The Sourcing Hero

Ep 54: Building the Infrastructure Required for Success: Training, Tools, and Techniques feat. Martin Stevenson

When choosing strategies and tactics, one of the most important things to keep in mind is the end goal - in fact, this week’s guest advocates always starting with the end in mind. That ensures that a technique is never applied for its own sake, but rather for the outcomes it will deliver for the business or public agency.
In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Martin Stevenson. Martin is the very recently retired Enterprise Project and Procurement Manager for the California Department of Water Resources. Although he didn’t finish his career in procurement, he spent many decades there with State Control Agencies (DGS and CDT) and Engineering-based agencies (Caltrans and DWR). Martin has multiple procurement and project certifications - including Certified Public Procurement Officer, NIGP Certified Procurement Professional, ISM Certified Purchasing Manager, ISM Certified Professional in Supply Management, and Project Management Professional. 
In this conversation, Martin shares his point of view about how procurement professionals can be set up for success with the right training, tools, and techniques:
Where procurement professionals can turn for information and support If they want to develop themselves by developing their skills 
Why it is important to emphasize techniques rather than processes - and which techniques he thinks are most effective
How to ensure the technique procurement chooses is the right one for the situation
Why procurement needs to be exposed to many different ideas and concepts

Ep 53: Accessing Data Insights for Your Technology Spend feat. Victor Hou

Nearly everything in the modern enterprise is dependent upon technology. And as distributed buyers are empowered to sign up for their own subscriptions and services, the resulting landscape is complicated, much larger than anyone realizes, and rife with risk. 
In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Victor Hou. Victor is a Managing Partner at Varisource, a data insight platform focused on technology spend. He has worked in and around enterprise IT services for years, and these days he is focused on helping procurement teams digitize their technology contracts, inventory, supplier performance, and spend into a single centralized dashboard so they can optimize their spend and supplier relationships.
In this conversation, Victor brings clarity to a category of spend that has been growing fast over the last few years, and shares his perspective on how procurement can take action to create more value:
When does a lack of transparency into IT spend and provider relationships create the greatest issues for procurement? 
What ‘shadow IT’ means and how it can elevate risk for the company 
How procurement can benchmark our current suppliers to ensure competitive deals with the right cost structure and performance incentives

Ep 52: Looking Towards the Dawn of TaaS: Travel as a Strategy feat. Scott Gillespie

All of us have watched different industry sectors with a kind of shock over the last two years, and business travel is one of them. For many procurement teams, travel spend is part of their scope of responsibilities, and the challenges associated with ensuring traveler safety and comfort while also managing costs and risk have been significant - but perhaps this is an inflection point suggesting that it is time to think about business travel in an entirely new way.
In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Scott Gillespie. Scott has been THE thought provoking advisor and innovator for the business travel industry for the last 25 years. He has pioneered concepts such as Total Cost of Travel and traveler friction, and was A. T. Kearney’s global expert on travel sourcing as far back as the 1990’s. Despite the challenges facing the travel industry today, Scott is a champion of goal-based travel management, justifiable travel, and eradicating traveler friction - not to mention the author of "Gillespie's Guide to Travel Innovation."
In this conversation, Scott shares his point of view on how business travel has changed and whether those changes will be temporary or long lasting:
How COVID-19 has shifted the objectives of business travel, and how executive leaders may be reexamining their “use of travel” as a result
Advice for companies revisiting their business travel policies and strategies
The metrics that will be most appropriate for measuring the ROI and business impact of travel going forward (Hint: the list doesn’t include savings…)

Ep 51: What’s the Trouble with the Food Supply Chain? feat. Barry Friends

For the last 2 years, supply chains have rarely not been front page news. And of all the supply chains, the food supply chain has been watched most closely. From labor shortages, to outbreaks at meat packing plants, and even the short-lived cream cheese panic of 2021, consumers now have a heightened awareness of the processes and companies required to stock grocery store shelves and restaurant storerooms.
In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Barry Friends. Barry is a food industry strategy professional with a background in distribution. In fact, in preparing for this interview, Barry and I figured out that we briefly overlapped at the same company in the early 2000s: Ahold USA, a large grocery retailer - and at the time commercial food service provider. Today he is a Partner and Foodservice Distribution Consultant at Pentallect. 
In this conversation, Barry Gives us a detailed understanding of what’s really going on in the food supply chain, when it started, and what changes we may need to make moving forward:
Whether COVID-19 is really the source of the disruption we see in today’s food supply chains
Why procurement professionals should be paying more attention to changes in others’ demand instead of just watching our own supply chains
The many reasons that suppliers are raising their prices - and if there is anything we can do about it

