Replay | Seriously Strategic SRM: Unlocking Value Through Collaboration Webinar

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[Music]
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first of all I’d like to thank everybody
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for attending this looks like it’s going
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to be the highest attended webinar that
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we’ve we’ve ever done um so I’m really
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excited from that I’m assuming it means
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there’s a lot of interest in the topic
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of I have to get this right seriously
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strategic supplier relationship
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management um I’ll tell you what that is
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in a moment my name is Macky Buckingham
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I’m I’m the host for today and I’m
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responsible sales marketing and Business
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Development here at focal point I’m
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joined by Matt Henson uh one of my
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colleagues out the sales team um and
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between us we’ve got around hate to say
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this 50 years of experience in
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procurement and procure Tech um it leans
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towards my side um just that bit older
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um today we’re going to be chatting as I
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said about Supply relationship
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management but with a a business reviews
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Focus so during during our discussion we
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we’re going to possibly say qbr quite
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often if we say qbr please think about
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other reviews as well they don’t need to
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be quarterly which is what the Q stands
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for it can also be an ad hoc review it
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can also be a monthly review and it can
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also be an annual review and and
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hopefully you’ll understand how that can
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be even more possible with new
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technologies as we move forward um but
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the principles remain the same it’s all
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about business reviews
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any thoughts to start us off Matt no I
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mean that’s that’s great I think you
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know qbrs are evolving um into more than
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just supplier initiated and led um
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check-ins I think they’re becoming
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strategic opportunities for both sides
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suppliers and buyers you know so today
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we’ll we’ll uh double click and focus on
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what makes a successful qbr from both
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sides of the table uh why do qbrs matter
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how to best prepare um technology used
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and the future right Matt Matthew Absol
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absolutely yeah thank you you can call
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me Matt I don’t mind just confuses
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everybody um yeah absolutely it’s about
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creating space I think where supplier
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and procurement professionals
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collaborate you know you we need to
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create shared goals driving both
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operational strategic value I would
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suggest let’s let’s just dive in and and
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say you know qbr should not be seen as a
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necessary evil is my first point um or
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as a place to raise problems they should
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really be
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collaborative so let’s jump jump into
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why qbrs really
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matter some thoughts M yeah absolutely
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agree they shouldn’t be combative they
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should be um collaborative and an
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opportunity for both sides to build
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trust and align objectives and showcase
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Innovation and just just align get on
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the same page and make sure that you’re
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helping each other as as strategic
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Partners so um you know it looks it
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makes you look at your supplier as event
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you know supplier not a a vendor but
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more of a a trusted advisor and a
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partner in your business and your
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success right so I spent 17 years on the
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supplier side before I joined
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procurement side and um I’ve been in a
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lot of qbrs as an individual contributor
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manager director and uh you know we
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prepared to the nth degree and our goal
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is to figure out are they happy right
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will they renew um will they be a
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reference uh and most importantly how
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can we extract more Revenue out of out
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of this client no flat renewals we’re
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going to get the renewal is it going to
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be more what else can we sell them so
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you know honestly that’s just that’s
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front of mind and the main reason we
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want to make sure they’re happy and
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successful and talk about the return on
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their investment but are there any
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yellow or red lights
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um changes in organization uh new people
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where did those people come from what
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other Technologies do they use what you
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know there’s just so many question
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questions but um you know from the P the
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supplier perspective it’s important to
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um you know prepare and have these qbrs
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so that you can align with your clients
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absolutely yeah and I think you know a
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lot of what we may talk about today is
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is around the technology side um and how
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technology companies look at this but I
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I I believe and I know actually because
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I used to sell paper and paper products
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and and stuff um that that it’s it’s
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very similar across the the whole broad
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spectrum of the different categories
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that you you deal with you know from the
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procurement perspective there’s often a
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a view of you know qbrs being a way to
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connect supplier performance to the
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business goals that’s important so
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really being able to do that and why why
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that becomes important is is is part of
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what you need to think about you know
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also it should help identify risks
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manage costs and explore the the value
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creation of running um running a
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supplier and and understanding that
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supplier and it shouldn’t be for all
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suppliers either um you know we need to
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think
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about focusing this and and people
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already do this this is not rocket
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science if if we’ve got procurement
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professionals out there you know
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listening in today yeah I I get it you
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you can’t do it for 100% of your
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suppliers and honestly you shouldn’t you
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know there’s there’s ways of
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prioritizing how you will um and who you
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will talk to you know the kic Matrix for
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example and we’ll talk about a little
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bit about that in the handout that we
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give with this but you need to focus
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really on those bottleneck suppliers
