Services Procurement – cutting out the waste
How service procurement professionals can leverage people, process, and technology to become business-enablers.
With Pratik Patel, Director of Category Management, Mastercard
00;05;11;13 - Reducing waste in services procurement
00;10;38;20 - Procurement as business enablers
00;16;51;27 - Driving change
00;22;34;19 - Using data and experiences when working towards a common goal
00;28;57;08 - What makes managing services categories challenging?
00;40;13;09 - The components of a truly deliverables based engagement
00;46;26;28 - Managing dependencies and gaps in technology
00;55;21;01 - Why aren't we seeing more examples of mature services spend programs?
Episode Highlights
Transcript
Auto-generated. Please excuse any minor errors.
00;00;00;05 - 00;00;09;19
Jonny Dunning
And I would like to give a very warm welcome to Pratik Patel. Joining me today on the podcast. Thank you very much for joining me. How are you?
00;00;09;22 - 00;00;11;10
Pratik Patel
I'm doing great. How about you?
00;00;11;12 - 00;00;32;20
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. Really good. Thank you. So as far as introductions go, and I've seen you talk very eloquently on other podcasts and, and at, events, etc. I can tell you a very passionate procurement professional. You got some fantastic experience which we can dive into some of these topics around. You're currently director of category management at Mastercard.
00;00;32;22 - 00;00;52;07
Jonny Dunning
Before we get started on our topics of looking at services procurement and how you can apply your principles of cutting out waste and cutting out nonsense to services procurement, would you be able to just do a little bit of an introduction on what you're doing today, and kind of what your journey has been in the procurement world so far?
00;00;52;09 - 00;01;26;08
Pratik Patel
Absolutely, Jonny. So I've been in procurement now for, 21 years. So it's it's an area that, is always changing. There's not a dull day in procurement. You engage with so many different people on so many different topics across so many different areas. When you're in procurement, you are a subject, like a jack of all trades in a sense, being that you don't have to get into a lot of depth, but you have to get into a lot of breadth.
00;01;26;10 - 00;01;50;13
Pratik Patel
When it comes to different subject matter expertise, even things such as AP paying our suppliers and the process that's involved with that, or thinking about it from a tax perspective and the impact that it has in our goods and services based on the different dynamics of tax laws and regulations that are out there. Thinking about it from a risk perspective.
00;01;50;14 - 00;02;18;06
Pratik Patel
So thinking about what regulations are out there, understanding capabilities of our suppliers, abilities to be able to meet those regulations so that they don't put us in any type of, an additional risk that impacts our brand equity. And these are not even the core aspects of what procurement is, because procurement is about procuring goods and services and getting the optimized value.
00;02;18;08 - 00;02;47;22
Pratik Patel
So, I am so fortunate that, I have an engineering background and a bit of an MBA as well that I was tapped on the shoulder. When I was a young engineer in a plant. And, you know, they asked me, would you like to consider, a job in procurement? And my mindset was more around, I was in a small town in Vermont, and I was asked to go to Cleveland, Ohio.
00;02;47;25 - 00;03;16;00
Pratik Patel
And I was like, oh, bigger city. I'm 25 years old. I can do more things. I'd be closer to my parents. Thinking in that mindset, not necessarily thinking about the job, because the job itself for me is if you show the right attitude and the right passion, it doesn't matter what you're doing. You can be the best that you can be because it's all about learning, absorbing and understanding.
00;03;16;02 - 00;03;43;11
Pratik Patel
What does it take to drive the best value in anything you're doing? So that's my that's kind of my background. And I kind of how I started in procurement. My role today as you mentioned category management. So category management for IT services, contingent staffing. I also have optimizing our contact center spend. How we look at data AI, those platforms and optimizing those from a category perspective.
00;03;43;13 - 00;04;14;25
Pratik Patel
So category to me is always about optimize spend, optimize the suppliers and be a consulting arm for the business, for the right supplier, for the right need. And then my other role is I have technology sourcing in, seven different divisions in North America. And so collectively, this helps me really having a good understanding of our strategy from a technology perspective, and not just for services, but how we leverage technology and services is just an element of that.
00;04;14;27 - 00;04;41;07
Pratik Patel
And I'm fortunate that Mastercard decided about seven years ago and we had a transformation that there needed to be strategic roles in procurement, which means that I don't have the day to day responsibilities unless I need to get involved with that. On the category side, the day to day for me on the technology side is when we hit a certain threshold of spend.
00;04;41;14 - 00;05;11;11
Pratik Patel
My team gets involved on anything that we need to deal with on the spend side. I think that's a big gap in procurement, to be honest, across the industry, is that there needs to be a true understanding of how to drive the strategy, and strategy cannot be driven if you have these other fires that you're constantly trying to put out, because you're trying to get rec’s out the door because goods have to be purchased or services have to be purchased.
00;05;11;13 - 00;05;35;22
Jonny Dunning
100% agree with you. And I think it's this kind of argument, this that's becoming less of an argument in the market now, which is good thing, which is around, you know, is technology going to make procurement people, you know, their roles redundant? Absolutely not. It should take out the transactional stuff and allow people to ascend into dealing with the strategic initiatives and to think strategically and to use data.
00;05;35;29 - 00;05;53;15
Jonny Dunning
So yeah, I'm 100% in agreement with you on that. And it's it starts at the front end and it finishes at the back end in the sense that, you know, what you were talking about, having the understanding of how, master what Mastercard's goals are as a business and how they utilize technology to achieve that and services to achieve that.
00;05;53;17 - 00;06;17;04
Jonny Dunning
That, I think, is one of the real keys in the sense that sophisticated procurement teams that are starting to emerge now, they are very closely aligned to the business goals. And I was I was speaking to some of the procurement team at Lego recently, a really, really nice group of people. And, and one of the interesting things that one of the great points I thought they put across was that, you know, is it about cost?
00;06;17;04 - 00;06;42;01
Jonny Dunning
Is it about risk? Is it about this is about that. And one of the, one of the senior procurement people that just said, look, it's about driving business value and it's and it's in alignment to those goals. And all that sort of, you know, strategic element to it. So, yeah, I completely agree. I think that's something that the for a lot of people that their businesses maybe don't recognize that or there aren't the opportunities to operate in that way, would you say?
00;06;42;03 - 00;07;15;08
Pratik Patel
Yeah I think so. And I love it comes down time. We we only have so much bandwidth available. And if people don't have the ability to really harness those relationships and instead have to focus on getting, certain transactions completed and becoming more transaction minded, then it's impossible to really expect them to be able to drive optimization when they're constantly being pulled in so many different directions.
00;07;15;10 - 00;07;42;27
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. We'll come on onto it later. But certainly some of the some of the stuff I've heard you talk about in terms of managing statement of work engagements, for example, very relevant to that in the sense that, you know, it's something that I see all the time where a procurement professional can just be tied down with this kind of semi manual task of dealing with lots and lots of statement of work engagements that are going through and trying to get their arms around it and trying to satisfy the stakeholders, and it puts them in a very difficult position.
