Services Procurement – Understanding The Mix
Total workforce decisions are being made with incomplete insight into services, suppliers and delivery models. Improving visibility across services procurement is critical to managing risk, controlling spend and supporting long-term workforce planning.
With Brian Salkowski, President, eTeam
06:18 - 13:40 - Using AI to get work done
19:26 - 24:45 - Minimising risk and maintaining accountability
25:09 - 30:04 - Aligning strategy with outputs
31:40 - 36:49 - Outcome and effort is not a binary switch
43:56 - 49:01 - Thinking Strategically
Episode Highlights
Transcript
Auto-generated. Please excuse any minor errors.
00;00;00;04 - 00;00;20;27
Jonny Dunning
Excellent. Okay, so I'm very pleased to welcome Brian Salkowski, who is the president at eTeam, to join me on the podcast today to talk about statement of work, services procurement, the professional services angle within the workforce, delivery ecosystem and all things connected to that. Brian, thank you very much for joining me. How are you doing?
00;00;20;29 - 00;00;25;18
Brian Salkowski
I'm doing fantastic. And thanks for having me on. I'm excited for the conversation.
00;00;25;20 - 00;00;56;13
Jonny Dunning
Excellent stuff. So we're going to be looking at kind of understanding the mix, the different, areas that are relevant to this kind of services procurement market. But before we get into that, you've had, a really interesting journey and built up some fantastic expertise and experience from a provider point of view. Would you just be able to give a little bit of background, on your journey through the industry and also, you know, New Year and new change what you're doing now?
00;00;56;16 - 00;01;44;07
Brian Salkowski
Yeah. Thanks, John. I appreciate it. So, yeah, for for those, not familiar Brian Salkowski It pains me to admit, but a 30 year industry veteran, at this point, and I've, I've had a fun journey along the way. So in terms of services procurement specifically, my first exposure was actually on the technology side, early, early, 2000, with VMS looking to solve for primarily what I would call financial settlement for services, leveraging, leveraging of VMS and moving from that into the MSP sphere, where I could not only were trying to facilitate it through through a VMS or through a technology, but to provide a practice and consultation around
00;01;44;07 - 00;02;16;20
Brian Salkowski
it to ensure better buying, optimize buying. So visibility plus strategy coming together to to do that. And in fact, built our first services procurement MSP practice back in 2009. So and the way we did so was actually direct partnering with the customer, procurement, they lent us people from their team and we locked ourselves in a room to talk about what are the pain points, what can be solved through technology, where do they need additional resources?
00;02;16;22 - 00;02;51;10
Brian Salkowski
Where is there the benefit of, insight from external, experts beyond their internal experts within this? And, we built a practice that was very, very successful and, over, a 15 year period, that practice evolved from that first client who was our, willing guinea pig. I shouldn't use that term. Our partner in, in experimentation to, the fastest growing part of our our managed services business over the last, 3 to 5 years.
00;02;51;10 - 00;03;21;24
Brian Salkowski
And then fast forward to today, as you mentioned, I just started a new journey with, the new year as president of eTeam. For those not familiar with our comprehensive workforce solutions provider, that has the capability globally to support, the entire ecosystem from, employer of record and, and independent contractors to, staff augmentation and of course, comprehensive project solutions for, for our customers.
00;03;22;01 - 00;03;32;13
Brian Salkowski
And so now, I have the, the joy of, working with our customers to deliver the services, not just help them scope the services.
00;03;32;15 - 00;03;55;24
Jonny Dunning
Yeah, that's super interesting. I love it that there's always a an element of circularity with these journeys. When you've been involved with an industry for the period of time that you have and as you say, having covered the technology side of it, the service setting up that that service offering within an intermediary service provider, and obviously then dealing with all of your customer problems when it comes to managing this spend.
00;03;55;26 - 00;04;14;07
Jonny Dunning
And now within that, that Workforce Solutions ecosystem, being able to provide the services, as a, as a different way of, of the organization engaging with, with you guys to get work done. So I think is super, super interesting and ultimately all of this is about getting work done, isn't it? It's about productivity.
00;04;14;10 - 00;04;26;10
Brian Salkowski
Right? So different flavors. But, the outcome is all about how do we execute a client strategy and provide them the right talent, resources and expertise to get it done.
00;04;26;13 - 00;04;50;24
Jonny Dunning
And I think sometimes that gets a little bit overcomplicated. And and when people look at the workforce solutions ecosystem and the providers, they can tend to kind of pigeonhole providers sometimes, whereas ultimately the organization is engaging with, a service provider or an intermediary who, who's providing them expertise on getting work done effectively. Is that extended capacity and capability
00;04;50;26 - 00;04;55;29
Jonny Dunning
And it has to cover, ultimately, they need to be thinking about all of these angles.
00;04;56;01 - 00;05;24;08
Brian Salkowski
Yeah, I agree with you completely. It's, there's not a singular approach that is all encompassing. And so, the detail, the details matter. What what are we trying to accomplish? Does the expertise reside in house or out of house or combination, which is probably the most likely scenario? Am I looking for, expertise or a partner who can do this for me?
00;05;24;08 - 00;05;49;01
Brian Salkowski
And, and manage to, an end game? Or do I need help because we're just resource, resource strapped or, do I need someone that has expertise that exists outside of our current domain and needs to come in and and provide, support that that we just don't have in in-house and in reality, going back to it's not single very often.
00;05;49;01 - 00;06;18;19
Brian Salkowski
It's all of the above. And so it's about working with, the right people, partners and technology providers to understand what the possibilities start with the requirements. What are we trying to get done? But, ultimately scope out the the avenues that are available that results in the best possible outcome first based on the deliverable or the work that's being accomplished, but then also considering timeline, also considering cost, also considering reputation and compliance and risk.
00;06;18;21 - 00;06;42;27
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. It's so interesting. I was at a, a white paper launch in London recently, at the House of Commons, where it was, it was all about looking at the impact of AI on the workforce is really, really interesting. And it was it was addressing AI is almost like this digital workforce, which is augmenting all the different other workforce channels that there are.
00;06;43;00 - 00;07;06;01
Jonny Dunning
But one of the things I found fascinating about it was that it was it seemed to it was kind of raising questions about things like, okay, if you just focused on paying people for their time, what difference does AI make to that, in the sense that if Jonny is doing a piece of work that that takes him five days, but by utilizing AI takes him three days, you know what?
00;07;06;03 - 00;07;33;26
Jonny Dunning
What what's the focus? What's the correct focus? Is it time or is it output and actually it was this is it was joining other factors that are definitely, expanding the use of output based or outcome based contractual agreements to deliver the actual work that that organization needs to do. And I'm sure that must be something that the span of your career, how how have you seen that kind of change, that approach to like outputs?