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those strategic suppliers those leverage
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suppliers and ignore the non-critical
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suppliers as you go through but what
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we’re we’re thinking and what we will be
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talking about is how you can expand it
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from that top itsy bitsy percentage that
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you do today to a bigger percentage of
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them because the more people you talk to
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the more possibilities you have for
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Innovation the more possibilities you
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have for saving the more possibilities
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you have to get hit those kpis because
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you’re talking to more people and
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getting more perspective of what’s going
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on out there as
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well so you know I’d love to kind of
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jump in and say you know how we prepare
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for a successful qbr and let’s take that
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from the supplier side to start with
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Matt um with your experience I have some
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but you have more experience of that
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yeah and I I agree I talked to a CPO
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before the call and what you were saying
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you know we can’t have qbr with
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everybody right so understanding which
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suppliers are most important in terms of
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spend but also risk and those other
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other factors but on the supplier side
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um they prepare to the nth degree as I
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mentioned earlier and you are up against
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a highly trained highly motivated and
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highly compensated Sales Machine um they
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there’s a quote and not to think of this
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as a battle but there’s a quote from
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sunu 2000 years old that’s I wrote it
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down so I would not mess it up if you
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know your enemy and know yourself you do
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not need the fear the result of 100
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Battles if you know yourself but not the
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enemy for every Victory gained you also
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suffer a defeat if you know neither the
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enemy nor yourself you will succumb in
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every battle so I think both sides have
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to U prepare for these qbrs because you
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know negotiation begin at hello you the
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first time you talk to someone and then
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you you make a sale and become a client
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and then you have these qbrs to check in
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how you’re doing it is another
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opportunity to continue the negotiation
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cycle and prepare for the renewal and
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you’re always looking for leverage
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across uh at every opportunity how are
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they doing you know what are the the
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kpis how are we measuring success and
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they are they are preparing for this so
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they’ve done their homework they’ve got
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their org charts they’ve got um you know
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they know the other suppliers that are
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uh that you do business with the
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technology your company uses they’re
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they’re using technology we’ll cover
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that in a little bit but they’ve scoured
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LinkedIn for Intel they’ve read your 10K
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10q latest news they’ve gone to AI chat
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GPT and learned as much as they possibly
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can so for instance Microsoft when they
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first sell a client they have three
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years typically um before their renewal
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is up and they uh this is an old program
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it may still not be in use but it’s out
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there on the internet if you want to go
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search for it but it was a a team – 36
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um schedule that started monthly and
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then quarterly and um you know yearly
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they had uh metrics that they were
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chasing and and measuring throughout
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those three years before your renewals
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even up so they begin month one so and
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they built Roi calculations So based on
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their perceived value so you know I
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think you should get their qbr materials
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before the event and see if you agree
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with those metrics what do you think
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Matthew
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I agree and you know I’ve got some
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experience of this as well I used to
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look after a huge cpg company un
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Unilever when I was at sap so I was the
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main point of contact for sap there um
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and I knew everything about unil I knew
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everything they were doing with our
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system as sap I knew everything that was
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going on and I was dedicated to unil I
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was the the only you
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know main point of contact but but that
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was the only account that I looked after
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un didn’t have that luxury for me um you
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know I I talked to the CIO I talked to
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all the other people there but uh they
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didn’t have a one person just looking
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after sap if you like so you know I had
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all these tools I had all this
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information I had had the strength of my
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company behind me to be able to do that
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but um yeah I think if you look at the
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from the procurement preparation side
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it’s it’s not been inadequate it’s been
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done well I think by a lot of companies
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but again we’re only hitting a very tiny
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amount of the um the suppliers that we
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should be
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hitting coming back to your son Zoo as
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well yeah it shouldn’t be
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confrontational absolutely it shouldn’t
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be a battle um but they are and I know
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historically that’s been the case um so
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how do you change that you change that
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by leveling the playing field by like
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you said Mt knowing your adversary if
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you like uh better than than they know
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themselves almost so you need to collect
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the kpis you need to understand you know
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how they’ve been performing how they’ve
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been delivering where they’ve done good
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things where they’ve done bad things you
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need to understand the stakeholder
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feedback within your team as well and
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and risk data for the company as well um
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and ideally you want all of this in real
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time right also so you could actually do
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this qbi qbr MBR at any time you can do
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it ad hoc if somebody says hey let’s
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have a chat you can do it and you have
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all the information in front in front of
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you and then what you need to do is also
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set those measurable goals so like you
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say let’s get that preparation done as a
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team as a partnership beforehand um
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these are the goals that we’re
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interested in these are the goals that