00;07;43;02 - 00;08;05;22
Jonny Dunning
And also, I think when you look at the level of talent, that organizations, forward thinking organizations who recognize the importance of procurement are trying to bring in to their teams where they've got more strategic capabilities that got those kind of like the multi skills, like you were talking about having that breadth of capability to liaise with different departments, consider different factors, different business drivers.
00;08;05;25 - 00;08;26;27
Jonny Dunning
If you bring people into an environment that is not up to scratch where, you know, it's it's a semi manual environment or there's a lot of transactional stuff that people are doing where they're effectively wasting their time. They're not working effectively. Those bright sparks that in their own life are working super effectively in a very streamlined it's going to be difficult to attract them into procurement.
00;08;26;29 - 00;08;30;22
Jonny Dunning
So I think it's an important factor.
00;08;30;24 - 00;09;03;19
Pratik Patel
Yeah. And Jonny I think we'll talk more about this, during this discussion as well. And it gets down to waste. And how can you truly tackle waste if you're constantly being pulled in a lot of different directions? And trying to just keep the business running? Whereas if you have more of a strategy role, then it's almost an expectation in my mind that you need to be able to reduce waste, where you can influence it to be reduced and in procurement.
00;09;03;21 - 00;09;30;17
Pratik Patel
To me, that's around the three parameters that I always think about when I talk to think about service level. Right. Because when you're talking about service level, with your suppliers and what you expect from your suppliers, it's not just what you expect from your suppliers, it's what you expect as part of the full end to end ecosystem for the services that we require and how it impacts every functional area within that.
00;09;30;19 - 00;09;59;04
Pratik Patel
And it's time there's a time element to it. So speed. And so how can we get faster. Because if we can improve the speed then we can probably improve the layers that exist today that's bogging us down, that we cannot get what we need to get done faster. Right. It has a cost element to it. The cost element is, is related to really the total cost of ownership of that service.
00;09;59;06 - 00;10;26;07
Pratik Patel
And so what are those different components that make up that cost. It's not just the supplier, but it's also our internal operations that we need to be able to support to. And then there's the quality element to it. The quality element to me is about productivity and efficiency as well. And so you want to be able to do things faster without necessarily more resources.
00;10;26;07 - 00;10;38;18
Pratik Patel
And you also want to be able. So that's the productivity element. And then you also want to be able to drive more efficiency which is doing more with less as well. But so yeah go ahead.
00;10;38;20 - 00;11;09;17
Jonny Dunning
You know just going to say what you're what you're really describing there is business enablement. So you're you're really you know, that's where procurement are really enabling the business and enabling the stakeholders to buy, whether it's goods or services, you know, faster, easier, safer, you know, in a compliant route that makes their life easier, probably makes the suppliers life easier and better as well, and works with the business, which is it just makes so much sense.
00;11;09;19 - 00;11;32;07
Jonny Dunning
It just makes complete business sense. But I would say that it possibly more in the, in the minority than the majority of what I see in here in the market at this particular point. And I do still feel that compared to some other business functions, procurement is maybe a younger function, and it's still kind of evolving and coming to prominence.
00;11;32;14 - 00;11;51;05
Jonny Dunning
And as that's definitely accelerated and is accelerating, I think. But do you think in your experience with your peers and your network, do you think that procurement is able to act as that business enablement function or regarded as a business enabler as much as perhaps it should be?
00;11;51;07 - 00;12;28;13
Pratik Patel
Yeah. So I think that gets into, because I'm a person of threes. So I'm always going to share with you three perspectives. Right. So one perspective is about and I hate to kind of dwell on this, but bandwidth is an issue because even if you have category management and that's your only responsibility if you have not build, level of maturity around a category and you have multiple categories that you're responsible for, you're still being pulled in all these different directions.
00;12;28;16 - 00;12;51;16
Pratik Patel
And so that then becomes a challenge to truly understand your customers, understand the suppliers. One of the things that like if I can briefly share and then we'll get to the other two points as well. But one of the things if I could briefly share is that we were not like any other company when I first came into my role.
00;12;51;19 - 00;13;25;20
Pratik Patel
Right, right. First I came into my role because I asked the company to give me the hardest area that they felt needed to be improved, give me the most greenfield, because there were areas of opportunity across almost all categories. When I came into Mastercard and, and I see why they gave me what they gave me because from a supplier relationship standpoint, suppliers were engaged when transactions needed to be executed, not in terms of a cadence that we had with the supplier.
00;13;25;25 - 00;14;09;13
Pratik Patel
So we can truly understand capabilities from a business standpoint, the business was more of that subject matter expert when it came to supplier capability than procurement was. And if that was the case, which was the case for us, then when there's new suppliers that the business wanted to work with, it was difficult for procurement to be able to push back and really share why these suppliers, the why do you want to work with this new supplier when we have these existing suppliers that have similar capabilities, and it doesn't necessarily have to be the ones that maybe procurement was pushing before because of a cost component.
00;14;09;15 - 00;14;33;04
Pratik Patel
Right? When you lead with cost, you've already lost the fight. In my mind in that discussion, because you've lost credibility. With the business, you don't lead with cost. I always talk about better, faster, cheaper, cheaper being the third element. Right. So, I just wanted to kind of share that in that we were at kind of a ground zero maturity.
00;14;33;07 - 00;15;08;04
Pratik Patel
You know, just like a lot of other companies were when we first, when we first started. The second thing that I would share is that I think procurement professionals today there there is so much pressure that they face, from like executives in terms of different corporate initiatives that it kind of takes the focus away from being able to drive optimization, like, for example, there could be working capital initiatives, and you got to go work on that, right?
00;15;08;07 - 00;15;37;07
Pratik Patel
There could be sustainability components. There could be rationalization like these individual components that actually collectively, can be addressed if you have the right strategy to really try to optimize. So I think the pressure to kind of meet certain corporate objectives and kind of focused on that versus holistically thinking about how they fit into the overall category strategy.
00;15;37;09 - 00;16;07;18
Pratik Patel
So I think that's number two. You know, that I've seen at least in my engagements with my peers. And number three is just the relationship. I think it's such a daunting task. People have to understand it takes years. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes years to build the relationship with the business and with the suppliers to where you do become that trusted advisor.
00;16;07;20 - 00;16;37;26
Pratik Patel
And, I think because it's such an uphill, I guess, challenge to be able to do that, that, and people maybe have ambitions, right? They want to continue to grow. So they start to make some small improvements or initiatives, and then that helps them to get new roles. So there isn't that continuity within the category as well, to be able to truly drive that optimization.
00;16;37;26 - 00;16;51;25
Pratik Patel
So I think those are the three components that, I think are challenging my peers that I have, at least in my engagements with them, that, I think makes it tougher to drive towards that optimization. What do you think?