00;07;33;28 - 00;08;04;23
Brian Salkowski
Yeah. So I love the question. And I wish I was, part of that conversation because it sounds like, just a really compelling topic. And I don't actually think it's that future focused. The idea and shame on me for not saying this earlier, but as we talk about those project solutions and teams and how it can be executed between internal talent independent solution provider staff augmentation, you have to add to the list AI agents.
00;08;04;25 - 00;08;43;10
Brian Salkowski
That is absolutely part of how work gets done already today. And even more so it's going to change exponentially over, over the years ahead. So going back to, to to your question to say, you know, the evolution to output, the addition of AI agents, which allow for at least today, transactional and administrative work to be done very effectively and efficiently and in turn, allowing your talent to focus on higher level and more complex challenges and solutions.
00;08;43;13 - 00;09;24;27
Brian Salkowski
Is just, is is just the first iteration of, Well, I shouldn't say that. Let me rephrase that. It is it is the continuation of a long trend towards towards output. And it doesn't mean that we never manage effort. I've talked about this in, in other conferences that I've been at, but I really see the, the pandemic as the accelerator there, because if we think about, and you'll forgive me for opining here, but, if we think about the historic workforce where you had a manager in direct line of sight, literal, direct line of sight, managing an individual and their work output and and and the, the execution of whatever
00;09;25;02 - 00;09;47;20
Brian Salkowski
their task or assignment was. Now all of a sudden, that person is, not in office. They're or they're in their home or 100 miles away. They're 2000 miles away, etc.. And that work relationship is changed. They're not in line of sight. We're not managing it that way. The most effective way is to look at the results, to look at the output, to look at the outcomes, associated with that.
00;09;47;28 - 00;10;12;00
Brian Salkowski
And although the services procurement, marketplace was always larger than the staff augmentation, it's growing at a pace that IT staff augmentation has stagnated for three years now, whereas services procurement has shown continuous growth. And it's not it's not by happenstance. And now you take the addition of AI agents in here that allow for that output. Right.
00;10;12;00 - 00;10;33;26
Brian Salkowski
So now this project is five days. It's now three days in your example. But the work's getting done. And that individual's focused on higher value outcomes presumably better work product. Associated with that. That is game changing. So to me this is a long trend. But we have we just poured it an accelerant onto the fire and we're going to see it.
00;10;33;29 - 00;10;37;16
Brian Salkowski
We're going to see it continue at a quicker pace.
00;10;37;18 - 00;10;59;19
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. Pretty interesting when exactly when you talk about, Covid being one of the catalysts for that. I really agree with you on that. And I also think just the the level of volatility and uncertainty and the speed of change that there is in the market, it just means that organizations need to be more flexible with their capacity and capability.
00;10;59;21 - 00;11;25;16
Jonny Dunning
And having that, having the external opportunities to flex and be agile around that are just becoming more and more critical. And the ability to work to specific objectives can often be a real differentiator in how pragmatic and effective that organization is, rather than in maybe, slightly, should we say possibly easier times when just having a bunch of people working on stuff was perfectly?
00;11;25;17 - 00;11;52;07
Jonny Dunning
Was was more acceptable? That that could be kind of like a slightly open ended the pressure on organizations to deliver and compete and to do it at a faster right in a more uncertain environment has never been higher, I would argue, than it is now. And it has grown from that kind of pandemic situation together with that whole kind of change of work scenario that you so, nicely described.
00;11;52;09 - 00;12;05;27
Jonny Dunning
I think a lot of these factors were combined just to make this much more of a topic of conversation, rather than something that people kind of theorize about this stuff that they're either rapidly, rapidly putting in place or they're scrambling to make sure they're on top of.
00;12;05;29 - 00;12;33;00
Brian Salkowski
Yeah, yeah, it's so we're we're agreeing on a lot today, Jonny, which is which is fun. And, as you described that, that, that, that old world scenario, it was, it was very linear. Linear, right. One person there, work output, etc.. That dynamic is changing and that puts new, requirements in terms of what the commercial model is and how we structure this work.
00;12;33;02 - 00;13;06;08
Brian Salkowski
I'll tell you what I think though, hasn't changed. Although it very much lends itself to this environment is the need for a level of assurance. So if I'm, if I'm, if I'm in charge of a large, project and that old scenario we talked about, that assurance was on me in that line of sight management, managing their their effort and output now is we're partnering here and you're introducing AI agents, that project owner, that partner, etc. you're relying on them for that level of assurance.
00;13;06;08 - 00;13;28;26
Brian Salkowski
And there's a great value in that. Right. So major project, impactful to business organization reputation. How do we structure this and manage all of these work channels to ensure not only is the output there, but there's a level of confidence associated with it and an accountability. And am I willing to pay for that? Of course I am.
00;13;28;28 - 00;13;40;07
Brian Salkowski
It's part of the reason I think we're seeing this trend accelerate is because, there's greater partner assurance than in the old pure staff augmentation, mindset.
00;13;40;09 - 00;14;06;24
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. It must be super interesting from your vantage point where you've been effectively providing, you know, so that kind of MSP, service provider angle to help organizations look after their services, procurement spend, getting to see all the dirty laundry. You're getting to see all of the problems that happen, why relationships break down, why suppliers don't do the right things when they're delivering their services to their clients.
00;14;07;01 - 00;14;41;02
Jonny Dunning
And all of the all of the reasons that, you know, contractually or from the kind of relationship monitoring or performance monitoring point of view, why those sort of things fall down. That must be quite interesting to be able to apply that in terms of delivering the services into those customers yourselves. Eating how have you what do you think you can kind of take from the kind of two angles that you've seen around this services procurement or statement of work driven world, where you've been helping people manage all the chaos that they have internally versus now you're on the on that.
00;14;41;02 - 00;14;45;15
Jonny Dunning
Also on that provider side, there must be some good lessons you can take on that.
00;14;45;17 - 00;15;14;10
Brian Salkowski
Yeah. Great question. So I, I always think that, the stories are ultimately what sell. Right. It's how we relate it back to how do you find out what's possible. Will you listen and you learn what of others have done. So, I've spent a lot of time with customers over the last, 15 years, and I've seen, both, as you might expect, the best and the worst, of of what's out there.
00;15;14;10 - 00;15;39;20
Brian Salkowski
And so it's taking those experiences and relating them back to, current customers and future customers as, as it relates to where there are opportunities and or potential, gaps in their business. And by the way, the gaps are just opportunities that, that haven't been fully identified yet. So, by, by examples as I just talk about, yeah, storytelling.
