Replay | Procurement Orchestration 101: Strategies for Strategic Success

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so I’ll go ahead and get started over
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here so I’m Maya and I head up our
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marketing um function here at focal
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point I’ll be moderating today we have
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two um lovely guests here for our
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podcast or for our webinar today it’s
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going to be Steve and Zach who will
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introduce themselves on our next slide
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um but of course I just wanted to give
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you if you aren’t familiar with focal
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point a little um intro into Who We Are
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um you know we feel this quote really
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sums it up best focal point gives
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flexibility to procurement to create
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processes and projects in a way that
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emphasizes what’s important to your
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organization um so that’s kind of at the
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core of everything we do but in a more
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granular sense we’re Next Generation
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procurement technology by procurement
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Pros for procurement Pros that’s really
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big um we have over a hundred years of
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cumulative experience in procurement um
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within our organization and we assist
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with things like procurement process
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control workflow visibility intake
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management project visibility benefits
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tracking and even more so um that’s a
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little bit about who we are Steve if you
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want to hop in at all and and add to
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that you are more than welcome
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to uh at not at this time I think we
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need to go into some introductions um
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and then we’ll get into the Q&A sounds
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good okay so let you guys introduce
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yourselves like I said we have Steve
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here and Zach so if you guys both want
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to introduce yourselves you are more
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than welcome
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I’m
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Steve I’m Steve bub handle business
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development here at focal point been
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here for almost two years and absolutely
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loving it uh and procurement
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orchestration all right thank you Steve
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hey everybody I’m Zach bolt and and I
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head up product and strategy here at
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focal point I also have been here pretty
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much as long as anybody about two years
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since we’re we’re a start up everybody’s
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everybody’s life lifespan here is not
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super super long but really excited
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about what what going on what we’re
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seeing in the market I’m excited about
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this conversation today with with Steve
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and and and the questions that Ma’s
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going to be asking us and give us an
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opportunity in a forum to talk about
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what I’m seeing from a product
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perspective and and what what I hear in
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the market and then Steve uh what he’s
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seeing with all of the Just countless
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clients that he and his entire staff
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deal with on a day-to-day basis it’s a
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really exciting time in procurement tag
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absolutely so um that being said thank
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you for those intros um we’ll talk talk
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a little bit about what you’re going to
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learn today and then we’ll jump right
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into the um the Q&A um so obviously
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today’s is all about procurement
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regestration it’s your procurement
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orchestration 101 crash course and we’re
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going to be talking about what that is
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how it enhances your digital
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transformation Journey which is
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obviously a real Hot Topic right now um
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how P orchestration can enhance your Cur
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your current um STP Suites how it
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maximizes the value of your planned work
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um which we actually do have a planned
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work demo coming up on May 8th as well
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so if you’re watching this before that
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make sure you get you get in if not
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that’ll be up on the website for you to
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watch um and then talking about
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procurement orchestration Beyond just
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intake obviously intake was like big Hot
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Topic we’re all discussing intake but
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how does procurement um orchestration go
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beyond that how does it ensure informed
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stakeholders and improve collaboration
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and then how does it fit in if you
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already have a source to contract or SCP
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solution so many people do many of our
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customers already did when we started
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working with them um and and there
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definitely is increased I when you’re um
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bringing procurement orchestration um
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into a space that’s already utilizing
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STP or um STC Suite so that’s what we’ll
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be talking about today why don’t we jump
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into the first question um and and I’ll
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just let you guys uh get
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started so our first question is what is
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procurement
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orchestration so my I’ll I’ll take the
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first swing on this and you know it’s
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really interesting because the the
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market for orchestration technology the
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literally didn’t exist 24 36 months ago
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and there’s been many many organizations
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sort of joining The Fray and what I see
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at least on the product perspective is
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is for for most people at least or or
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most uh for companies that are that are
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servicing uh orchestration or for uh or
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organizations that are looking to
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purchase it they come in as one of two
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ways they either come in it from from a
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request intake perspective and then
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they’re looking for some way to
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orchestrate or manage that request
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through and it may expand Beyond there’s
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a couple couple entry points here number