00;16;51;27 - 00;17;12;00
Jonny Dunning
I agree with you. And I think, you know, when you, when you talk about those factors, you know, those factors require both executive support within the business and they require somebody who's not scared to try and make change happen. And I think that's a really interesting factor that I'm starting to see more and more in procurement, talking to people like yourself.
00;17;12;02 - 00;17;31;06
Jonny Dunning
I'm, you know, I'm imagining it was probably you had some great support in, you know, in, in some positions of, of, of real senior authority in this journey. But I'm also imagining there was certain walls you had to break down and you had the motivation and you had to have the motivation to do that. Otherwise it wouldn't necessarily have happened.
00;17;31;09 - 00;18;03;11
Jonny Dunning
Seeing more procurement change makers coming to the fore, recognizing the opportunity for themselves, but also their businesses recognizing what they can deliver, when they can put the business case together and say, trust me, I'll deliver the results, you know, put the let me put this pressure on myself and I'll show you what can be done. Do you think those two factors, in terms of you, the kind of the drive for you to make the change and also the exact kind of support were they factors for you being in that journey?
00;18;03;14 - 00;18;34;14
Pratik Patel
Yeah, I think so. But I think ultimately leading with lean, lean principles was the driving factor because probably two months in that probably it was two months after I started in my role, I did a value stream mapping, because I saw that we had a lot of different pain points that were occurring when it came to services, how long it was taking us to execute, the level of change request that were also happening.
00;18;34;17 - 00;18;51;23
Pratik Patel
The, the lack of data that we truly had visibility to because everything was embedded into our SOWs as well. There were so many different problems. I think we captured about 45 pain points during the value stream mapping exercise that we.
00;18;51;23 - 00;18;53;12
Jonny Dunning
Did right.
00;18;53;14 - 00;19;22;13
Pratik Patel
As well. So, collectively, because we, we locked down, about 15 different stakeholders across the world, you know, that were involved in this exercise, from the business, from our, back end, support from a what we call a global business service center, resources, sourcing, procurement resources, as well as HR in some, functional areas that were supporting procurement too.
00;19;22;16 - 00;19;46;08
Pratik Patel
So all of those people, we locked them down in a room for four days. We addressed them. We looked at all of our pain points. We mapped out the current state. We had built a future state. We rallied all of the different people that had invested resources into this exercise to be a part of a cadence that we could then give them updates as the output of this exercise.
00;19;46;08 - 00;20;19;22
Pratik Patel
So we led with understand where the waste was, and that made it, I think, much easier to get the buy in and support. And then probably within, maybe about five months. So, so two months in, we did this value stream mapping. Maybe three months later, we built our expectations of a partner, which was collectively based on all of this input and really understanding the business pain points, the supplier pain points, building.
00;20;19;25 - 00;20;42;27
Pratik Patel
What do we expect of our suppliers kind of putting a stake in the ground in a sense, around right talent. What is right talent in what is right capability? What is right partner mean? And then also we had an element of just right location because we just wanted to understand within an hour's drive of Mastercard, where our suppliers were, it wasn't something we necessarily support, but it's something you need to just understand.
00;20;43;00 - 00;21;12;18
Pratik Patel
So I'm proud to say that we built the we built this in 2018. Right. And we haven't deviated at all. So seven years later it's still the same expectations. There are expectations that I built based on my some of my life experiences from other categories that I've managed. I've managed MRO, travel, fleet, real estate, areas of direct, indirect and in other areas as well.
00;21;12;20 - 00;21;44;21
Pratik Patel
And so from those collective experiences, we built these expectations knowing that some of those expectations were going to take years. Some of them we still haven't fully been able to capitalize on, but it's building that up so that we know as a supplier, are you willing to accept these, yes or no? We just need to know because once they say yes, now there's a willingness on their part to truly want to capitalize on the value that that expectation can bring collectively for us.
00;21;44;24 - 00;22;13;25
Pratik Patel
And when the business sees those expectations being captured, as part of how we look at our RFP is how we look at our scoring of our RFP is now it's become a part of our DNA. And so that's the foundation is being able to kind of set those expectations, being disciplined to continue to, evolve those expectations but not change them because it's not a soup of the day.
00;22;13;27 - 00;22;34;17
Pratik Patel
It's about what we expect of our suppliers. And I think that's what lends to the success successes that we have and what drives us to continue to drive. We have a three year technology roadmap, but it comes to the category and what we want to be able to do. And part of that is the continuing evolution of these expectations too.
00;22;34;19 - 00;22;57;02
Jonny Dunning
Yeah, it's really interesting when you're getting suppliers to understand that and to commit to the long term and, kind of trust the process. That's when you're into the the really sensible long term stuff that's ultimately we'll come on to data in a bit, but that's ultimately going to mean you've got the best data you can possibly have, and you build those relationships and everyone's working towards a common goal.
00;22;57;05 - 00;23;17;14
Jonny Dunning
Which is an I from for me, as a, you know, when we interact with our customers, you know, when that relationship's there, it's so obvious when it's done correctly and you're working, you know, harnessing in partnership together. It's just it's a great thing and it's and it's brilliant to be involved with from a supplier perspective. And then it's enhancing the experience for the customer.
00;23;17;21 - 00;23;36;04
Jonny Dunning
But just just two things I wanted to kind of pick up on briefly. Oh, one, one thing first, which was you mentioned about lean principles. So I know you have an engineering background. But also I know you, we were talking earlier. I know you have been, you are very, well-traveled. You've been to a lot of different places.
00;23;36;04 - 00;23;59;20
Jonny Dunning
You've seen how different countries and different cultures and different places and different types of organizations and types of people do things. I know you've done a lot of negotiating in different, different countries as well. Just talk to me a little bit about that in terms of how that background experience that you brought from the engineering side and your wider view of how the world works in this area.
00;23;59;27 - 00;24;04;15
Jonny Dunning
How did that how is that all kind of come together with this, with this stuff?
00;24;04;17 - 00;24;25;28
Pratik Patel
Yeah. So I think when you think about the engineering side, engineers is just about learning to solve problems. I solve problems. And and so that's what you learn when you go to college. And really it doesn't matter if it's engineering or any major that you have. You're learning how to solve problems, which is fundamental to any business to in terms of skill set.
00;24;26;01 - 00;24;54;06
Pratik Patel
So breaking it down, breaking it down into its smallest components. Right. That's what I've learned from my engineering background. But at the same time, from a lean perspective, lean gives you a process to be able to solve the problems, which is great step by step. You go through this process and it's amazing how it can help to uncover things that you might not think about.
00;24;54;06 - 00;25;20;28
Pratik Patel
If you just try to go about and say, I have this problem, how do I go solve it now? But then instead breaking it down like the value stream mapping breaks it down the expectations. I mean, we actually have 38 expectations, if you can believe it, around right talent, right capability, right partner. Just those areas, each and every one of those addresses a problem.
