Welcome back to The Procuretech Podcast! We're continuing our series of interviews with industry experts and thought leaders to get their take on digital procurement. In this episode, we're going to extend that a little bit and talk about supply chain. Democratising Supply Chain Training - Dr. Muddassir Ahmed from SCMDOJO Today's guest is a big personality in the supply chain space: Dr. Muddassir Ahmed, CEO of SCMDOJO. He's got a YouTube channel with almost 10,000 subscribers and a complete reso...
Oct 03, 2022•32 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Welcome back to The Procuretech Podcast! We're continuing with our mini series where we ask influencers and industry experts for their thoughts and nuggets of advice on everything that's happening in the digital procurement world. Content and Community for Procurement - Daniel Barnes from Gatekeeper Today we've got a returning guest who was on the first series of the podcast way back in 2020. He's a man who needs no introduction. But we're going to give him one anyway.It’s procurement influencer...
Sep 29, 2022•30 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Welcome to another episode of The Procuretech Podcast! We're continuing our third series of conversations with industry leaders, which now releases twice a week. Tech and Remote Workforce Management – Lilia Stoyanov from Transformify Today's guest is Lilia Stoyanov, someone who truly wears many hats. She's a professor at Ziggurat Business School. She's an independent contributor to Entrepreneur Magazine. And most importantly, she's the CEO of Transformify - a vendor management and payroll manage...
Sep 26, 2022•26 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Welcome to another episode of The Procuretech Podcast! We're continuing our third series of conversations with industry leaders, which now releases twice a week. Procurement Media through the Years - Jon Hansen from Procurement Insights This episode, we've got a guest who's been talking about procurement for decades. With a long-standing blog and a podcast that goes all the way back to 2009, it's Jon Hansen of Procurement Insights – the original procurement podcaster. We're going to talk about e...
Sep 22, 2022•28 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Welcome back to the Procuretech podcast! We're continuing our third series of interviews with industry experts and thought leaders. Today we're talking to someone with a unique niche perspective, to hear their thoughts on all things digital procurement. Why Data is the Bedrock of Digital - Susan Walsh is The Classification Guru My guest needs absolutely no introduction to most of you: Susan Walls, the classification, Guru herself. Susan was one of our first guests in series one, all the way back...
Sep 19, 2022•21 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Welcome back to series 3 of the Procuretech Podcast! We bring you the hottest startups, thought leadership and conversation from visionary industry experts, and definitely no stiff corporate content. We’re switching things up a bit for the new series. We’ll now be releasing episodes twice weekly, and expanding our scope on guests. In the past we’d typically speak to startup founders, CEOs or CMOs of procurement tech companies. But we're now going to be talking to industry leaders and influencers...
Sep 15, 2022•25 min•Season 3Ep. 1
It's the final episode of our second series. So to finish up, we're going to be doing something a little bit different. This week we're bringing you 10 new startups for the price of one! 10 cool early stage European startups from Procurement Summit I recently attended Procurement Summit in Hamburg. It's a fun, pleasingly non-corporate showcase for new companies in the digital procurement space. Where else would you find a Mario Kart competition at a procurement conference? I saw loads of excitin...
Jul 20, 2022•23 min•Season 2Ep. 46
This week we're looking at something we rarely talk about on the podcast - the public sector. Insights on Source-to-Pay technology in the Public Sector My guest this week is Grant Smith, COO of Elcom. He's here to lend his expertise, which is handy because the public sector is a topic I know relatively little about. Grant hails from the UK, but his experience should be applicable to public procurement in any developed markets. A brief overview of Elcom We kick off with a brief history of Elcom. ...
Jul 13, 2022•24 min•Season 2Ep. 45
This week we're diving back into the topic of spend analytics and spend analysis, with a focus on smaller and medium sized businesses. We'll look at the challenges they face, and how smaller businesses can afford a spend analytics solution that works for their unique needs. We're joined this week by Thomas Siersbæk Heller-Njor, from CostBits – a procurement professional who's entered the procurement tech space, with a unique spend analysis solution for the mid market. Tailoring Spend Analytics t...
Jul 06, 2022•30 min•Season 2Ep. 44
This week we’ve got another informal chat from The Procuretech Pub livestreams. I’m talking to Dr. Wolfgang Schnellbächer from BCG, the author of a new book fresh off the presses - Profit from the Source: Transforming Your Business by Putting Suppliers at the Core. Supplier-centric transformation and the future of procurement I ask Wolfgang for a quick bit of background, before we move on to talking about his book. He explains that he is currently leading procurement for BCG across Europe, the M...
