Ep. 11- From Static to Strategic: The Evolution of Category Management in Modern Procurement - with Detlef Schultz

Is your procurement strategy stuck in the past? Discover how to transform category management and drive real strategic impact.

In this episode, Richard McIntosh speaks with Detlef Schultz, award-winning procurement leader and co-founder of akirolabs, about the evolution of category management. Drawing from his vast experience as former CEO and current Board Chairperson of Vodafone Procurement Company, Detlef explains how procurement can shift from cost-cutting to strategic value creation. He shares insights on using data and technology to drive dynamic, scenario-driven strategies that meet the demands of today’s business environment.


You’ll learn:

1. Why traditional category management models no longer fit the needs of modern businesses
2. How data and AI can transform procurement into a strategic powerhouse
3. The crucial role of procurement in driving value beyond cost savings
4. How to transition from static categories to dynamic, scenario-based procurement strategies

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Get in touch with Detlef Schultz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/detlef-schultz-74a6409/

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Details about akirolabs:
Website: https://akirolabs.com/
Industry: IT Services and IT Consulting
Company size: 11-50 employees
Headquarters: Berlin
Founded: 2021

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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_00 0:02

If you define procurement through cost savings only, I think you missed the boat. That's a hygiene factor, Richard. I mean, if you if you don't create savings cost reductions, cost benefits, I mean, who should? And if we're all if we're truly honest, um, with the tools we have at hand today, with artificial intelligence, with negotiation bots, etc. PP, the stakeholders could do large part of what we think we are in charge for themselves. And therefore we have to ask ourselves, what's the additional value I deliver?

SPEAKER_01 0:41

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 organizations. I'm your host, Richard McIntosh, partner at HZ, 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. Welcome everyone. I'm delighted to have on the show today Detlef Schultz. Um, Detlef is a very experienced procurement leader and board member. And we wanted to dip into that experience today and focus on category management. Uh so just by way of a short intro, um Detlef's chairman of the board and former CEO of Vodafone Procurement Company. He's recognized uh with a Procurement Leader's Lifetime Achievement Award and more recently co-founder of Akira Labs, who specialize in in digital category management. Um Detlef, uh great, great to have you on the show. Um Welcome. Uh we're going to focus on category management. Um, but before we do, it'd be great if you can just give a give the listeners a little insight to your career and and experience and particularly you know kind of where where category management has has been part of that.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Sure. So first off, I'll thank you for having me, Richard. I'm really delighted and happy I have the opportunity to talk to you. And then um, secondly, let me give you a quick recap of my career. When I say quick, it's a little difficult because after all, it's a very long career. I have to admit, I um I never actually had in mind to go into procurement because in university I focused on um sales and marketing. Yeah, but then uh through a coincidence, whilst windsurfing, I met the procurement director of Siemens and he got me on the hook for procurement. And that means that from 1985, I'm nearly afraid to say it, I have um been most of the time in procurement. Every time when I wanted out, uh I got head-hunted back in. So I started my career at Siemens, um, was with Siemens for 10 years in uh Germany, uh South Korea, and Singapore. Um lately as procurement director in a telephone um plant in Germany. Yeah, and then I moved to California where I was in the semiconductor equipment industry um with applied materials for seven years in various roles, um, followed by Vodafone, which was not a manufacturing company, but a service company in the telecommunications industry. Uh, spent five years as CPO in Newbury, Barkshire, and then moved on to Luxembourg, where we established the Vodafone Procurement Company, um, a company with um with um which was kind of independent, if I might say so, because we had our own payroll, we had our own profit and loss, and um, we were serving all operating companies within Vodafone and in addition, third-party customers. Okay. And then um, after my retirement from Vodafone, I had the privilege to stay on as uh chairman of the board, which I'm still doing, and I um went on to work as a consultant in various companies, but founded together with my friends Michael, Tim, and Christoph uh Cure Labs in 2021. And what is that focusing on? On category management, if you want to. You said um you asked where did you implement category management? And I have, um, if I recall it correctly, we first did it at the telephone plant in Germany. Yeah, that was at the beginning of the 90s.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