00;15;39;22 - 00;16;04;06
Brian Salkowski
I can think about a customer I spent a good amount of time with, in the last six months and director of IT transformation and they're talking about, how they are engaging project services and it's react. It's absolutely reactive. And the quote that came out was, I will say, if you can solve my problems, I will gladly pay you.
00;16;04;09 - 00;16;34;00
Brian Salkowski
It was just an open statement. It's it is worth it. And, and what we started doing is actually taking a look at, at how they were, were buying. And, in some situations it was really good. I already said this, so forgive the repetition, but in most circumstances it was reactive. And so by actually taking a look at their statements of work and digging down into to the detail, I could identify a number of trends.
00;16;34;03 - 00;17;00;29
Brian Salkowski
The first thing is it's never all bad. There were some really good well sourced work. There was some that, was, I would say at best puzzling because there was no detail associated with it. You had no idea what was being done and why. But as we work through it, you could come up with a number of different large buckets in terms of how they approach the work.
00;17;01;01 - 00;17;28;16
Brian Salkowski
There were there were strategic partner engagements, that were well vetted. They were well competed. The requirements were clear as structured, and there was governance around it and technology to support it, etc. there were mid-sized projects supporting the major ones that, were a mixed bag. And then there's a long tail in the long tail from, from a commercial value was relatively, small.
00;17;28;17 - 00;17;53;07
Brian Salkowski
But there was a lot of them. Right, on an individual basis. And so if I look at that scenario, it wasn't a single solution. It was working with them to think about, okay, how, based on the value to the organization and where the projects stack in terms of materiality, ensuring that the right processes, and support was in place for each, right.
00;17;53;07 - 00;18;11;03
Brian Salkowski
So that long tail, they needed technology and they need a way to help them efficiently manage it. They didn't need sourcing help. They didn't need category. They didn't need the right benchmarks and intelligence because it didn't have that same that same thing. They need a lot of that in that middle bucket to help help them do so.
00;18;11;03 - 00;18;42;22
Brian Salkowski
And then they had another tier that actually had great governance around it. And and they didn't need that same support. So, your question was, how do you relate that back now to customers today as a provider? I said starts with a requirement. Where are they trying to do a they're looking to quickly, solve a pain today or is there a strategic project that we need to, to invest in to, understand those requirements, scope it together, discuss the art of the possible, and I can think about a proposal that that we're working on right now.
00;18;42;29 - 00;19;17;06
Brian Salkowski
And, they they asked for solution A and we will provide them solution A but as we've spent time with them digging out the requirements, we're also offering them solution B and C that they didn't ask for because we took the time to scope understand the field to play and how we can execute for them. So both in terms of being able to relate that to customers, but then feeding it back into our own proposal response, I think there's great value in a client in, in that for a client.
00;19;17;06 - 00;19;26;11
Brian Salkowski
So you were thinking you were thinking this one route that's got value. But did you consider, that there may be additional options available to you?
00;19;26;14 - 00;19;42;29
Jonny Dunning
Yeah, that's a great point. And I think, you know, one of the things you spoke about when you were talking about more the kind of MSP service procurement management offering, scoping is a big problem for lots a huge problem. Organizations like you say, you can get these confusing things with this kind of nothing. Nothing.
00;19;43;01 - 00;19;47;09
Brian Salkowski
Yeah. It's puzzling. What did we buy and what are we actually paying for it? Yeah, yeah.
00;19;47;11 - 00;20;09;29
Jonny Dunning
And obviously projects change over time as well. So just having that clear communication around what's promised and what's delivered at any point in time, it's such a benefit for the both the the buying organization and the service provider, because otherwise also the service providers can get really messed around in terms of just being hold on, hold over the coals and stuff that is not there.
00;20;10;01 - 00;20;20;21
Jonny Dunning
The issue is not down to them. So it's, it's, it's it's helping to build these relationships by starting with a clear identification of, of exactly what everybody's kind of committing to.
00;20;20;23 - 00;20;52;25
Brian Salkowski
Yeah. And accountabilities and as you talk and this came up in the scenario I just described, with that client as we start digging through it. You're right, supplier, it's easy to, to blame the provider. Right. And they do tend to get raked over the coals, but, a lot of that does go back to exactly what you're describing, the detail, around the scope and the understanding of accountabilities, because the clients do have accountabilities to and, and and there are, there's a waterfall.
00;20;52;28 - 00;21;19;02
Brian Salkowski
Right. The supplier cannot move forward if they don't get sign off on requirements from the client upfront. Right. So if that date moves, then the suppliers date moves, etc.. And so, it's not just about kind of building a quality statement of work or project governance that defines what the supplier is. Accountabilities are. It's also the customers accountabilities and the governance by which they, they manage through those.
00;21;19;05 - 00;21;39;03
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. And it must be, must be really interesting. Also, from your point of view, looking at how organizations approach the the kind of decision around how to get the work done in terms of the options. So if you guys a as a provider, there's various ways that you could fulfill work that they need to do. With, with obviously one key area being this kind of project services approach.
00;21;39;05 - 00;22;01;19
Jonny Dunning
And it comes back to something you mentioned earlier, which was around liability. And in terms of the responsibility for the delivery of the work rather than just people in place doing work. That's something that I think sometimes organizations or buyers can take a knee jerk reaction to think it's more expensive to do it that way, but it's like, well, I would always play devil's advocate and say, well, how can prove it?
00;22;01;22 - 00;22;13;29
Jonny Dunning
You know, how how do you know how long it's going to take if you just hiring people and put them in a room all the clear objectives, you know, where you're actually going with it, what's what and where does the end point. So I would that would be my devil's advocate on it. Because.
00;22;14;01 - 00;22;15;24
Brian Salkowski
What happens if it goes wrong.
00;22;15;27 - 00;22;48;26
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So so the so the the the the understanding, the acceptance of the cost benefit ratio taking into account that, you know, moving that liability to the supplier in terms of the delivery risk, that makes a big difference to the organization. And that's where, as we were talking earlier about the different kind of work delivery channels, that's where the C-suite and the executives of the organization and that kind of workforce planning layer need to be able to look at all of their available options and say, what's the best way?
00;22;49;00 - 00;22;56;26
Jonny Dunning
And you say, starting with the work, what's the best way to get this done? I it's great to see more organizations really latching onto that now.
00;22;56;29 - 00;23;25;19
Brian Salkowski
In that as part of that, that trend that we talk about and what's, what's I think an important call out here, as you were speaking, is that that assurance, that risk transference from from buyer to supplier at a premium? I think it's easiest to identify when there is a firm deliverable. But so many of the engagements are time and material based.