Jun 29, 2022•40 min•Season 2Ep. 43
On this podcast, I’m proud that we take the time to talk to some of the more early stage companies operating in this space. And you don’t get much more early stage than just launched! Our guest today is Patrick Jonsson from Digi Procure, whose recently launched company offers a low code / no code guided category strategy creation tool. I welcome Patrick to the podcast and ask him to open up with a quick intro on his background. Low code / no solutions in digital procurement Patrick explains how ...
Jun 22, 2022•25 min•Season 2Ep. 42
This week, we're going to be talking again about that little devil that keeps cropping up - data. I'm speaking to Costas Xyloyiannis, CEO of HICX, a company that takes a slightly different approach to data. Today we’re talking about what he thinks is the safest way to get clean data in your organisation. Before we dive into the specifics of what makes his approach to data so different, I start off by asking Costas to explain Hicx in a nutshell. HICX - A different way to handle data Costas explai...
Jun 15, 2022•29 min•Season 2Ep. 41
This week on the Procuretech podcast, I’m joined by Source-to-Pay (S2P) and implementation specialist Joël Collin-Demers, all the way from Montreal. Source-to-Pay today – Market trends, Roadmaps, and Best-of-Breed vs. Full Suite Today we’ll be talking about the dynamics of the source-to-pay application market, how to craft a transformation roadmap in that space, and where we see this market going in the future. But before that, I ask Joël to introduce himself. Once he’s given us some fascinating...
Jun 08, 2022•46 min•Season 2Ep. 40
This week we’re doing something a little bit different: A quick solo episode, bringing you ten key criteria to consider when sourcing a digital procurement solution. This is something that seems surprisingly hard to come by in popular articles and white papers, so here are ten helpful factors to consider. Let’s dive into the list… 10 Key Factors When Choosing A Procurement Solution 1. Cost The main question here is which cost model does the solution use? Most digital procurement tools operate a ...
Jun 01, 2022•20 min•Season 2Ep. 39
This week we're talking about supply chains. More specifically, where does the line lie between procurement and supply chain? Should we be concentrating on better understanding our multi-tiered complex chains, rather than just purchasing software to better track and trace shipments? Understanding the value of pre-emptive end-to-end supply chain management It's a bit of a loaded question, but I'm sure we're going to have a great debate today as we welcome an expert in the logistics and supply cha...
May 25, 2022•35 min•Season 2Ep. 38
This week our guest is Jim Bureau, CEO of Jaggaer. He’s carving out a niche for an all-in-one solution, at a time when best of breeds are gaining market share. I’m known as a bit of a best of breed fanboy, so Jim is stepping into the dragon’s den, here! I welcome Jim to the podcast, congratulate him for his bravery, and ask him about the challenges of offering a full suite solution in a tough market. Jim says it’s important to acknowledge that, while companies may want to commit strongly to eith...
May 18, 2022•35 min•Season 2Ep. 37
This week we’ve got a sponsored episode, welcoming back a guest we last spoke to in September 2021, Henning Hatje from Lhotse. Lhotse has a tactical and tail spend solution, which they see as something complementary to a legacy suite based approach. So if you've spent a lot of money investing in one of these suites and you're not likely to change provider, or maybe your company has a strategy to use a specific ecosystem that matches and ties in with your ERP (not naming names!), then this soluti...
May 11, 2022•34 min•Season 2Ep. 36
This week we're taking on a very relevant topic in today's marketplace. Given the current supply chain crisis and geopolitical instability, what better time to speak to a guest from a unique eSourcing solution? Alan Holland, CEO of Keelvar, is here to tell us how AI can offer something more immediate, spot and transactional, in these unstable times when agility matters. Keelvar - bot technology for spot sourcing Alan begins by giving us a rundown of Keelvar - who it serves and how it works. Alan...
May 04, 2022•31 min•Season 2Ep. 35
Digital transformation doesn't necessarily have to be complex. Sometimes, an end-to-end source-to-pay (S2P) solution that joins up the dots, and automates a lot of otherwise manual processes, can give a huge productivity advantage. The mid market has traditionally been underserved by procurement software, with tech companies typically going after large enterprise clients at their expense. One of the older players in the European market is Onventis, who have successfully been improving and extend...
Apr 27, 2022•37 min•Season 2Ep. 34
My guest this week on The Procuretech Pub requires no introduction to anyone who is familiar with the digital procurement space. Dr. Elouise Epstein is Partner at Kearney in San Francisco and author of the book Trade Wars, Pandemics and Chaos: How Digital Procurement Enables Business Success in a Disordered World . We have an informal and very open discussion about procurement technology's past, present and what direction the future trends are moving in this space. Procuretech's evolution, where...