Now, since then, clearly a lot has changed. Um, if you think, if you to the 90s, back then there was no mobile phone. Um, we hardly had um uh computers which we could work with. So all the information we have at our fingertips today, we had to get manually together to establish category strategies, as we called them back then, but they look clearly differently than what we have today. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Great, great. I mean, hey, we um you know, category management's clearly been around a a while, you know, going back to the uh back to the 90s. Um, so I don't know, perhaps worth recapping the the business and organizational benefits just for just to provide some context to uh our discussion.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

So uh I think you said it in the beginning, we both are fans of category management. I'm um certainly convinced that that was the first strategic impact procurement had back then. Yeah, um, it was established um basically in 1983 through the Kralje matrix, where you for the first time ever had a two by two um matrix which clustered um your material into areas you have to focus on bottleneck items, uh leverage items, strategic items. And um from there onwards, it kept developing into a uh 16-field metric, so four by four, etc., etc. etc. However, um, I think the focus is still too much on cost only and leverage, um, instead of taking the entire ecosystem um into the equation, and that is the focus we have to take um on nowadays, because it is a little too traditional and not sufficient anymore, what we did in the past. Now you said what was the um benefit of the traditional category management under the given circumstances back then, Richard, because the world looked differently in the early 90s and even in the year 2000 than it does 20 years later nowadays. Yeah, yeah. I think for the first time ever, procurement started to think more strategically by knowing more about what they spent the company's money on. Yes. And that um I mean with having an understanding of the categories you're buying, uh, reaching out to the stakeholders uh you're working with, and trying to understand what is the demand of the future, who are the big players in the markets, um, are there innovative uh players in the market we could foster and nurture to a degree? Um, those kinds of things back then were super strategic. Um, if you had um a kind of transparency of what you were doing.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Yes, yeah, absolutely. Uh I mean, my uh my my experience when we we talked before was was introducing category management to to Nokia. So back in the in the 2000s. And for me, the it it was it was the first um approach which took procurement out of its own function and and really engaged with stakeholders. And and that was that was that was a revelation at the time. Absolutely. We moved away from receiving a requirement and sourcing it to actually having those peer-to-peer discussions with stakeholders. Um and that that was so, so powerful.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

I uh I think back when I started in Vodafone in 2003, so over 20 years ago. Back then, in Vodafone, we didn't have category management. The organization was supplier-oriented, yes, which means several teams were in charge of the big suppliers. I mean, we talk about suppliers like uh Nokia, as you just mentioned, and logically, those teams fought for their suppliers, yes, which not necessarily was in the interest of the company because you wanted to foster a healthy competition. Yeah, and that you only can do through a focus on category management, which we then implemented.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

Yeah, yeah. And it's um I mean, what I guess probably just talking that through. I mean, when when you made those changes, what was the you know, what what what were the bottom line benefits? Because that's the people will always say, so you know, what what what does it bring? What does category management bring to the organization?

SPEAKER_00 10:15

So the very first attempts we did when we did the organization to into categories, yeah. We co-located the category managers with the stakeholders, right? Yeah, so we had the category managers with the engineers, um, with the people in marketing, um, etc. And I'm talking the time before we all moved to Luxembourg, but that assured that A, you understood the demand requirements, um, expectations of your stakeholders, which is super important, and B that procurement got accepted by the stakeholders as somebody who doesn't want to block things, but wants to support uh the success of the stakeholders. And I think that's the key message. We're not to we're we're not here to play pulleys, we're here to create value, and then you only can do in a team effort with your stakeholders. Yeah, yeah, great, brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Um, and I I think it's you know it's fair to say that not, you know, in in many cases, category management has not yielded its its true full potential. You know, we as a consultancy, we're we're often working with clients and you know it's it's not had the impact it it it should do. Um so I guess from from your perspective, where where have you seen barriers to to that? Or where where are the issues?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

I see actually two big barriers. Barrier number one is that we got stuck in the old thinking. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