Ep 50: Being Intentional: Think, Plan, and Take Action feat. Helen Mackenzie

Procurement plays a unique role as ‘bridge’ in a company between establishing or abiding by financial controls and bringing creative solutions. Rather than being two separate ways of bringing spend under management - the logical and the creative - process discipline can actually form a solid foundation that procurement can layer creative work and ideas on top of.
In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Helen Mackenzie. Helen has been a friend for a long time, but in 2021 she officially became a member of the Art of Procurement team! With a background in procurement strategy and public procurement policy development, she brings a unique perspective - and a high degree of enthusiasm - to the field of procurement.
In this conversation, Helen explains what it means to be intentional about work, and how that differs from other approaches:
How is being intentional different than following a plan, getting work done, or being opportunistic?
What are the types of challenges and obstacles that arise when taking an intentional approach?
What do successful outcomes look like, including examples from real-life procurement projects Helen led with an intentional approach.

Ep 49: The Six C’s of Supplier Diversity feat. Lamont Robinson

All professionals hold different roles and positions during their career, but only the lucky few discover their passion along the way and make a difference for others as they follow their calling. Sometimes it requires the courage to turn away from safe or well-laid plans in pursuit of a new opportunity, but in the end, the journey becomes its own reward.
In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Lamont Robinson. Lamont is a committed leader in the supplier diversity effort, and he is currently the Director of Supplier Diversity at AmerisourceBergen, a global healthcare company. He has been widely recognized for his passion and innovative work in the supplier diversity space, and so we are thrilled to have him with us on the podcast today.
In this conversation, Lamont presents his framework for thinking through and planning out supplier diversity programs built to last:
The Six C’s: customers, competition, compliance, communities, customization, and costs - what they mean and why they are important
How procurement be a particularly effective advocate for the C’s of cost and customization, increasing diversity and the resilience of the supply chain at the same time
What procurement professionals and teams need to know about being good customers of diversity-owned companies?

Ep 48: Understanding the Supplier Side of Supplier Diversity feat. Elizabeth Blount McCormick

Procurement teams that want to increase the diversity of their supplier base may think that they have to compromise on quality and performance to do so. This could not be further from the truth. Diverse-owned businesses are (and should be expected to be) just as competitive and qualified as any other business in their industry. 
In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Elizabeth Blount McCormick. Elizabeth is the President and Owner of UNIGLOBE Travel Designers, a firm that specializes in designing, coordinating, and delivering complex travel plans for individuals, groups, and corporate travel partners. UNIGLOBE Travel Designers is also a black, woman-owned business. 
In this conversation, Elizabeth enthusiastically shares her first-hand experience with today’s difficult travel conditions and what it is like to be a diverse business owner:
An overview of the current state of corporate travel and how travel managers and/or procurement teams tasked with managing travel spend should do given the current uncertainties
The investment of time and effort required to earn and maintain multiple diversity certifications and how they affect her business development efforts
What she would like buy-side companies to know about the supplier’s perspective on corporate diversity programs and how they can be improved

Ep 47: Be Like Estonia - Embracing the Advantage of Size feat. James Meads

All companies - and business leaders for that matter - have a tendency to look up for guidance and ideas. And while successful results often carry us on an upward trajectory, looking to emulate the patterns that make large enterprises like the FOrtune 500 successful may actually deny mid-market companies their greatest short-term advantage: raw, lean agility.
In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes James Meads. James is a career procurement professional turned consultant, who recognizes some of the disparities between procurement technology for enterprise-level companies, and the digital transformation opportunities and partners that exist for mid-market companies.
In this conversation, James talks about the impact that relative size has on what organizations can achieve and how it should influence who they partner with:
Why does most procurement technology seem to be marketed at (and designed for) large enterprises?
How should procurement team size, regardless of corporate revenue or spend, impact decisions about procurement technology?
Ways that mid-market companies on both the provider and practitioner sides of the fence can leverage the advantages of where they are NOW in their maturity journeys.