00;25;21;00 - 00;26;00;23
Pratik Patel
And so then breaking each one down. And how does that then relate to how we can drive better faster cheaper. Because that gets a little overwhelming. If you look at 38 different expectations and be like, oh my God, how are we going to meet all of these? But if you can understand how they're interrelated, if you can understand, then, how you can kind of position it so that both the supplier and the business holistically have an understanding of how these expectations collectively will help to drive optimized value for us.
00;26;00;25 - 00;26;27;01
Pratik Patel
And being able to articulate that, telling the story. So lean. Also from a from a like my world travels in a sense, I've had the opportunity to introduce lean to, many of our Chinese suppliers in my previous companies before, and I just love it how they embraced it and how they created departments around lean to them.
00;26;27;04 - 00;27;07;06
Pratik Patel
And then when we're having discussions, when we're visiting them and we're talking about the value that we need, we're centering it around where the waste is breaking down cost in terms of value added, non value added. Like that's where it truly becomes powerful because now you're enabling lean to drive innovation as well for you as well. And so being able to understand the maturity of where different suppliers are all across the world and then being able to see that evolve is pretty exciting, right?
00;27;07;09 - 00;27;34;11
Pratik Patel
And then also understanding the dynamics of their culture, like, like lean really started in Japan. You know, and, and you know, I, I had lots of Japanese suppliers as well. And, it's, it's interesting how, you know, there is this hierarchical kind of, decision making that takes place as part of, you know, old school Japanese management.
00;27;34;11 - 00;28;02;04
Pratik Patel
I hope it's changed over time. Lean hopefully has caused it to change that they truly embrace it. But, how when you're engaging, you're not engaging with that decision maker. When you're face to face, they're, they're they're in the meeting, but they're, they're in the background like that. And then there are also, in a sense, students that are also participating in the meeting that are just taking notes and observing as well.
00;28;02;07 - 00;28;21;24
Pratik Patel
Right. Where that understanding and appreciation and knowing where decision makers are, how do you resonate with those decision makers is very powerful. And the dynamics of how to do that in different cultures.
00;28;21;27 - 00;28;47;20
Pratik Patel
It's not a one size fits all. Yeah, as well. But the center point of all of that is lean. Lean doesn't change. The principles of lean are the same across the world. It doesn't matter what culture it is, where you are in the world, the principles stay the same, but how you communicate with them to tell the story, that's where it's different.
00;28;47;20 - 00;28;57;05
Pratik Patel
So those are kind of a summary of, I guess, how engineering has impacted me, how lean has impacted me, and really understanding cultures across the world.
00;28;57;08 - 00;29;24;05
Jonny Dunning
Yeah, it's really interesting. And I think you know, you you said when you came into Mastercard, you said, give me that. Give me the give me the tough one. What's the one that nobody else wants to tackle? So obviously tech services, I'm assuming that was what you were referring to in terms of that area. You mentioned, you know, the way that suppliers engage, typically, if it's when you came in, it was there was no real cadence to it.
00;29;24;08 - 00;29;49;21
Jonny Dunning
And you have you've obviously taken a very methodical approach. And, and I, I hear that I hear similar, kind of sentiments from people across the procurement world when they're talking about how sometimes it's difficult to get procurement professionals to stick with service based categories, particularly technical kind of services, where it's there are other categories that are easier.
00;29;49;24 - 00;30;08;08
Jonny Dunning
So it's not for everybody and it's a more thorny problem to solve. But I think it it kind of, to a certain extent ties into what I was saying to you before we start the recording around how I oversee services, procurement is the biggest thing in procurement. That kind of isn't really a thing. And it all depends how you look at the procurement.
00;30;08;08 - 00;30;23;08
Jonny Dunning
Well, to break it down, but with regards to those, the categories that you were addressing around tech services, what is it about them that you think makes them particularly challenging?
00;30;23;10 - 00;31;00;17
Pratik Patel
Well, I think it's the word. First of all, when you say tech services, because anything that you do, from an IT perspective that involves labor, whether it's touching your code or not touching your code, whether it's supporting your you're live applications from a business applications or from an infrastructure standpoint, all can encompass that. You know, and so, first of all, when people talk about tech services inside Mastercard, I always delineated in terms of touching code in our environment.
00;31;00;20 - 00;31;29;08
Pratik Patel
So anybody that's touching code in our environment, anybody that is supporting live applications, whether it's business operations, whether it's technology infrastructure or it's supporting the work around software development. So what we call TPMs, technical program management, PMT is product management technical. It's those roles that support that software development. But they're not necessarily touching the code as well.
00;31;29;11 - 00;31;58;24
Pratik Patel
So that delineation helps then to have that focus around how you drive that optimization. And I always say tech services is the doing component, not the thinking component. Because when you talk about services, you also have a delineation around consulting, thinking and doing, which is actual kind of keeping the lights on. It's it's it's it's it's progressing.
00;31;58;24 - 00;32;22;14
Pratik Patel
The company by actually, doing activities that are then ultimately revenue generating, not just the thinking activities. So that's, that's an element that, anybody that has that role, you have to clearly delineate. Otherwise you get pulled in so many different components that are under tech services.
00;32;22;16 - 00;32;44;10
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. And I think when you look at the procurement of services in general, I always regard it as the basically the extended capacity and capability of that organization, to be able to get things done. You know, there's intellectual property, like you're talking about consulting and things like that, and there's and there's effort and expertise that goes into it.
00;32;44;12 - 00;33;06;00
Jonny Dunning
But ultimately, I know you. I know you, manage contingent workforce categories and things like that as well. You know, there are different ways to get work done. You've got your your, your teams, your your permanent employees. You've got contingent workforce contractors, temps. There's you know, there's all kinds of, clever ways to utilize people, on other time based mechanism gig workers and things like that.
00;33;06;06 - 00;33;27;29
Jonny Dunning
And then you've got outsourcing, you know, to a supplier to deliver on an output or deliverable basis. But it's all about the organization being able to function effectively, get what it needs to do done, be competitive in the market, give its clients a great service and all that sort of thing. So I think sometimes people can kind of lose sight of that in a sense.
00;33;28;02 - 00;33;44;26
Jonny Dunning
And that's and that's kind of it brings me back round to the data side of it, which I remember chatting to a CEO once and him saying to me, Jonny the most important say, one of the biggest questions I want answered, on a day to day basis, I need to know what's the most effective use of our resources.
00;33;44;28 - 00;34;14;02
Jonny Dunning
And that is all resources, all the capacity and capability of that organization. And when you look at the services supply chain, particularly in a, you know, tech industry, like you're in yourself, where finance, tech, the use of external services service providers and that expertise, that IP, that capacity is critical. And I always think to myself that, you know, it's it's the complexity of it that can lead to the lack of data, but it's also the nature of services.
00;34;14;02 - 00;34;35;00
Jonny Dunning
As you said before, you get lots of change requests because things are kind of buried in the SOW but, but it's also quite difficult for people to define the requirements as effectively in the first place, but ultimately, if they if they're not digitally captured, if they're just in a document, then that's never going to transition down the line as a as the services delivered.