And when we say we got stuck in the old thinking, if you uh define uh procurement through cost savings only, I think you missed the boat. That's a hygiene factor, Richard. I mean, if you if you don't create savings cost reductions, cost benefits, I mean, who should? And if we're all if we're truly honest, um, with the tools we have at hand today, with artificial intelligence, with negotiation bots, etc. PP, the stakeholders could do large part of what we think we are in charge for themselves. Yeah. And therefore, we have to ask ourselves what's the additional value I deliver? Yeah. I'm truly convinced if you got stuck in the 80s and you still do what you did the last 30 years, you won't be doing it the next 30 years. I can guarantee that. Yeah. Yeah. So therefore, um, procurement has to redefine their charter, their role, um, their value they create. And the redefinition, in my opinion, comes through being a powerhouse of information, yeah. Sitting at the center, at the crossroads between external and internal information, and as such, becoming a powerhouse of information. I mean, we're sitting on a treasure of data, and if you're able to read that data, you create value nobody else has access to in the company. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that makes me excited, to be honest, because it gives, you know, there is a leap for procurement. If we do it correctly, you suddenly will be seen with completely different eyes in the company. You will be seen as a value generator.

SPEAKER_02 13:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

And I can, you know, I I can tell you when in Vodafone, when for the very first time, the CEO um included a stories from procurement in the quarterly report that made us super proud. Yeah. And that was not, oh, they saved on this antenna XYZ dollars. That's not the story.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Yep, absolutely. As you said, that that cost, you know, that costs the saving narrative, that that's just hygiene now, isn't it? That doesn't need to be talked about. That that's just that's just required. But what's really interesting there is that not just that procurement is maturing, it now can take a huge step forward, that strategic value creation role. Um, and I think the other the other point you made there about that um that amount of data, because you know, that's where you know, that's where you know category management now can move from a PowerPoint model to really to really something else, when you can tap into all of that and condense it into knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

And then, Richard, that has been done very nicely. When you look into the tactical side of the equation and into the operational side of the equation, um, there has been a lot of data mining, at least in Vodafone, we can tell in real time what purchase order had what content, why did it take longer than another one, which information was missing. Um we call it the healthy PO, etc. So, I mean, if you you had a huge impact on efficiency and also to a degree on effectiveness. Yeah, but when we talk about impact, then we have to look into the strategic side of the equation. And on the strategic side of the equation, we all have to admit we aren't that perfect. There is certainly a way to go, and there is a lot of things we can do additionally. And to the point um of the role of procurement, I see procurement uh today, but certainly more so in the future as a value chain orchestrator. Yeah, great and value chain, uh you I mean, if you think about value chain, what's the value chain? The value chain is from RD to the supply to the customer, and nowadays, even more so, the reverse supply because you have to take old material back. Yes, you want to refurbish it or reuse materials. So we talk about the 360-degree uh circle procurement nowadays is in charge for, and that's a completely different arena in which we're playing than we did 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Absolutely. Yeah, we talk about that circular value chain, and that's um, you know, that requires uh almost internal consultancy, you know, facilitation by procurement to make to make that happen. Um, and and you're right, you know, that's where if you if you boil that back to what's our category strategy, you know, that that's again that's we we come back to the need to connect those stakeholders, connect the value chain, and and then you know, drive drive that forward. So, you know, it it brings procurement right to the top of the table.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Yes, we did that in the past to a degree, but nowadays um the world became more complex. Uh, think of ESG, think about uh the circular um value chain we just talked about. Um, but also think about what was missing in the past. And in my opinion, what was missing was scenario planning. Because if we are truly honest, even though you might have had strategies in place, first of all, they were static. Once we had them in place, they might have been already obsolete because something in the world happened which makes them obsolete. And lastly, we treated everything the same, yes, which means you know, if you had one nail, you saw everywhere nails and you and you treated everything with the hammer. Well, some business units had different requirements, different expectations than others, which means we should have had different scenarios in place. For one business unit, cost is a huge issue. For another one, availability, for a third one, uh time to market, for a fourth one, ESG aspects, uh, for a fifth one, you know, diversity aspects. Whatever you take, there might be different requirements which we treated all the same. Yes. And uh through that, through the equal uh treatments we use in our category management, we kind of uh negatively impacted the subject category management because business units don't speak in categories. Yes, yeah, we do. Yes, absolutely. But we have to build the bridge between the categories and the business unit's demands, our customers' demands. At the end, it's the customer who requires what a company has to do.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Yes, yeah. And and of course, the you know, the you you mentioned it there, the the the the need for it to be dynamic. You know, the the day, the old days where you know a strategy was created uh often in isolation and put in a reviewed with the director of procurement and put in a drawer. Um now compare that to how quickly the supply market moves and now how quickly organizations move. So um, you know, the the yeah, the ability to to have a dynamic strategy now is is is so important.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