00;23;25;21 - 00;23;46;06
Brian Salkowski
Which is, which is. Okay. But there's still, if properly scoped, there still can be accountabilities. Right. So what is it? So it's maybe T&M. But what's the project management associated with that? Are there certain service levels, that, the supplier is making as it relates to those resources that they're billing for on a time and material basis?
00;23;46;09 - 00;24;11;06
Brian Salkowski
Do they have any accountability for the quality of the work output that their, their teams are delivering? So, it's, I often hear about it as it relates to deliverables based or milestone based, statements of work, but it's not limited to it. And we come back to exactly where we were five, ten minutes ago talking about the importance of proper scoping and requirements gathering.
00;24;11;08 - 00;24;33;22
Jonny Dunning
Yeah, exactly. And ultimately, what are the deliverables? They could be anything. They could be, KPIs in ongoing service delivery. Yeah, they could be could be blocks of consulting time, as you say ten and effectively, you know, resource. They could be, you know, sprints in an agile process. It could be a pure project deliverables. It's very flexible.
00;24;33;29 - 00;24;38;25
Jonny Dunning
But the whole point is you defining what the outputs are going to be, whatever they might be.
00;24;38;25 - 00;24;39;14
Brian Salkowski
That's right.
00;24;39;18 - 00;25;09;10
Jonny Dunning
You're allowing that to change and you're putting assurance and governance around it and clearance applications with it. When when you look at how companies think and I still feel like there's, there's a legacy set of organizations in the market that struggle to think beyond time and materials just in terms of normal, kind of like employees and contractors, even and maybe that's a bit of a disconnect with the procurement teams in some cases, where they will obviously be buying services and their I.T services and professional services, etc..
00;25;09;12 - 00;25;28;03
Jonny Dunning
But where you've seen companies move more or be open to this idea, this concept of thinking more in terms of outputs as an option, what do you think is it that that allows those companies to do that? How do you think more companies could kind of be open to that, kind of, that, that opportunity? Yeah.
00;25;28;03 - 00;26;09;03
Brian Salkowski
I think it's ultimately aligning with how they get work done internally. Yeah. So, if, and I hate speaking in generalities, but if the, the history is just, you know, where we, we hire people, we give them a job and, and that's, and, and, and and we execute going forward. It's a lot different than when you think about in certain departments and functions lend themselves to thinking this way, but and certainly it but you can think like marketing, for example, where there's a, there's a campaign and so now you're, you're supporting, a particular campaign or branding initiative, etc..
00;26;09;05 - 00;26;42;21
Brian Salkowski
They're organizing their work around that way. And so to the extent that companies start organizing around specific objectives, right, as opposed to just, a rote carrying forward of, of processes, that lends itself to it. So I think the best organizations out there are internally organizing work the same way they would expect their external providers to execute work on their statements of work for them.
00;26;42;23 - 00;27;20;21
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. And I think also just triggered a thought in my head, really, in terms of what you're talking about, in terms of the translation of the strategy, the operational goals and the, the actual work outputs that need to happen. It's an org, you know, that's essential to any organization. You know, this, you know, when you're when you're leading an organization, being able to communicate that strategy effectively down to all levels of the business and all departments of the business, so they can understand where they fit into that and how what they're doing basically contributes to that, that strategic thinking.
00;27;20;24 - 00;27;21;03
Jonny Dunning
That's.
00;27;21;11 - 00;27;49;25
Brian Salkowski
That's that's exactly right. So if I want 20% growth this year, I just say 20% growth and everyone work harder. Carry forward, make a couple hires, we're going to do that. That's very different than saying for us to enable 20% growth, we need four key, dimensions delivered upon. Right. And here's how we're going to organize to ensure that each of those, each of those initiatives are executed against so that we can hit the overarching goal.
00;27;50;01 - 00;28;08;25
Brian Salkowski
Oh, and by the way, we need external help, we need additional staff support, etc. and now we because we're organizing our work, that way we can partner where we need that support or expertise, or additional hands in order to be able to do it. So it starts internal and moves external.
00;28;08;28 - 00;28;40;05
Jonny Dunning
Yeah, that's a great way to put it. I hadn't actually really thought about it and connecting up that way, prior to that. So I think that's a really good way to put it. But it's just, it's just organizations really being effective. And it is it does take more effort, doesn't it? Let's say I said if you it's a, it's a, an organizational stakeholder needs to get something done, you know, that doesn't need to necessarily be a huge amount of thought in terms of saying, get five people in a room doing some work, where it comes to really defining it and defining what the end goal might be.
00;28;40;05 - 00;29;01;06
Jonny Dunning
And bringing in the outputs that get you to that point. It's a front loaded effort, undoubtedly. But it is a it is a massive opportunity for better outcomes, quality. And I think also this is this is an area where, you know, technology can also be useful for people. You know, it's the ability to write scopes of work and plan stuff.
00;29;01;06 - 00;29;05;12
Jonny Dunning
When you look at the large language models, what you can do with the large language models, directly.
00;29;05;12 - 00;29;05;25
Brian Salkowski
incredible.
00;29;06;02 - 00;29;27;16
Jonny Dunning
How service providers are utilizing them to create a better user experience. Some of those things that were like that blank page, well, you know, where do I start? Problem there. That is a that's a big issue for a lot of companies. That has been that's really not really there anymore. So I think the the excuse excuses around, you know, designing the work in this way being too difficult or too onurus
00;29;27;22 - 00;29;29;23
Jonny Dunning
I feel like they've kind of gone a bit.
00;29;29;25 - 00;29;55;14
Brian Salkowski
Yeah. I hadn't really thought about it. But you're right, that excuse has come off the table because if you need a, you need to put your in a own, fingerprints on it. Undoubtedly. But the framework with the right prompts can be in your inbox in, in very short order. So it's, that's a new dynamic that a couple of years ago wasn't even available.
00;29;55;14 - 00;30;04;18
Brian Salkowski
And, you're right, it's front. It's front end loaded work, but effort that is well worth, well worth the, the outcome.
00;30;04;21 - 00;30;29;29
Jonny Dunning
And just out of interest with regards to this kind of, this openness to output, outcome driven work, have you seen in your experience across the last few years, if you, when you're looking at people running their own services procurement programs, etc., have you seen particular industries that stand out as being very high adopters of this kind of output, outcome driven, approach?
00;30;30;02 - 00;30;34;18
Jonny Dunning
Or or does it really depend on like the individual company culture and the stakeholders involved?