00;34;35;02 - 00;34;43;25
Jonny Dunning
I've gone off a bit on a bit of a rant there, but, you know, I do think that the fundamental problem with this area, I don't know whether you agree.
00;34;43;28 - 00;35;16;26
Pratik Patel
Yeah, I totally agree, Jonny So, I think if I had to do this again, because we all should reflect on kind of how we do things and how we could do things better. I think what I would have done more effectively upfront is clearly defining the delineation between time and material and deliverable based engagements, because I was just like everyone else in procurement when I came in.
00;35;16;26 - 00;35;54;12
Pratik Patel
I was naive when I took services on and I was thinking, oh, we need to be able to drive more accountability and responsibility on the supplier. We need to have more deliverable based engagements. And how do we build the maturity around the business so that we can drive more of that? Right. I was naive to think that, but if I had to do this again, I think I would probably have tried to build what is the pillars of how we define deliverable based versus time and material, because you mentioned a lot of key things there.
00;35;54;12 - 00;36;33;01
Pratik Patel
That to me are all different components of what makes up your overall category strategy. Right. If I can, I'll summarize a few of the things that you've shared, and then I'll talk about these four components that make up a deliverable base. So first thing is, you know, I just talked about like tech services and what is tech services, but you also talked about the different means of how you can facilitate the need for tech services, even like we talked about, you know, a contingent staffing, SOW, independent contractors, there's all these different mechanisms to be able to do that.
00;36;33;03 - 00;37;07;22
Pratik Patel
To me, that's a delineation in itself. Contingent staffing. How do you define contingent staffing versus how do you define SOW right. And that's something that if I and I only had the tech services for the first year and a half of my when I came into Mastercard, then I got contingent staffing. So I was in this mindset of just thinking SOW not contingent staffing, but after getting contingent staffing, it still took a couple of years before we truly had the level of delineation of how we think about it.
00;37;07;25 - 00;37;30;13
Pratik Patel
Because now how we think about it is three things that truly define an SOW minimize the handholding, be an enabler, a problem solving, leveraging your services, your ecosystem, the suppliers ecosystem, and b a future teller That's what we expect from our suppliers because they have a governance and cadence that happens with the business where a contingent staffing is a vendor client program.
00;37;30;15 - 00;37;59;03
Pratik Patel
Yeah, it's all about the talent, right. That's that clear delineation. But then there's another layers to this. There's the layers as it relates to the data element. For the data element. It's about normalization and standardization. There are so many different job titles that can mean the same thing. And every time you change that job title, it's an opportunity to potentially have a deviation in cost.
00;37;59;06 - 00;38;00;14
Pratik Patel
Yeah.
00;38;00;16 - 00;38;02;09
Jonny Dunning
That means the same thing.
00;38;02;11 - 00;38;31;05
Pratik Patel
So, the naive part of me or the the future self of me would probably tell my like when I was doing this, five, six years ago that it's so important upfront to have a clear understanding of what your job titles are and the job descriptions, and ensuring that they are competency based as well. For those different skill sets that are required.
00;38;31;07 - 00;39;00;12
Pratik Patel
Because when I came in, it was old school as well. In terms of years of experience, you know, meaning certain job levels. But the title itself was different. For example, senior software engineer could be the same thing as a senior programmer. Senior developer. Right. You know, there's a lot of different variations of what a software engineer is in itself.
00;39;00;15 - 00;39;29;16
Pratik Patel
And we had hundreds, hundreds of different deviations that took place. And that made it super hard to really grab your hand around it unless you were able to centralize it all in one system, where you're kind of level setting again, because there's one system in the beginning is a procure to pay system. Yeah. You know, so in our procure to pay system, it's not it's embedded in SOW
00;39;29;19 - 00;39;50;22
Pratik Patel
They don't have the ability in the procure to pay system to capture the metadata associated with job title, the job role and rate to be able to capture separately. That's where a VMS comes in. A vendor managed system. And so centralizing in a managed system was a great opportunity to be able to level set or a reset in a sense.
00;39;50;24 - 00;40;13;06
Pratik Patel
Right. And then all those different pain points that we had discussed back, when we, when I first started bringing those back in and seeing where we can drive standardization and normalization, around those different pain points of why does legal need to be involved and then a time and material engagement, you know, versus deliverable based.
00;40;13;09 - 00;40;22;11
Pratik Patel
So then that gets into the definition of deliverable versus time and material. So if I can I'd like to share with you the four things that make up a truly deliverable based engagement.
00;40;22;17 - 00;40;25;14
Jonny Dunning
Definitely looking forward to this.
00;40;25;17 - 00;40;44;29
Pratik Patel
So number one, and I've said as many times in other podcasts, so it might be a broken record for anybody that's listened to me in the past. But number one is the five Ws in the one H, the who, what, where, when and why and the how. It's clearly defining the deliverable because if you can't define it, you're going to create waste.
00;40;45;06 - 00;41;05;28
Pratik Patel
And the waste is ambiguity that's going to exist in how the business is interpreting it, how the supplier's interpreting it. And when there is an accountability of like, okay, deliverable was completed, the supplier is going to say, hey, I completed what we said we were going to do, and the business is going to say, no, you didn't. We didn't get exactly what we needed to get done.
00;41;06;04 - 00;41;28;04
Pratik Patel
Like, okay, well, if that's what you want, then there's a change request and we can make that happen. Right. So that's number one. It's a five Ws in the one H Number two. This is another part of my naiveness when it came to deliverable based. So you got to have an understanding of what your business is can control with the suppliers on the deliverable.
00;41;28;11 - 00;41;40;23
Pratik Patel
Yeah. And that has a component of dependency because there could be dependencies that are there that prevent the supplier from completing that deliverable.
00;41;40;25 - 00;42;00;15
Jonny Dunning
So they could be internal ones. They could be internal ones. That's right. And of course you there. But that's a fantastic point. It could be internal ones like within your organization. The stakeholder wasn't able to turn to the meeting. Somebody was ill, something didn't get delivered or something wasn't worked out. And it's that's it's critical.
00;42;00;17 - 00;42;23;15
Pratik Patel
Yes. And in an agile world it's going to be there. It's a fast fail mentality. You have you have story points, feature points that you're, that you're executing on towards, product requirements. Well, it's a product requirement. It's going to go to production as part of going to production. You might have to have corporate security approval. You might have to have an architecture review.
00;42;23;18 - 00;42;57;17
Pratik Patel
You might have to have data privacy review. These are things that are outside of that individual program and now need to be prioritized from a bandwidth perspective as well. And so naive of me to think that, hey, we could drive a deliverable based engagement, for development work when a lot of our development work is also cross-functional. If, I mean, like like it's, it's a, it's a combination of our internal people and our suppliers as well, because we don't want that legacy knowledge to all exist with the suppliers.
00;42;57;17 - 00;43;19;08
Pratik Patel
Part of that is an element of that part of it is like the TPM, the person that's kind of managing that, that development team and and the work that they need to get done have multiple sprints that they're working on, multiple teams that they're supporting, the PMT that's giving you those technical requirements. That's not always on the supplier side either.