And the other thing, um, Richard, and that is why we at Akiro Labs call it Beyond Category. Um categories emerge. Yes, meanwhile. Um the the boundaries between categories become fluid. Yeah, um new categories start to exist. Um think about a machine uh machining company which is supplying uh big, let's say drilling equipment. You're not selling the machine anymore, you're selling uptime. Yes, you're selling output, you're selling runtime, you're selling electricity consumption, you're selling those kinds of things, which means a complete package.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

What category is that?

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you see it it's it's a really interesting one. I was going to ask you about that, but you know, there's some, you know, we we're in a world where there's a lot more project procurement, one-off procurements, and actually, you know, there's there's discussion of like, do we need categories anymore? You know, do organizations even need it? You know, do we, you know, we are we just becoming a project uh organization? So uh yeah, you know, the is it is it the end of old category management now?

SPEAKER_00 21:34

No, so I mean certainly not. You you and I know this. And I think your question of do we still need categories very valid? Um I would my response would be yes and no. Um yes, but different. Um yes, but more open and flexible. The opportunity to react quickly and take other expertise into the equation. Yes. So what I mean to say with that is the traditional category management, you just said it was often done in isolation, and then you sold your category strategy to the stakeholders. And it always resulted in you forgot this. We in our business units are different. That one you didn't take in account. I can't use it. Great. So you went back, re-breaked it. So therefore, what we do at Akio Labs, we provide a digital platform which allows you to include your stakeholders from the beginning and jointly create a strategy which is co-owned by your um stakeholders, and then you eliminate the entire sales process. Right, yes. Secondly, um we have the ability to build scenarios which satisfy different demands from different stakeholders and business units. Ah, okay, great. And then lastly, um you you have an opportunity to establish uh an executive summary, which then um which then gives even the executive management team the possibility to get all the information on one page. Great, great.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

And and and we come back to that that you know the the success factor of of a of a of a category strategy that if if all of the stakeholders have already bought into it by the time it's it's approved, then implementation is is super easy. Internet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and that and that's the definition of of success. Um worth picking out a do you want to give the the listeners an example, maybe one of a you know, a kind of a strategy example or a success story on traditional or on um current?

SPEAKER_00 24:11

So on the I give you two of the traditional ones, yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to remember that unfortunately you had to put a lot of effort into creating a solid strategy because much of the information is in different systems. Yeah, uh, you have to pull it all together uh out of Excel charts, PowerPoints, I don't know what else. But I give you two examples, which at least out of my time or in my time at the procurement company of Vodafone, um were nice examples. Example number one, um, in a in a business like Vudafone's business, you're buying a lot of antennas, yes, which you plug on top of the equipment out there in the field. And um though whilst those antennas um are highly complex um products, you have various suppliers who manufacture and deliver those antennas. And if you do a proper category strategy, you also you also have an understanding of the financials of the vendors. And one of these vendors, in our opinion, could not survive. Yes. And your stakeholders, of course, like that vendor because technology is great, reliability is good, everything is honky-dory. And then you come and say it's a little wobbly, so we should watch out. And basically, we predicted the vendor would uh go bankrupt, which happened, but thankfully we had um other sources in place through the collaboration with the stakeholders early enough in approving the new vendors, the new products, so that we could switch easily. Right. Our customers out there, I told you that we did third-party customers. There are operators out there in the world which use the services of the voter for procurement company, did not do that yet. Yeah. So they were out of antennas. We had antennas, and you can imagine that that was a nice opportunity to create some profit for the procurement company. Yeah, yeah. Example one. Example two. If you if you do a proper category um strategy, you also want to understand which patents are filed, where, um, what are the new products coming, um, which suppliers are delivering those, and so on and so forth. There were two vendors, and I don't I don't name them, but there were two vendors which were competing with each other, yes, providing the same products to our delight. But over time you could see that their products started to deviate. The patents they filed were for this area, and that vendor did it only for that area. So that at the end, they had their focus on specific business fields which were complementary and not competitive anymore.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