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one they’re they either don’t have an
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eprocurement solution or the one that
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they have is sort of legacy and it’s too
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difficult for people to use and they
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have a hard time with it so they’re
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looking to take that complexity and and
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uh user experience make that better the
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other however is that people also have
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that they have other needs Beyond just a
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procurement related needs so one of the
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so procurement could be one channel that
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users need to go down the other could be
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uh they need to to engage with it for
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something or they could need to engage
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with human resources so uh people expect
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this sort of front-end experience and
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that’s for most companies where
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orchestration starts but when I think
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about it I think about it broadly in
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terms at least from our procurement
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Centric lens I think about it broadly in
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terms of the ability to take a signal of
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some sort of need or demand and then
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move it through a process that is
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completely transparent to the requestor
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the the business user the stakeholder
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and interacts with systems and
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technologies that you already have that
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you already have investments in while
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giving you Enterprise grade visibility
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and so what you’re doing essentially is
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orchestrating everything together all
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the different solutions the different
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stakeholders the collaborators that you
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need throughout processes to manage work
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which because at a fundamental level
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you’re managing work no matter what that
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intake or request signal came from
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you’re managing work from one end to the
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other and hoping to achieve a a
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harmonious and outcome and do so in a
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very efficient and effective manner so
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part of the business case for
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orchestration Solutions is creating
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extra process efficiencies and greater
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transparency speeding up cycle times and
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that helps in specifically in
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procurement it helps them to get more
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done and and usually helps them get done
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with more done with the same number of
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employees or even fewer and so like most
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of our customers tell us that our
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solution and and obviously I’m speaking
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about focal points specifically but more
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broadly the business case is an
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orchestration solution can make your
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staff up to 30% more efficient so if you
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take a conservative view off that and
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you think you know like 20% or 15 or so
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that’s about a day a week that you’re
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giving back to every single one of your
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persons and if that translates over into
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management of Greater work and more
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spend under management or more managed
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spend that you’re able to touch and
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ultimately Garner x amount of savings
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off of for every dollar that you touch
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then that’s an enormous return on
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investment there from that efficiency
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gains that you see from your staff so to
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me that’s what orchestration means and I
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know different people have different
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names or ideas about this one thing that
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I like that Gartner says about it is and
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along with that workflow component that
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I said they’re very strong on it being
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the the the capabilities of the solution
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being obviously configurable but
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contextual and actionable meaning that
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we give you information not just
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Integrations to systems but data and
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information at the right place at the
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right time so you’re able to make the
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right decision and not have to move
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around to other systems because you’re
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or orating not just systems but data
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processes and people as
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well I’d like to touch on uh Zach that
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that modernization of the current
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procurement
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stack uh that visibility and
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collaboration piece that you touched on
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there uh across all organiz your all of
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your organization uh including every
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single uh person that touches a
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procurement project and then that boiled
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down to procurement folks having one
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place to view all of their data um it’s
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just that uh that point where these
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folks have a need that I’m seeing in the
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market for something like this not just
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that intake piece like you were saying
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and I I I think that that is at this
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point uh from the conversations that
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I’ve had the the most poignant uh piece
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of procurement orchestration is that
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modern monitor sorry modernizing of that
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procurement stack
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absolutely good that’s that’s good
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Insight Steve I appreciate that and you
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know you’re on the front lines every day
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you and and all of your staff having
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these conversations so you get a really
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great perspective from so many different
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clients most of them you know good siiz
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Enterprises billion 5 10 even you know
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some of our clients are in the Fortune
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100 and you get a you’re getting a
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really good sense of what what it means
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to people in the different use cases
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that they’re trying to solve one more
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point I’ll add to this I said that
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people come with you know they need need
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an entry point or they also come with a
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problem statement and that problem