00;30;34;20 - 00;31;08;26
Brian Salkowski
Yeah. I need to give a second thought about that. My immediate reaction is that it's it's less industry focused than it is individual players. However, and this does play back to the comment I made a short time ago. You do see functions versus, versus specific industry verticals, right? And so I use marketing as an example, where they're used to thinking about work in terms of campaigns or initiatives, and programs.
00;31;08;28 - 00;31;31;21
Brian Salkowski
And so you'll see the same thing I it that are involved with large capital projects and, and so various functions that have organized their work that way or are used to it. But from a pure industry standpoint, in general, my, you know, my, my reaction is that there are both leaders and laggards within individual industry verticals.
00;31;31;23 - 00;31;56;11
Jonny Dunning
Yeah, I would agree with that. I would definitely agree with that. Think it's yeah, it comes down to, people making it happen at the end of the day. Yeah. So, so looking at that kind is the contrast between pure outcome and pure effort something that you said to me in a previous conversation, which I thought was really interesting, was that it, that it's not necessarily a binary switch.
00;31;56;11 - 00;32;02;19
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. Between outcome and that. Can you just explain that? Because I thought that was a really interesting and insightful and kind of point of view.
00;32;02;21 - 00;32;33;18
Brian Salkowski
Yeah. So yes, I stand by that comment. And you actually, whether you intended to or not, you gave me a tee up for this because you've mentioned a couple times, but the work changes and I think that's I think that's the best, launch point for an example where you think about, hey, we're, we're, we're, we're launching a new, we're launching a new application, and I, I need a, a solutions partner that is going to help us take accountability of of launching this.
00;32;33;18 - 00;33;09;06
Brian Salkowski
But that work changes from, implementation and deployment to maintenance. Okay. Right. Very common scenario. So when I talk about a level of assurance, what I need in that implementation for that go live is different than what I need from from a maintenance perspective, I may need some effort to be associated with that. So there's a scenario that could start with a statement of work and a project deliverable that moves into staff augmentation, because then we just need some extra hands and effort to to support this.
00;33;09;12 - 00;33;34;24
Brian Salkowski
So that's a real easy, cookie cutter example, but I think it brings it home. You can take it further and just say, well, even within that initial deployment, what resources do I have internally that have, ability and aptitude to support this? Where did where where do we not have the expertise, internally?
00;33;34;26 - 00;33;58;23
Brian Salkowski
Where if if we have a solution provider a that's, that's taking the project ownership, where are some areas with kind where we can bring in, contractors to support that effort? Not necessarily where we need to pay the premium for them taking on the risk, but to supplement the work that's being done, transcribing, information, any number of, of items.
00;33;58;27 - 00;34;23;21
Brian Salkowski
Where do we have AI agents now? We have to include that that can plug in. So, it is not binary. If we're sophisticated in terms of how we scope the project, it but, it should be a combination of internal and external resources, based upon, and the external based upon, expertise, role and, and level of assurance.
00;34;23;21 - 00;34;52;02
Brian Salkowski
And it will transform over time. In the, in the example I gave. So, and with AI, the options are only getting greater to better understand where those skills set in the right skills based hiring is a big thing right now, where those skills sit internally, where they sit externally, and how we can craft. Leveraging AI, leveraging your provider's expertise to, craft, an ideal project team.
00;34;52;04 - 00;35;14;13
Jonny Dunning
Yeah, exactly. And it's it's just changing so fast. It's fascinating. Like, I saw this discussion, recently in Whitehall It was just some of it was so, theoretical that it was it feels really theoretical, but it seems to be the, the rate of change that things are moving at currently. It feels theoretical one day, a few days later.
00;35;14;13 - 00;35;16;11
Jonny Dunning
It doesn't feel so theoretical anymore. It feels.
00;35;16;11 - 00;35;41;19
Brian Salkowski
Yeah, yeah. And listen, I've seen, examples, live examples where, it's it's really exciting in terms of the possibilities where based on requirements, we can spin up leveraging AI very ideal project team based on skill and role types that, that fit in there. I had a client then take a look in their internal system and say, well, where do we have these skills?
00;35;41;19 - 00;36;04;16
Brian Salkowski
They identified individuals in their organization that have those skills that we still have to go. They have availability, access, etc.. And so where would that fit into our digital project team? And then where through, through our network, do we have individuals to do it? So this is we're doing this live. We weren't doing this, three years ago.
00;36;04;19 - 00;36;24;03
Brian Salkowski
Certainly weren't doing it five years ago. It's amazing to think what we might be doing, 2 to 3 years just from now. Yeah. And I think back to our conversation, last month in preparation, we were talking about this conversation. It's, I'd use the term then the future is hybrid. And, and I stand by that.
00;36;24;03 - 00;36;46;29
Brian Salkowski
This is the exact example where we can take a look at how we need to execute, on this, on this initiative, and, and then take a look to say, where does that that talent reside internally? What, what talent is needed externally and what is the, what is the optimum sourcing strategy associated with executing?
00;36;47;02 - 00;36;49;04
Brian Salkowski
And then how does it change? Yeah.
00;36;49;07 - 00;37;07;02
Jonny Dunning
[unclear] Yeah, that's definitely a key question at the moment. So I want to kind of, I want to come back to, in a minute. The, just literally what you've just kind of, brought that round to that looking at this overarching strategy, because I think there's some really interesting things kinda playing to the.
00;37;07;02 - 00;37;18;00
Jonny Dunning
And so the, the total talent kind of world and thinking around that, the, the up until recently was something I was always kind of a little bit like, oh, yawn. You know, it's the same old thing, same old thing.
00;37;18;00 - 00;37;22;17
Brian Salkowski
But it's aspirational. It was aspirational. Yeah. Right. It's not real. Yeah.
00;37;22;18 - 00;37;47;11
Jonny Dunning
It's starting to become more possible now. But but I want to kind of, circle back to the minute because it was another thing that you said that I thought was really interesting when you were talking about the fact that it's not this kind of binary switch between our output and or outcome and effort one of the things that I find interesting is, and I've seen this within some organizations, is a desire within procurement to turn everything into comparable time and materials.
00;37;47;14 - 00;38;14;24
Jonny Dunning
So to say, this is all our contracting, this is this is what we're doing with contractors externally, and this is what we're doing with services to provide service providers. I don't want to say everything on the same metric, but I personally really struggle with that in the sense I look at it and I go, well, there are definitely, proxies that can be used to try and do some sort of comparative analysis on work, the seniority of the people required and how long it's going to take and all that sort of thing.