00;43;19;13 - 00;43;42;00
Pratik Patel
So they're actually dependent on us when it comes to the complexity of the feature points that we're managing to. So there's a lot of things from a control standpoint that is not in that supplier control. And that's deliverable based becomes a challenge. Number three is if you can manage the dependencies, you can give the control to the supplier.
00;43;42;03 - 00;44;20;24
Pratik Patel
Now you got to hold them accountable from a performance standpoint. And that gets to an element of the time cost and productivity efficiency like we talked about. And being able to clearly outline that. And I'll be honest, we're still on our maturity curve. And being able to do that. Part of that has to do with technology, because I need the technology to be there, that can put the discipline that allows for the business to be guided in a sense, so that there's consistency in how we think about those metrics, because what gets measured gets done.
00;44;20;26 - 00;44;48;15
Pratik Patel
But in order to be able to get those measurements and also less is more as well. We don't need a lot of different metrics. We need the ones that are going to really drive that behaviour change in both us and the supplier to be able to collectively drive the optimization. And number four, and this is the one that I saw consistently, being why I call a lot of our deliverables fake deliverables.
00;44;48;15 - 00;44;58;11
Pratik Patel
Our suppliers know that. Our businesses know that when I use that term fake deliverable, because the trigger for payment is monthly invoices that come in.
00;44;58;14 - 00;45;03;03
Jonny Dunning
Yeah, I agree with you on that 100%.
00;45;03;06 - 00;45;26;10
Pratik Patel
So if it's truly deliverable based services have not been, is it by coincidence, miraculously, that every single month the deliverable is completed at the exact same time? Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think that it's it actually happens that often, and I think it is truly a more capacity based engagement that is camouflage under a deliverable based engagement.
00;45;26;13 - 00;45;50;18
Pratik Patel
So that's why the far majority of our engagements today, our time and material and what we've done is we've built the system and the process is so that we have full visibility to all of these time and material engagements. We've normalized, we've standardized our job roles and our job levels, our rates. We have a way to be able to manage any deviation off of our rate card because we're not naive.
00;45;50;22 - 00;46;10;11
Pratik Patel
Supply demand changes all the time for different tech stacks, and we might have to pay a premium. And when we pay a premium, we want to just ensure that we have a proper level of approval that takes place, in which case, you know, we're involved in anything more than 5% across the world that has a deviation in the rate card.
00;46;10;14 - 00;46;26;26
Pratik Patel
We're involved. If it's less than five, we we have the business to make that decision. But that allows us to minimize the outliers as well in our rate card. And the less variability that you have, the better optimization you have in your program.
00;46;26;28 - 00;46;48;11
Jonny Dunning
Yeah, I mean that that's that's pretty mature. That's it. I'll come on to a bit more on on that point in a bit. But one, one thing I just wanted to, to kind of come back to on that was when you talked about managing the dependencies and, and, and that delegated responsibility to the supplier. A measuring those metrics and keeping them simple and keeping them standardized.
00;46;48;14 - 00;47;12;02
Jonny Dunning
You mentioned about sometimes the technology is a barrier to in terms is the gap. What's the gap there? What's the gap there? Is it just is it capturing the assessment of outputs? Is it capturing the outputs in the first place? Is it is it the difference between the different types of projects, or is it more like qualitative indicators that aren't captured?
00;47;12;02 - 00;47;18;04
Jonny Dunning
Well, what are the what are the things that are kind of where you see that gap from a technology sampling?
00;47;18;07 - 00;47;22;08
Pratik Patel
I think that's a big question. So if it's okay, I'm going to share three points of view on this. Right.
00;47;22;08 - 00;47;24;12
Jonny Dunning
That sounds good.
00;47;24;15 - 00;47;50;20
Pratik Patel
Number one on the technology side is that provider of the technology in this case the VMS, the VMS. And I've and I told our VMS this as well. So they know. Right. As it relates to they the VMS built their VMS systems based on contingent staffing. Yeah. And then they made it fit with that SOW right.
00;47;50;27 - 00;48;16;19
Pratik Patel
And they're evolving the piece. But how they've evolved the piece on deliverable based still has a ways to go. So so there are gaps when it comes to the metadata that you need to be able to capture for deliverable based and as a part of that, metadata also needs to be what are the dependencies outlining those dependencies.
00;48;16;25 - 00;48;39;29
Pratik Patel
The level of risk low, medium, high that could exist with that dependency, which would then potentially trigger either a mitigating measure of how we're going to manage that dependency, or could put the put an element. We have to we can't be naive about this. A change request might be needed. Yeah, because those dependencies were clearly outlined as part of the risk upfront.
00;48;40;01 - 00;49;16;25
Pratik Patel
Right. But there is absolutely no VMS that I've seen that does a good job of, of of really building out and capturing dependencies intentionally as a part of that deliverable based SOW. That's one component we another component is the sourcing. It's procurement and it's procurement maturity. As it relates to how to truly execute deliverable based engagements and guiding the business appropriately.
00;49;16;28 - 00;49;39;28
Pratik Patel
But I have to take a top down approach on that, though. I have to start with the technology and what my limitations are on the technology. Yeah. Before we can guide and coach and build training around how procurement can help to support that, execute, because then once we built that understanding and that training for procurement, now we can have a standardized process.
00;49;40;03 - 00;50;12;23
Pratik Patel
So now new deliverables that are being executed are around the elements that we can extract that metadata that then we can apply in the technology. When we migrate to the technology to be used for deliverable based engagement, we have intentionally not gone to the VMS and using the VMS on services procurement for deliverable based, because I think any company that does that upfront with time and material will fail if you don't have the right maturity built in amid because, oh, this is garbage in, garbage out.
00;50;12;25 - 00;50;14;20
Pratik Patel
You're just taking the garbage.
00;50;14;22 - 00;50;43;09
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. So it's a really interesting point. I think this my my personal view of the market is that services procurement is big enough and complicated enough. When you look at this kind of like deliverable deliverables based, it's it's complex and large enough to really require a dedicated approach. And, and the VMS are actually pretty mature now, but they're super slick, solving the problems around those time materials based engagements, contingent workforce.
00;50;43;09 - 00;51;09;03
Jonny Dunning
And that ties into things like freelancer management, direct sourcing, even gig work because it's people and time and they are absolutely the pass masters on it. I do think the deliverable side of it is an, what I would kind of regard in some ways as true SOW that, that specific type, as you say, the delineation is very important, that type of services procurement, you know, it's big and complex enough to to require problem solving exercise on its own.
00;51;09;05 - 00;51;22;25
Jonny Dunning
But as you say, if you don't have the technology in place that doesn't allow you to implement the process and the methodology that would then filter down, so then then that affects, as you say, the procurement side of it, the sourcing side of it.