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statement could be I need ways to ingest
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contracts I need ways to manage renews I
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need ways to manage supplier onboarding
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and in my in my opinion well I everybody
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has you know you got your own needs and
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your journey is your journey and that’s
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okay I think looking at it from a
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standpoint of of like I’m just going to
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handle supplier on boarding or that’s
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that’s what I need to solve is a bit of
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a myopic view of it because there are
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solutions you can buy to do that already
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and so our Approach at focal point is a
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more broad-based Enterprise giving you
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the capability to create any sort of
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inbound signal for demand traffic cop it
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all around and then have the process
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flows that are applicable for that
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particular transaction because what
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really boils down to usually in my
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experience is people somebody needs
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something and they don’t know if they
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need a new supplier necessarily or a
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contract or risk who knows I don’t know
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and so people just don’t know but they
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come with the business need and they’re
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like I need help and so uh orchestration
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Solutions are an opportunity to really
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help folks and and move them down move
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them along the curve of getting what
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they need and getting it much more
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quickly in a in a much more transparent
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fashion awesome I think those are really
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really good answers um and I think we’ve
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laid a good groundwork to go ahead and
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and get into the rest of uh
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q&as so we’ll move to question number
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two question number two is how can
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orchestration enhance your digital
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transformation Journey
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all right I’ll take a I’ll take the
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first swing at that one as well so when
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when you think about digital
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transformation and it is a journey so
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some people try to try to to to bite it
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off and they think of it as you know
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steps or or an event it’s really it’s
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really a journey and in my experience
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most most companies are on somewhere
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between a three and sevene journey when
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they undertake to do digital
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transformation and for many people that
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that means I’m going to buy a source to
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contract solution great I’m going to buy
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a PTP solution or we’re going to go a
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whole hog and we’re going to develop
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we’re going to buy us full source to pay
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application and we’re going to install
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that and my experience having worked at
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and and and worked in implementing
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multiple source to pay Technologies is
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that while that will help one of my
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colleagues talks about uh source to
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contract and these Solutions are great
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at creating artifacts you know sort of a
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timestamp I did an RFP right I did it
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there’s my contract you I have I have an
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artifact here uh we we we’ve got a
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supplier this yet another artifact but
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the pro the management of a process
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because in the reality is that in in
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source to pay terms many of the
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Technologies don’t integrate that well
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or if they do they’re somewhat rigid in
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the way that they flow together and so
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what an orchestration Solution on the
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top of it lets you do is a couple things
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number one smooth out the the the buyer
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Journey uh across your source to pay
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investment if you’ve already got one or
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you plan to make one or your source the
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contract Journey which is where a lot of
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the Strategic work that we find our
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customers doing up front or Upstream of
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the the actual order being released or
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the requisition being uh in input and
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approved Smooths out that buyer Journey
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but it also lets you do something else
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as well it can allow you to pick and
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choose solutions that best fit your
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needs and like for example focal point
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has a number of different partners that
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we leverage uh that serve as core you
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know like procure to pay or uh
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a source to contract Technologies and
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different ones and even different pieces
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of different solution Suites are better
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fits for different organizations just
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based on their needs or complexity or
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lack thereof or geography or amount of
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money they got to spend or what have you
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and so what an orchestration solution
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allows you to do is even though you may
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have disperate Technologies you can
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select what fits your needs your budget
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or just go best of breath and then
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Stitch all of those capabilities
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together using Enterprise grade workflow
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that as we talked about on question one
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and really enabling you to to to get the
13:06
most out of even desperate systems and
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not have to just go buy one Suite from
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one vendor so in my in my experience
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orchestration enables you to to and I
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see a lot of people wanting to do this
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first like oh I don’t have I need to buy
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a source conver P2P but I’m going to buy
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orchestration first and I’m going to do
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that because it allows me to then be
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choosy and and and go get what it is
13:29
that I want and then solve all these
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other needs that are somewhat subjugated
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to that overall need to be transparent
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and to manage the process control a
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little bit better so that’s what I’m
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seeing in terms of like