00;38;14;27 - 00;38;41;01
Jonny Dunning
But it's not a direct you can't make a direct comparison, because if you do try and make a direct comparison, you're not factoring in the risk and liability that the service provider is taking on or the intellectual property that that service provider is bringing. It's not just work, it's work, expertise, knowledge, intellectual property, etc.. Yeah. Is that something you come across?
00;38;41;03 - 00;38;56;16
Jonny Dunning
I expect to be something that you probably come across on both sides of the fence, to be honest. But. Yeah. Right. Yeah. What's your view on that? Because I feel like it's a it's an interesting and kind of logical step that people will make. But I feel like there's some challenges in it.
00;38;56;18 - 00;39;26;26
Brian Salkowski
There's challenges in it. I wouldn't say that the, the comparators are useless. Right. So, so having having some benchmarks, provides some good relevance for, for negotiation, for further exploration in terms of what the proposal is and what and what's being offered. So, I agree with you. There's challenges with it, but there is also some value to really understanding what the delivery components are and, and where possible, how that how that how that scopes out.
00;39;26;28 - 00;39;57;13
Brian Salkowski
But you in your question, you already hit on a couple of really relevant points, which is if I, if, if I take a contractor and staff augmentation, and I try to compare that on a time and material basis to the hourly rate that I have on a statement of work, it straight away one I'm, I'm supervising that contractor in scenario A versus a provider who has a project manager, relationship manager who's taking accountability for that.
00;39;57;15 - 00;40;26;21
Brian Salkowski
They're presumably signing up for some service levels or associated. You mentioned the the IP associated with it as well. And all of these things not only have, value, but they have impact on the on the work product, on the outcome. And it also plays to the assurance that I talked about before, if this is a major project, and I have that contractor there that I'm supervising, something goes wrong that that that's on me.
00;40;26;24 - 00;40;47;23
Brian Salkowski
And for some large project, do what do I want? Do I want that or do I want the confidence associated with, signing on a PWC or a Deloitte, etc.? They're bringing the IP with it, but they're also bringing in confidence and an assurance. And if we have a challenge, solution to, to to resolve, resolve for that.
00;40;47;23 - 00;40;55;14
Brian Salkowski
So, the, the comparators are instructive. They're not definitive.
00;40;55;16 - 00;41;24;05
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. I think that's a good way to put it. And, it's something that will, as the kind of focus on this output, outcome based statement of work, world of delivery, as the granularity of the focus and the visibility improves, which is partly a process thing is probably the adoption thing. It's partly a culture thing. It's partly a technology thing that's just going to bring more information to bear and allow those comparators to be more valuable.
00;41;24;09 - 00;41;32;04
Jonny Dunning
But like you say, they're indicative, not necessarily definitive. Yeah. Yeah. But it's still still sensible for people to be trying to, you know, do these kind of calculations as part.
00;41;32;05 - 00;42;04;00
Brian Salkowski
Absolutely. So they can answer, ask the question and have it answered and have a level of confidence associated with it. There's one I've, I've shared this, example on panels, in the past, but I like it because I think it brings home exactly where you're talking about with as with a large financial services customer. And we're looking at their rates across their, their, their services providers and they're like, well, company A is charging more for, a manager level position than company B is charging for a partner.
00;42;04;03 - 00;42;29;12
Brian Salkowski
In terms of the, the, naming and, it doesn't mean it was wrong. The partner from that company was a small little boutique firm versus global provider that's bringing in significant, capability and IP, etc.. So, it's good to understand that. Right. Where can we send it and where does it make sense to send work to the boutique firm?
00;42;29;18 - 00;42;54;16
Brian Salkowski
Because we're getting a good commercial advantage there. But it doesn't mean all work should be directed there just because the price is better. There's good reasons why we're paying this rate and love and engaging, the, the, the, the big name global providers as well. Right. So, a surface level analysis rate to rate would have, would have raised all kinds of crazy questions.
00;42;54;16 - 00;43;13;24
Brian Salkowski
But as we dug into the detail underneath it, there's good reasons for it. And the information could help fuel future proposal requests to understand where, based on the type of work, we could take further advantage of the boutiques or the local firms or the specialists versus the, the major players.
00;43;13;26 - 00;43;28;00
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. And I guess, I guess it depends how long it takes as well as in the. That's right. Yeah. Have that classic comparator. You know, at consultancy is cheaper than consultancy. Why. Well are they there? Rate card maybe but depends how long it takes. And that's a perfectly viable how.
00;43;28;00 - 00;43;52;06
Brian Salkowski
Long it takes. And can they, can they execute the same projects that the first firm can spin up a major project team and begin execution immediately? The the the boutique may not have the resources in-house to do that. Right. So there's there's a number of factors there. I stand by the the fact that it's helpful. We were better for having those comparisons and being able to ask additional questions and think more strategically about how we source future work.
00;43;52;11 - 00;43;56;05
Brian Salkowski
But it was it was not. I'm being repetitive now, but it was not definitive.
00;43;56;05 - 00;44;19;20
Jonny Dunning
Yeah, yeah. So just looking at something, something slightly, to the side of this, do you have in your mind, are there any particular criteria that you would put, put down as the type of companies that are ideal for you to be able to assist on this kind of output, an outcome basis? Are there any particular criteria?
00;44;19;20 - 00;44;45;05
Jonny Dunning
Because I'm just thinking really around the complexities of delivering work in this way, in the sense that the service provider might will be very adept at doing this because that, you know, as a service provider, that's what you're doing is your your bread and butter to provide, the services and do the work in that way. But providing that into those organizations, in some organizations, if you've got extremely bad processes, they may struggle to to adopt it.
00;44;45;05 - 00;45;06;22
Jonny Dunning
And that's potentially where you get a bit of a disconnect of stuff, not being scope properly and, you know, bad process. You must have seen plenty of that when you're looking at it from the management side. What's your kind of view on that in terms of what type of organizations are likely to be ready and what other organizations need to do to make themselves ready to to be able to leverage this?
00;45;06;24 - 00;45;41;05
Brian Salkowski
Yeah. Again, another great, great question, Jonny. So again, you again frame it organizationally. But where the work is, is consumed is the departmentally or functionally, etc.. So I tend to think there. Right. So the organization of procurement, organization, there are partner to the business. Right. And they can provide they provide a very good like a lot of my procurement friends, they, they provide a very valuable service, to the organization.
00;45;41;05 - 00;46;13;18
Brian Salkowski
But the work is actually being consumed in the particular departments or functions, etc.. So those those organizations that are best prepared for working with the consumers of the service, right? So, we can go through and we'll go through, of course, a formal procurement process where, where it's appropriate, etc. but if we're not engaged with the business to understand what they're looking to accomplish, and if they're not willing to invest in that process to do so, we're not going to be successful.