Apr 20, 2022•57 min•Season 2Ep. 33
The relationship between Procurement and Legal can often be somewhat strained. Procurement's hands are tied because they have to seek legal support. Legal typically is under-resourced to serve the growing needs of procurement teams, especially when Sales often gets priority in the internal legal support pecking order. My guest today is Giles Thompson, Chief Growth Officer of London-based contract process automation tool Avvoka. We discuss how both teams can work smarter with the right tech to im...
Apr 13, 2022•43 min•Season 2Ep. 32
We're diving in again to the ever-expanding contract management space this week, looking at a piece of software that straddles the murky waters between procuretech and legaltech. Redlining and amending contracts is a boring and tedious process to most procurement professionals, but a necessary evil that comes with the territory for commercial contract negotiations post-sourcing and award. My guest this week to break down how technology can get us to our destination faster is Dan Broderick, CEO a...
Apr 06, 2022•34 min•Season 2Ep. 31
Managing a situation where an increasing percentage of any company's workforce is composed of external, contingent workers is a challenge that many companies are already dealing with. While many more will have to figure this out pretty soon too, as they move to a more flexible labour model with the advent of the "gig economy". How to mange this digitally, to both ensure compliant onboarding of consultancies, contractors and freelancers, as well as streamlining the administrative hassle associate...
Mar 30, 2022•28 min•Season 2Ep. 30
As procurement pros, we're feeling the heat a lot right now dealing with problems of a reactive nature. We're having to fight to secure supply and deal with crisis management with increasing frequency. Moving to a more predictive form of supplier relationship management (SRM), while at the same time handling the transactional and compliance part of the requirements is what my guest, Sam Jenks, CMO of Kodiak Hub, is here to talk about today. Full Stack SRM: The case for "Know Your Supplier" with ...
Mar 23, 2022•32 min•Season 2Ep. 29
Today is a very proud and special day for me as I launch our new venture: Procurement Software. The ProcurementSoftware.site website sets out to democratise access to information and resources on digital procurement as a free platform, focusing on helping procurement leaders, CFOs and boutique consultancies serving mid-market businesses. What makes ProcurementSoftware.site different and unique? I've listed 10 reasons why I believe that Procurement Software provides a solution that nobody else ou...
Mar 16, 2022•27 min•Season 2Ep. 28
With the backdrop of inflation, supply chain shortages and now as I currently write this, a war being fought on European soil, supplier collaboration and supplier innovation are two topics that I think we can be sure will increase in priority. My guest to deep dive on this topic is Maciej (Matt) Zaleski of Procurence Meercat, a software platform for industrial manufacturing companies who have recently developed a supplier innovation module for their solution. Using software to successfully drive...
Mar 09, 2022•36 min•Season 2Ep. 27
Kicking off this week with the first of a number of interviews we'll be doing over the next couple of months with contract management platforms. This is a rapidly expanding area and it's gone from simply being repositories and authorisation / signature software into becoming a very diverse ecosystem over the past few years. My guest today is Elena Mechik of Berlin-based startup Inhubber, which offers a blockchain-based solution for contract management and tracking. Blockchain and its use in Cont...
Mar 02, 2022•29 min•Season 2Ep. 26
On this week's show we're digging into the world of direct materials sourcing. It's a part of the digital procurement landscape that's been a bit neglected, except for e-sourcing tools, and my guest this week decided to do something about this. Anne-Sophie Le Bloas, Founder and CEO of Ravacan, experienced in both her native Europe and also in the US, that there wasn't much innovation out there when it came to leveraging digital tools to manage direct materials spend, and set out to remedy this. ...
Feb 23, 2022•30 min•Season 2Ep. 25
Spend analytics is a pretty mature (and competitive) market. So, what does this hold for the future? No better person to ask than the former CEO of Spendency, Arvid Fredin. They were recently acquired by German source-to-pay technology company Onventis. Arvid stayed on post-acquisition and is now Managing Director of Onventis' operations for the UK and Nordic countries, and joins me on this week's episode. A recent acquisition, and how this may shape the future of spend analytics A good place to...
Feb 16, 2022•30 min•Season 2Ep. 24
There are many great stories about how startups are created, but this one is particularly interesting. Take a procurement organisation that is often cited as best-in-class, and then challenge it with becoming even better. My guest on today's show, Michael Pleuger, is a former Senior Executive at Vodafone Procurement who had the mandate to do just that. The result became akirolabs, and the journey of how this happened is our discussion today. Making a Best-In-Class Procurement Team even Better: T...
Feb 09, 2022•35 min•Season 2Ep. 23