00;51;22;28 - 00;51;53;24
Pratik Patel
Yeah. Because it's about always right. People process technology. Yeah. So we talked about the technology component up front with the VMS and the technology that they have. We talked about the process component. When we talk about it from a procurement standpoint and the training and the discipline to follow a process, and truly ensuring the that the engagement is deliverable based and the right service level metrics are put into place and consistency in those service level metrics as well.
00;51;53;26 - 00;52;16;23
Pratik Patel
Like like from a time perspective, what are the components that make up time like I want I envision having a drop down right for different levels, and maybe there's a low, medium high complexity as it relates to that drop down. And then every it doesn't matter what that performance metric is. There are three components that need to be a part of every performance metric.
00;52;16;25 - 00;52;39;00
Pratik Patel
It's what's your goal? What's your goal rate that you have. And this is part of the cadence. So you have what's your goal? Where are you today to where your goal is at that point in time? Right. And then based on where you are today, where do you anticipate you will be at the end? Are you still going to be able to meet the goal?
00;52;39;00 - 00;53;04;09
Pratik Patel
Are you not going to be able to meet the goal? That element has to be captured, I think as a part of that, VMS too, because it's a it's a it's a consistent kind of, evaluation of that deliverable because you're trying to have no surprises, mitigate risk as well. So this is the maturity that the VMS needs to have that I talk with my VMS about.
00;53;04;16 - 00;53;37;15
Pratik Patel
And they're they're very supportive. You know, of like being able they recognize these are gaps. And when these nuggets are addressed that's when we can truly get the value from a deliverable based engagement. But the last piece is people. And people is the business too. So it's the business also understood that, hey, I truly do not have a deliverable based engagement here, and I need to go down the time and material route now.
00;53;37;18 - 00;53;57;11
Pratik Patel
But it doesn't mean that I can't have deliverable based in the future. I just need to be able to manage the dependencies that control. I need to be able to understand, what type of performance metrics. And that's where procurement needs to guide that. And that's the maturity level that we need to build so that we can guide that business around it.
00;53;57;14 - 00;54;12;25
Pratik Patel
Because in many cases, in a transactional component, it's just like it's there is a part of the asset, but it's either very high level or it doesn't articulate really, the bright behaviors to drive the value that we're looking for.
00;54;12;27 - 00;54;36;20
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. Yeah. All of those are really critical points. I think, you know, the point you're making on the technology side, I think this is where you start to see, sometimes a different approach to doing it and different types of technology coming through, that are addressing these problems, because ultimately, solving the contingent workforce problem is a is a although it's a mature market, it's a continual, continually evolving problem as well.
00;54;36;20 - 00;54;57;08
Jonny Dunning
So the VMS do have that on their plate in terms of trying to keep up with that and how those things change. And I think services procurement is starting to see more now, dedicated systems that are just specifically looking at, you know, output based, deliverables based stuff as well. But if you don't have the process and you don't have the people on board, you know, none of it hangs together.
00;54;57;10 - 00;55;19;01
Jonny Dunning
So, so in terms of that, that kind of spend management journey that you've been through, Mastercard and obviously still, still a working on now, I don't really come across that many people with a story like yours where it's at this level of maturity and even, you know, you say yourself, you know, it's still work in progress is still improvements happening.
00;55;19;03 - 00;55;20;28
Pratik Patel
We have a three year roadmap, right?
00;55;21;01 - 00;55;42;28
Jonny Dunning
So so one of the questions I have is why are there in my experience, so few people with a story like this is it the they're not out there. They're not enabled in the same way. They're not taking the same approach. Or is it just that they're not talking about it? What what's your view on that?
00;55;43;00 - 00;56;11;29
Pratik Patel
So I am proactively trying to reach out, and anybody that sees this podcast and believes they have a level of maturity, I would love to engage with them because I want to continue to learn, continue to optimize. I'm not finding a lot of people, actually, I'm not finding many at all out there. And part of this, I wonder, is you are the sum of your life experience.
00;56;11;29 - 00;56;45;11
Pratik Patel
This and we are all the sum of our life experiences. I feel very fortunate, in terms of how I came into procurement, the the mentor that I had in procurement as well, who was my manager, who allowed me to really, in the beginning, truly understand how important messaging is, truly understand, what he always called total value, probably used it more than he needed to use it, but it kind of was embedded right.
00;56;45;11 - 00;57;12;12
Pratik Patel
That term and what it, what it meant, you know, even like all of these different engagements, when I was, with suppliers overseas, even simple things like note taking and how we would capture certain elements of those notes and drive accountability from that and how we would ensure a different stakeholders had an understanding of those different parts, that level of discipline.
00;57;12;14 - 00;57;39;22
Pratik Patel
You know, I don't know if everybody has that level of discipline, exposure. I'm a huge believer in negotiations as well. So, I have been, brainwashed by [unclear]. I've been brainwashed by AT Kearney and the chess board that the purchasing chessboard, where there are 64 levers that are available based on where the buyer influence and the seller influences.
00;57;39;24 - 00;57;42;06
Pratik Patel
And only one of those levers is RFP.
00;57;42;06 - 00;57;44;07
Jonny Dunning
RFI right.
00;57;44;09 - 00;58;20;17
Pratik Patel
Right. And so thinking about that element. So like we were all in some of our life experiences and I you know, I'm a huge believer of lean. So all of these different components and bringing them all together and then we haven't talked about this yet. I'm assuming we will. But if you don't mind, I'll talk about data and AI and how and how that is going to be a game changer when it comes to guiding the businesses, educating the businesses, enhancing sourcing maturity as well.
00;58;20;20 - 00;58;43;24
Pratik Patel
Because we're a global organization, I deal with people all across the world in our sourcing organization as well, and we're like any other company when it comes to bandwidth. You know, they they don't have a lot of bandwidth because they have to do so many different transactions across so many different categories. There's not many people doing that across the world.
00;58;43;27 - 00;59;20;00
Pratik Patel
And so giving them the tools that enable them to engage with the chat bot, for example, that helps guide them. So I mean, I am absolutely just am a sponge when it comes to Copilots studio, but not copilot, but copilot studio, which is the ability to be able to further customize your data set and then be able to prompt from that data set and, get the output that the businesses need from that.
00;59;20;02 - 00;59;41;04
Pratik Patel
It is amazing what you can do. We are drinking from a fire hose when it comes to how much knowledge we're gaining in terms of being able to leverage this technology right now, so that we can initially have the right supplier for the right need and guide the business around that. But I want to guide also around is this truly deliverable based.
00;59;41;11 - 01;00;08;25
Pratik Patel
And if you want to make it deliverable based, these are the things that you need. And then once you provide those things, I want to be able to feed that into a procure to pay system that will automatically capture it as part of a draft of that statement of work template. Like this is the level of maturity that we can get to with what we can do with AI and the data that we already have established.
01;00;08;28 - 01;00;27;12
Pratik Patel
I knew I didn't know what that was going to be, what that technology was, but I knew we needed to build standardization, normalization, and we needed to minimize variability of our data over time. And that's what we did with what we built on the time and material side. And that's what we will do on the deliverable side ultimately.