So the prediction of procurement was sooner or later, those vendors will file uh merge, yeah, or one is taking over the other. Yes, and bang, exactly that happened. And everybody said, How could you know this?

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Yeah, yeah, great example.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Which you will know. I give you a third example, and that is out of my time in the semiconductor industry. The semiconductor industry is like the fly on the ox tail. Yes, yeah. So when the demand goes down, it basically you get hammered digitally. And a lot of the vendor landscape was medium-sized vendors doing a lot of machining. Yeah, so these vendors were in severe financial difficulties, yeah, and that was foreseeable. So, in preparation to the next crisis, into which you go into a semiconductor, I wouldn't call it regularly, but from time to time, we had reached out to some larger suppliers asking them: would you be willing to expand your field of business from let's say um plastic into metal, in addition? Or would you be able to expand geographically? Or um would you be able to do takeovers? So we had an entire portfolio of smaller companies which went into uh severe difficulties, yeah, and provided that information in the first wave anonymously to vendors which were willing to expand. Yes. So what procurement did was to foster um the mergers and acquisitions in an entire industry. Yeah. That's this is what I think is value creating, Richard, because I mean, what you could lean back and say, oh, sorry, they went bust and now I have to look for somebody else. No, that's not what we did. We said, how can we rescue them? And from a point of stakeholder management, we even worked with our finance colleagues so um closely together that we sent um finance colleagues into the vendor, yeah, and they managed their finances. Yeah. That was and that gives you so much credit as procurement because at the end you saved to a degree the company. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

Absolutely. That's that is such a such a good example. And you think how how procurement is operating at that level in terms of influencing a supply market. You know, compare that to dealing with the requirement to influencing a supply market. It's a great example. Great example.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

And you know, it it makes you proud, first of all. Yeah, and um, it's really interesting to see the reactions in the beginning of your colleagues in the company because they say you're mad. Yeah. Because that's a vision. I mean, nobody would have thought about it, and you come up and say, I sell that. Yeah. And it worked out perfectly, by the way. Yeah, that's it. And also the vendors were really happy because I mean, think about it. If you go bankrupt, you lose your your personal fortune, would have gone everything. And those guys were really happy that we had them on.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Yeah, yeah. Good, just an example. Yeah, great, great examples. And also that, you know, a couple of things there that you know, we people think about the a strategy as that, as that one-off thing. You know, you work, you work on it and you've done it, and great, good job, tick the box. But then compare that to that, you know, that you know, that dynamic view, the managing of that scenario planning, you know, that requires constant information always being being assessed. So I just that's that's just such a great example.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

So on the set, I mean, on the scenario planning, this is so flexible, logically. You can use it either for various business units, you could also build what-if scenarios. Yeah, um, think of the geopolitical risks we are facing nowadays. So those could get larger if something would have happened, and that what-if you can build into a scenario and say what if country A is you know attacking country B, then this is what we will be doing. Yes, and if you present this strategy early enough to the executive uh committee, you have all your ducks in a row, if I may say so, uh, to start to get the ball rolling if the case happens. Yeah, yeah, great. Yeah. So, Richard, what I mean, I mean I think procurement is such a wonderful function, um, where you have so many opportunities to have a huge impact on the business. It's tremendous.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that was yeah, the I mean, how do you see it? You you know, you've you've got a wealth of experience. So, how how do you see procurement and procurement organizations developing in the future? Where where where do we go from here?

