conversations uh with some of our suppliers and looking at how we can make that more efficient, you know, as a as a small example. And then we had a level of duplicate payments in the old system, which he says touching wood. So far, we're not seeing great um in uh in the new system. So they were the the three broad areas of uh um of efficiency.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

Yeah, great, great. Ah, it's interesting. And then and then what you you you know you cut you on on this journey you're part way through. Where does it go next? What's what's on the roadmap in the in the future?

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Yeah, so look, great question. Um clearly we have to stabilize, right? We'll um be having the parallel run um in Europe uh probably into quarter four. I say probably because we haven't quite launched yet. So um we need we need to uh to do that. Uh and then it will be as we roll into next year, just ensuring that everything is still working as efficiently as we can, and understanding what we can do to improve user experience some more. So at the moment we have various catalogues and so on, but utilization of those, I think, could be better, I think could be better signposted. Um, the search functionality within the system is is pretty decent. It could be improved. So there's a whole heap of things that we could do, Richard, to you know, back to the point around friction and rough edges. Yeah. That combination of removing some of that friction, removing some of those rough edges to uh promote the overall uh user experience and drive that forward.

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Yeah, great, great, brilliant. Um Carl, that's fantastic. Thank you for taking us through that that that journey and where where you are, where you what's what's next. Um that's all great conversation. It's great, great. Um we'll always wrap up with a couple of general questions just uh for for for the audience. Um so what's the what's the one thing that procurement people should focus on more?

SPEAKER_01 28:55

Oh wow. Um that's uh uh tough question, Richard. That's why we like it. Yeah, look, I'm I I think that um it's a combination of a couple of things, actually. So one of them is really understanding what stakeholders want to see, you know, back to my earlier point, you know, the velocity to to the commercial outcome, yeah, to the risk management outcome to sustainability outcome to you know, whatever. That is always it's a nature of you know, no two stakeholders are the same, no two things that you're buying are exactly the same. They're always they're always different. And I I I think that we can we can never spend a bit too much time, but can't that is always time well spent really clarifying what a good outcome is and what people want to see, because that should be a key factor into your negotiation strategy. If you assume too much, make too many assumptions, even if they sound totally logical assumptions, you will design a strategy which has an outcome which meets what you thought the expectation was rather than what the expectation is. So it's that is that change there, which I think is is fundamentally important.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

And then the other one is just actually I think we need to be better or more than used and doing uh an analysis on world events and thinking forward three, six, nine, twelve, twenty-four months, right? The world is incredibly more volatile than it was 10 years ago, right? And that volatility has an effect, a massive in some industries, effect on supply chains. Yeah, that is the piece that really uh I think has come much, much more to the fore in the last handful of years.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

Absolutely, absolutely great, great advice, thank you. Um, and then yes, so what about for a bit of advice to someone new entering our profession?

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Well, so uh a couple of things there as well. One is really, really, you know, you can't go wrong looking at what your more experienced colleagues are doing, right? Not to say that they'll always get it right, yeah, right, but there's so much around um the architecture of a deal, yeah, which is super difficult to pick up from a book or from a remote method, a bit like we're doing today, right? Yeah. Be in the room. Be in the room, right? I learned such a lot in my early years in this procession from um how can I put it nicely, some brilliant people who were grizzled uh practitioners, uh which I probably am myself now, right? Uh than I ever learned from a book, than I ever learned in any sort of uh college-based learning experience, and frankly, than I ever would on Zoom.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Yes, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:12

That's the piece that you know, as my team, we we we did run some um some training stuff at the start of last year, and then debriefing with the guys and girls afterwards, they said, look, fundamentally we need to be more in the room on this. Absolutely, absolutely right. This is what we should be doing. We made that conscious switch to come out of more. I mean, it's not appropriate in everything, right? And then but to come out of those Zoom-based negotiations or team-based negotiations and stick them into a room. Um, because I think they have value for both parties, right? It's not just uh the person that's driving that will get the better value out of it, but you do you do that, and actually from a developmental standpoint, yeah, absolutely. It's so, so much better.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Yeah, yeah. How you it's just about how you absorb that knowledge, that absorb that experience and and take it in. Yeah, so important. Um, Carl, brilliant advice, not just for procurement people, but for for the people starting on their career in general. That's great. Um, brilliant. Cole, thank you very much. Uh incredibly Richard, thank you. Really enjoyed it. Really good. Um, and just uh just finally, where where can listeners get in get in touch with you if they'd like to take some advice?

SPEAKER_01 33:22

Yeah, sure. I mean, look, I'm on LinkedIn, drop me a note on that. And um, yeah, I'm sure um we can we can have a further conversation.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

Great, brilliant. Carl, thank you very much. Been an absolute pleasure. Cheers, Richard. Thank you. Thank you for joining us on the Procurement Initiative Leaders podcast. I really hope you enjoyed it. Looking for more procurement insights, tips, and developments from leading procurement professionals? Join our procurement initiative community on LinkedIn. Just open LinkedIn and search for the Procurement Initiative. And be sure to hit that subscribe button to never miss another episode.