00;46;13;20 - 00;46;40;12
Brian Salkowski
The other thing is a service provider is, is we need to clearly understand our field of play. It's we're not just an IT services, provider. There's specific practices, and, and areas of expertise where we can offer value, and in turn, we can compete and win. It's not everything to to everyone. So it's, it's making sure that we're in the right field to play, where we can be successful.
00;46;40;19 - 00;46;58;18
Brian Salkowski
But we're engaged. Not with the just with our partners in procurement. And we want them, but also with the business, because that's where when we talk about those details that matter on the front end, we're able to provide a better proposal and a turn execute for better product.
00;46;58;21 - 00;47;24;05
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I think it's, you know, it's something that the far more organizations are in the position to do this. But like you say, it's it depends on the individual stakeholders in a lot of cases. But I think there's far more of an expectation that this is just very normal and far more part of the the typical way that of, of the kind of workforce mix that organizations should have.
00;47;24;08 - 00;47;40;16
Jonny Dunning
And also it's under more scrutiny now if we go back to the management side, people want to know what's happening. They want the visibility on the right. They don't just want to see a purchase order and, oh, we're hitting our budget, you know, what projects are these companies working on? Are they doing a good job? Should we be using them for other work?
00;47;40;19 - 00;47;55;14
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. Oh always. That's right. I don't want to I don't know why. Poor Accenture they always get used as an example because they're the first in the alphabet. But yeah why are we always using Accenture. You know, have we got smaller service providers that are more specialist like, you know, Accenture.
00;47;55;14 - 00;48;19;24
Brian Salkowski
And that goes to the example that I share, right, where. Yeah, Accenture is one of those big ones. Does that make sense for that project or the other. And we do those, those comparators. And that's where to to give you a plug. I mean, certainly that's where Zivio can offer tremendous value and intelligence in terms of helping to, credibly informed, that, that decision making process.
00;48;19;26 - 00;48;39;04
Brian Salkowski
And that's where I think procurement can really partner so effectively with the business. You want these outcomes, working together, we can help you craft that. And also bring in the right, right, tools and solutions that, that provide for better, better buying and ultimately, solution experience.
00;48;39;07 - 00;49;01;23
Jonny Dunning
Now, I really appreciate that. And, you know, I completely agree with you. This, you know, it doesn't really matter how organizations do it, but they should have that data. They should have that information if they want to operate strategically. You know, the world operates on data now, and most organizations haven't got access to that within their services spend, which is which is crazy because of the size of it.
00;49;01;26 - 00;49;32;11
Jonny Dunning
But it's but it's kind of crept up on organizations because the world has moved more towards a service based economy. We've moved more towards outcomes. It's it's also, the question of, of actually just the pragmatism of how organizations get work done. And it's not just about, dealing with the kind of procurement that was very much out of the manufacturing area of goods and materials, you know, the services split, the spend on services is growing five times faster than the spend on goods.
00;49;32;14 - 00;49;57;23
Jonny Dunning
So it's kind of from multiple angles It's crept up and accelerated. Become a big problem staple. And it is it is complicated. You know we talked about the technology side of it. I always relate the difference, the differences between buying goods, people and services in that kind of if you put them in those broad definitions, if you're buying people and you're buying an individual's time, that's one thing.
00;49;57;23 - 00;50;16;22
Jonny Dunning
And that's a pretty well solved problem with the vendor management systems and the MSP contingent workforce programs. If you're buying, goods and materials, that's a simple thing that's easy to define and easy to measure. And the source to pay suites are very good at managing that because they can do your kind of guided buying and catalog buying a lot of nice stuff.
00;50;16;24 - 00;50;41;19
Jonny Dunning
But the services are almost the opposite of, of both of them to a certain extent, in the sense that they're really I think it's quite difficult to define and therefore difficult to measure and compare. But the supply chain is relatively simple to it. So the focus is not really existed on services procurement until now. I a little bit like I'm going to come on to what the term talent management kind of, side of this.
00;50;41;22 - 00;51;10;14
Jonny Dunning
It's always been something that kind of, you know, you go to the conferences, it gets rolled out. It's kind of similar conversations every year. It's really moving forward now, genuinely, which is super exciting. Services providers are helping that the fact that more work is moving this way, the fact that within the Workforce Solutions ecosystem, you know, organizations like, like you guys at eTeam are providing services on this basis is just making it more relevant and more, a part of the conversation of actually making things happen.
00;51;10;17 - 00;51;12;08
Jonny Dunning
And that tends to be cliche.
00;51;12;11 - 00;51;32;08
Brian Salkowski
Necessity is the mother of invention. Right. And and so, why is it getting all the attention? Because it has to it's too large of a category of spend, too impactful to, organizational outcomes and, and, initiatives. So ignoring it is not a possibility. It's just not.
00;51;32;10 - 00;51;40;12
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. I think know when it comes down to competition as well, because if you're ignoring it, your company is ignoring it. And your competitor is not ignoring,
00;51;40;14 - 00;51;42;20
Brian Salkowski
You know, yeah.
00;51;42;22 - 00;51;59;08
Jonny Dunning
their agility, their ability to get things done, the, the the kind of horizon visibility they'll have on skills and capabilities that might be coming down the line that they're going to need within their supply chain, their relationship with their supply chain. But it could be really partnering with a supplier to say, look, this is the stuff we've got coming up.
00;51;59;10 - 00;52;20;26
Jonny Dunning
You doing a great job and all this sort of stuff. Can you do X and Y, maybe the supplier can, or maybe the supplier can put those capabilities in place, upskill their own, workforce and then capacity to deal with that. And where that plays into the type of talent management conversation, which I find really interesting, is a great chat with lady called, Lisa Williams from Dow Chemicals.
00;52;20;28 - 00;52;41;29
Jonny Dunning
Recently. And she was talking about this at a very strategic level, but actually really meaningfully putting this sort of stuff in place for the reason that they can actually do that is because each of their individual work delivery channels are effectively being managed and without actually the biggest gap for most organizations is the services procurement element of it.
00;52;42;05 - 00;53;04;05
Jonny Dunning
You can't do total talent management if you haven't got the individual streams that make up the total management, you have the control. So now the services procurement is genuinely being addressed by technology providers, by service providers, by organizations themselves, with the assistance of their their supply chain of service providers. That makes it possible. And it makes it comes back to exactly what you said.
00;53;04;07 - 00;53;16;29
Jonny Dunning
Start with the work. And it kind of it leads back to what you were saying around this kind of idea that the future is hybrid. It's it's horses for courses, really isn't. It's what's the best thing? What's the best way to do it. Yeah.