01;00;27;12 - 01;00;46;12
Pratik Patel
But this maturity level has to be there. And so I hope that kind of gives a little bit of understanding of, I think, the challenges of why maybe others are not at that level of maturity when they have to embrace technology and want to understand what the technology can bring to, they have to have a process where the data exist.
01;00;46;12 - 01;01;09;13
Pratik Patel
That is good data, not garbage in, garbage out. And then three is the relationships they have to invest in the time and the relationships with the business and with the suppliers, so that there's there's an understanding of each other's pain points and be that conduit between the business and the supplier that enables the value to come out.
01;01;09;16 - 01;01;40;26
Jonny Dunning
And ultimately, if they can do that, the rewards are that, you know, it's services are now, according to Kearney 50% of organizational spend on average globally across all industries, you know, 20 trillion or whatever it is, it's and, you know, just being able to I firmly believe that it won't be that long before at the point that organizations don't have a program like you have, and you'll continuous improvement in your program.
01;01;40;28 - 01;02;05;05
Jonny Dunning
Organizations that are not doing that are going to find it more difficult to compete because they are not going to be able to leverage that broader, flexible capacity and capability so effectively. And change just happens so fast these days. You mentioned, you know, utilization of AI and the importance of data. I mean, for me personally, in my personal life, I use I use AI, you know, five, ten times a day.
01;02;05;07 - 01;02;26;17
Jonny Dunning
I, you know, by use of Google has massively reduced because I'm doing things in other ways and I'm researching also saying personal things, work related things. It's a tool. And, and, I think it's less now. This is all happened very quickly, but initially there was definitely some talk, particularly within, that I've noticed within procurement about people worrying that AI was going to take their jobs.
01;02;26;17 - 01;02;52;23
Jonny Dunning
But it's like more like, you know, people who use AI effectively are going to take your job. But, I know another thing that that you've mentioned before, is important to you is about that whole kind of paying it forward. And I just really appreciate this kind of conversation, and I'm sure other people will really appreciate it as well, because it's it's getting stuff out there, taking the time to air these views and have this discussion.
01;02;52;23 - 01;03;10;16
Jonny Dunning
And, you know, you know, you talk about it being on a being a journey. It's not like you saying, I'm at the end of the journey and I'm just here with my feet up. It's continuous, talk, talk to me a little bit more about about that kind of philosophy, because I think that that is one of the biggest enablers in the procurement sector.
01;03;10;17 - 01;03;19;21
Jonny Dunning
Procurement function really is people coming forward and sharing views that I feel it needs to happen more.
01;03;19;24 - 01;03;50;04
Pratik Patel
Yeah. So I think there's a selfish component and a selfless component of this, right? The selfish component is if we have more and more procurement groups that are managing their processes in the way that we're managing our processes with our supply base, it becomes less of an education with our suppliers that we don't have to spend as much time educating that, because in many cases, I hear our suppliers saying, well, nobody has approached us this way or, you know, we don't do this, but 30.
01;03;50;04 - 01;04;15;01
Pratik Patel
But I'm like, oh, that frustrates me, right? Because, because, you know, like there's, there's a, there's a startup company that I'm working with that we're doing, kind of using AI from a supplier assessment standpoint because like these processes that we've built now, when I have suppliers that have changes in their account management, it's like I'm starting back at ground zero with them again.
01;04;15;04 - 01;04;33;24
Pratik Patel
So the paying it forward is okay. More and more people having an understanding of the value, will make it more efficient for us to work with our suppliers to let's all, you know, what is what is the old term, all rides or all tides raise oceans.
01;04;33;28 - 01;04;35;01
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. Yeah.
01;04;35;03 - 01;05;05;22
Pratik Patel
Right. So let's all work together to drive towards that optimization. And I'm very open minded and I'm always open to new thoughts, new ways of how we can do this. So part of paying it forward is the selfish component of those who teach learn as well. I don't know if you've ever heard of that term. I always tell my kids just, yeah, when it comes to like, you know, in school and when somebody else is struggling, go reach out, teach them what you know, because you're going to learn in that process.
01;05;05;24 - 01;05;13;24
Jonny Dunning
It's like, that's what martial arts absolutely applies. And things like that where you you've got to really know it and you learn it by teaching 100% agree.
01;05;13;26 - 01;06;02;29
Pratik Patel
So that's the selfish component. The selfless component is this is my profession and I love my profession. I feel like there's so much more opportunity in this profession for us to be strategic enablers. And if I can inspire people, you know, and help them in their journey, that helps ultimately raise this profession, then I've left a legacy in a sense, too, that, will hopefully cause people to want to continue to drive towards the optimization and the value that I know we can achieve.
01;06;03;02 - 01;06;32;09
Pratik Patel
And there's so much more procurement can do. And by investing this small amount of time, if that can help to drive that, then that makes me happy. And 20 plus years in a profession. Everybody should be wanting to do as a part of the next stage in their career, is to help raise the profession.
01;06;32;12 - 01;06;58;19
Jonny Dunning
That I totally agree. I think it's a really exciting and inspirational message. And I think just just the information that you're sharing through these types of conversations, the way you put your points across the examples you use, it's a, it's a fantastic for all the other people to, to tap into that. And I know I found it when I've, when I've run round tables at conferences and things like that where people are hungry for information.
01;06;58;21 - 01;07;18;05
Jonny Dunning
And, and with this sort of stuff, you know, people don't necessarily need to be cagey about it. And it's share the wealth and, and like you say, rising tide, benefiting everybody. So, yeah, I really appreciate everything you do going out in the market and talking about this stuff. And I really appreciate you taking the time to, to come and have a chat to me about it.
01;07;18;08 - 01;07;38;17
Jonny Dunning
It's been brilliant. I've really enjoyed the insights and, yeah, I think, it's exciting now because there's already so much has been achieved in what you're doing, and there's still more. And then you get things like the growth of the opportunity within AI it's just it just gets more and more exciting. But but you've got the enablers in place to be able to utilize all of that.
01;07;38;19 - 01;07;57;14
Jonny Dunning
So that's where I think the future's really, really exciting for the procurement profession. And, and in these particular areas where it is more greenfield, you know, if you look at some categories and areas around just goods and materials, there's a lot of problem solving that's been done. And, you know, you have that you have that kind of Amazon style experience with services.
01;07;57;16 - 01;08;13;16
Jonny Dunning
That's a way off. But that's that's what we should all be driving for is it should be easy, safe, and fast to do what you need to do and support your business. And, I think it's a great, inspirational message for people. So. Yeah. Really, really appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
01;08;13;19 - 01;08;23;07
Pratik Patel
Jonny. I can't thank you enough for having this platform for the for the conversation that we had, the questions that you're asking. I hope we're able to inspire the people on this.
01;08;23;09 - 01;08;25;07
Jonny Dunning
It's brilliant. Thank you so much.
01;08;25;09 - 01;08;25;21
Pratik Patel
Thanks.