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Um I think I think I think there will be two groups, two big blocks of procurement uh departments, in my opinion. There will be the block of procurement which says, I did it the last 30 years this way, and I will do it the next 20 years as well. Why would anything chip? And those procurement departments will become obsolete because they will be replaced by the stakeholders. Yes. With the current tools we have in place, negotiation bots, um automatic RFQs, um, you know, tools which help you to do a statement of work, all these kinds of things. Stakeholders could do it themselves. Yes. Um and they will say if you don't do any additional value or deliver any additional value, thank you very much. You're just a cost factor, and you forgot. So this is one block of procurement which doesn't move. The other block of procurement, which does move, takes advantage of um gen AI, takes advantage of um all kinds of tools which come to the market and with that become so powerful, so impactful. Um, I'm not talking power in terms of leverage and who has what to say in a company, but the impact you will have is so tremendous that those companies will elevate um in terms of their function, those procurement departments will elevate in terms of their function, but also in terms of their role they play in the company. Yes. You know, you often hear, or let's do this. If you if you're looking how many of the CPOs are um part of the executive committee, you will see that that is the minority. Yes. And my prediction is if we do our job correctly, you become the wingman of the CEO, CFO, CTO, CPO, chief product officer, and that chief marketing officer of the entire C-suite, they will not be able to manage the strategy of the company without you. Yes, this is what it should be. And I am certain if we do our job correctly, that is when we will be.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Yeah. Great. And that's the there's always been the talk of of procurement taking taking the seat at the top table, and and there, there's the route. You know, and when we're when we're adding value, not not just savings, not just purchase order processing, but true strategic value, then that's that's the scenario.

SPEAKER_00 35:43

Richard, the first question the stakeholder is asking always, what have you done for me lately? If you say, oh, I self you I saved 12%. Thank you very much. So it is all about the stories you can tell, the the relation you build, the impact you have on the daily business, where you really helped somebody out, where you really helped to rescue a situation, where you really satisfied the customer because procurement was able to do ABC. That is the stories we need to be able to talk about. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Perfect, perfect. Brilliant. Um, Tetleft, that's great. Um, uh on the show we always ask our guests to share some of their their hard-earned experience. Um, so a couple of questions. Um what should procurement functions stop doing?

SPEAKER_00 36:47

I think I think we should stop pounding the table and expressing how important we are. I think we should stop being the policeman. Yes. Um, and I think we should stop asking for the seat at the table. What should we do? What should we be doing instead? I guess would be this next question. Yeah. Um, what should we um what I have learned in my 30 plus years in procurement is if you have a good relation to the stakeholders, you're able to run a good department. This is so important to have a good relation to the stakeholders. Yeah, and a good relation you build if you have a solid understanding of the business and the stakeholders' demand. And what we always forget is the customer. If you talk to procurement people, they hardly talk about the customer. Yeah, but it is all about the customers out there, and procurement contributes to the success, to satisfying our customers, and that is what we have to understand.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Great, brilliant. Thank you very much. That's uh wise words, and and often we've you know we have listeners who are the the CPOs of the future. Um, and that's you know, that's some great guidance for them. Um Detlev, thank you very much. Um uh that's absolutely fascinating. Um just uh just to finish up, where where can listeners get more information um uh about Akiro Labs, about category management, and of course, where where can they contact you?

SPEAKER_00 38:39

So, first of all, you can always reach me by email, which is detlef at aciroabs.com. Um, Akiro Labs has a website which you can also go into, um acirolabs.com. And um, and if you reach out to me and need information, I'm more than happy to provide you with information, talk to you, uh, share experience, uh, talk, tell you a little bit more about Akiro Labs, which I would love to do, which is the future of procurement. And in so far, I'm looking forward to hearing from you. So thank you for the opportunity being uh with you, Richard. Really appreciated that. Um, enjoyed it too, and hope we'll get together soon again.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Yeah, that was great. Deleph, thank you. Thanks for sharing, sharing your um experience, sharing a history, and um and some real and some real insight from uh from um at a board level um experience. So thank you very much. Marvelous. The best to you and your audience. 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. Thank you for listening.