00;53;17;01 - 00;53;36;15
Brian Salkowski
Yeah. And I like your term, the terminology work channels. I keep talking about functions but it really it is it the what are the work channels. So that organization is ready because they have their work channels properly organized and the right engagement. So it's a great example. And, and it's really good terminology because it clarifies exactly what we're talking about.
00;53;36;18 - 00;54;08;25
Jonny Dunning
So so looking at it from your point of view from your lens in the market now, one of the things that you, you've mentioned previously is, is, is about this, this kind of hybrid situation is about people. And, but it's also about thinking strategically, with, with the way that you're providing your services and to your customers, and your broader view of how customers can sometimes get this wrong, in terms of looking at their whole, like, services supply chain.
00;54;08;28 - 00;54;26;12
Jonny Dunning
Has that made you approach anything particularly differently? Or is it added anything, do you think, to your approach in terms of having all that background knowledge, of seeing all this visibility behind the curtain in lots of organizations? Is it has it triggered anything in you where you're sort of thinking, well, we're definitely not going to do that.
00;54;26;19 - 00;54;30;07
Jonny Dunning
And we definitely want to make sure we want to these type of suppliers.
00;54;30;10 - 00;54;51;27
Brian Salkowski
Yeah. So it, it definitely. So this is this is day four. So when we say what has happened so far hasn't happened. But my, my, my go forward view is is definitely informed by my history, to say the least. And there's yeah, there's a couple things that that what we're not going to do.
00;54;51;29 - 00;55;13;28
Brian Salkowski
You're already heard one of them, and it's about, it's about discipline and, and and, in practice, around practice areas. We're not all things to to all people. Can't be, talking in a lot of cliches today, but, we all know the phrase, Jack of all trades is a master of none, right?
00;55;13;28 - 00;55;42;25
Brian Salkowski
So it is about, ensuring that we have, our practice areas well defined in the disciplines, associated with it. It's also, which came up a little bit earlier in the conversation, but, knowing, and understanding the provider space. So, as you mentioned, Accenture top of the, alpha alphabet, we're not going after Accenture’s $100 million project that that's not our space in the marketplace.
00;55;43;02 - 00;56;08;28
Brian Salkowski
They have they have a valuable role, the, and, and we have a valuable role, with it within our market segment. So it's a practice discipline, but it's also a market segment and ensuring that, that we know where we can offer the greatest value for our customers. And happy to let, let there, is probably too strong a word, but, happy for Accenture, to dominate where they dominate.
00;56;08;28 - 00;56;34;15
Brian Salkowski
And they do, exceedingly well. The, the other thing that, we will we will do and I don't think others do enough of this, but as I look across our various product solution areas, it's bringing the best of those, to our customers. So in other words, we are not going to, put ourselves in a singular cocoon.
00;56;34;21 - 00;57;06;17
Brian Salkowski
This is a services project. We have the ability to, to, engage through our platform, independent contractors to supplement that. We have the ability to provide, a, an outcome based solution, but augment it to the client's advantage and to our advantage, with additional contractors. Right. So, we will be proactive in terms of bringing the best of our entire ecosystem to a customer and not get hyper focused on where it started.
00;57;06;19 - 00;57;34;23
Jonny Dunning
Yeah. Interesting. On I guess coming back to your point about not not looking to be all things to all people, the side of it sometimes I think people take for granted is, is this the scarcity of good quality suppliers, particularly delivering in quite technical areas in the sense that, you know, we've seen over the last, you know, a few decades, this increasing war for talent within the within, within permanent hiring.
00;57;35;00 - 00;57;58;15
Jonny Dunning
And then it's expanded out to the contingent workforce. But it's but it's become so critical now and it's extended into this supplier space as well. The I think that also, lends weight to the importance of these relationship, these supplier client relationships and organizing services procurement. So you know who you suppliers are, what they're working on, where their skills and expertise lie.
00;57;58;15 - 00;58;18;11
Jonny Dunning
And, and what they're good at and who, who's doing a great job for you because suppliers are going to have to be, to a certain extent, choosy as to who they work with. They're only going to have a certain amount of capacity, what's right. And and so the potentially the again, there's that war for expertise. So for organizations looking to bring in expertise within their own supply chain.
00;58;18;11 - 00;58;30;15
Jonny Dunning
So I guess from your point of view, as a provider in that area, it means, you know, that those relationships are really important, where you can work with those customers that are willing to go to that level.
00;58;30;17 - 00;58;55;19
Brian Salkowski
Yeah, it's it's critical. Right. The, the technology is allowing us to do a lot of things. It's not allowing us to replace relationships. And, and so that is, that is a hyper focused area. It's part of the reason why that those, those specialties, that the focus is critical because, because the relationships are so valuable.
00;58;55;19 - 00;59;17;20
Brian Salkowski
If I do wrong, if I overextend, I put, everything at risk and so, working with the, working to, to invest in those relationships, it means having a firm understanding of what we can do and do well and what we shouldn't do, for the benefit of both parties.
00;59;17;22 - 00;59;43;19
Jonny Dunning
I like it. I think it's, it's super exciting seeing you, you know, make this transition and have that lens that you can bring to this because, you know, just being able to, like I say, kind of go behind the curtain when the organization is such, such an eye opener, when you're trying to solve the problem on that end and you see the way these things operate and you see the problems, it calls for the for the organization, but also potentially the what causes problems with the supply as well.
00;59;43;19 - 01;00;02;25
Jonny Dunning
I think it's really cool to see you being able to bring that plus your wealth and, you know, workforce, solutions, expertise to what you're doing now. I really appreciate you coming in and having a chat. And, it's great to touch on some of these subjects. And it's a it's an interesting debate, that I think is useful for people to hear because because I say your vantage point.
01;00;02;27 - 01;00;17;07
Jonny Dunning
But being able to look at this. Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's a really interesting conversation. And, and, you know, as you say, early days, new stuff, exciting, exciting times ahead, you know, in part to be really interested to, to maybe check in a little further down the line and see.
01;00;17;08 - 01;00;32;19
Brian Salkowski
Yeah, this was a lot of fun. I was actually going to say, let's do it again. So, consider it an open invitation. Really enjoyed this. Covered a lot of ground and, not only that, you gave me some good fodder. I'm going to take some of your terminology. I really like.
01;00;32;21 - 01;00;37;14
Jonny Dunning
Likewise. Likewise. Excellent stuff. That's superb. Thank you so much Brian. I really appreciate it.
01;00;37;17 - 01;00;39;14
Brian Salkowski
All right. Thanks, Jonny. Have a great one.