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you’re interested in how do they mesh
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together and how can we talk about those
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so whether it’s ESG cost savings
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delivery improvements which are going to
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come from the kbis a lot of the time as
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well I think that becomes more and more
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more and more critical for you yeah and
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what about the technology you know used
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in qbrs from the from the buyer side and
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you the future outlook you know present
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State and there’s a lot of growth in
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this area right and so you know talk a
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little bit about that yeah it’s massive
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and and people who have tuned into to
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our QB or our webinars before um would
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have heard me talk about procurement 4.0
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the the next generation of
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procurement honestly we’re catching up
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some we’re catching up with with sales
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sales has always had the the advantage
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as far as technology business technology
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is concerned you know Salesforce going
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back to 2007 or something I know I first
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sold against it when I was at sap in
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about
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2009 um but understanding you know
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what’s coming forward and what is
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available now it’s not just the old also
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ran you know yeah you have your saps
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oracles and all of those they have some
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great data inside of them um Koopas and
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Aras and I valuers and stuff they have
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some great data inside of them as well
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it’s very much transactional data um so
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that’s that’s good to know but you do
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need other information you need risk
12:44
data you need other stuff so bringing
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all of that together into one place and
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obviously we work for focal point we’ve
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got a reason for doing this this webinar
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and and we do that but making that then
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into realtime dashboard
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to make them forward looking um so that
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you can really start to pull all of that
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objective data into one place very
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quickly and easily and then automating
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the way you do that so automate those
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predictable tasks um the other thing I
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think that’s really important is running
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a qbr cycle as a project you need to
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really run it that this this is
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something that’s going to happen it’s
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going to happen at this point I just
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talked about ad hoc on you can do those
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but but if you can run it like a project
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and get all of the stakeholder
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information you need all of the other
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information you need into one place and
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know when you’re going to run this
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project with them and and come to the
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culmination of the project which is a
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qbr that really helps you to to have a
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much bigger wider View and not just a
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snapshot view of what’s going on so new
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technology is allowing you to do that
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it’s allowing you to bring that in and
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and bring it into a project orchestrate
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it through until you you get to the
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end yeah you mentioned Salesforce I just
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made a a post after watching football
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over the weekend about I used Salesforce
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I think the first two 25 years ago right
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so it’s you know it’s been around and
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it’s it’s helped sales teams stay on
14:18
task and keep notes but um technology
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like that Salesforce and HubSpot are
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just getting smarter and adding new
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features um and sales teams are using so
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many different tools like Zoom info
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Apollo and Hunter to find any email they
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need to find any phone number cell phone
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numbers all that Technologies is just
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out there to help them build org charts
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and even um you know use AI tools like
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there’s one I just ran across the other
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day I hadn’t heard of yet clay that does
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data enrichment it pulls from LinkedIn
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information and and other AI sources to
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help you know find the right people and
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hone in on on your your sales strategy
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right so yeah um I what what procurement
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teams can learn from from AI tools like
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just you know just what’s out what’s out
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there chat GPT Gemini whatever you want
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to use right so what were you say agree
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no yeah I agree with you I think yeah
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another thing you can do is ask your
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suppliers what are they using what are
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what are they using at the moment um
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what are their best customers doing that
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that you could learn from as well so say
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to your supplier number one hey what do
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you do with your customer number two
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that’s different to how you do qbrs with
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us um that could be really interesting
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way to to approach this as well to
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really you know just try and use best
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practice wherever you can um I think
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that would that would be really cool
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along those lines just asking the simple
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question how’s your quarter going how’s
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your year going yeah and how do we stack
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up in your pipeline just so you know you
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understand how important you are to them
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right yeah but you know some other tools
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that they’re using you data sharing
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collaboration tools you know team slack
16:03
Etc chatter and Salesforce but I think
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you know co-creation is really um
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Central to the qbrs of the future
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collaboration and so having you know
16:13
seeing the road map understanding it
16:15
having some input I think is valuable
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especially some of your smaller more
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important suppliers that are more agile
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and Nimble and can change and adapt um
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understanding that communicating back
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and forth and letting them see your
16:27
needs and what what drives your business
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so I think you know a key point of this
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is just to be equally prepared for your
16:33
qbr interview stakeholders before going
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into it re you know read the latest news
16:38
if you if it’s a SAS tool if you have a
16:40
Sam tool in house take a look at your
16:42
usage you know are you over deployed
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under deployed or you know do you feel
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like you’re getting 50% of your
16:48
investment have that ready so even ask
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for the qbr deck I think I mentioned
16:52
that earlier but it was in my head ask
16:54
for the qbr deck before the meeting so
16:57
you can prepare if they’ll send it to
16:58
you
16:59
yeah absolutely yeah you’re absolutely
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right the revenue teams they’ve been
17:03
served well by Tech um new
17:06
technology is being enhanced and
17:09
replaced at all times you know
17:10
Salesforce is not the most modern thing
17:12
out there anymore we use Salesforce but
17:15
but I’m I’m sitting on the board of a
17:16
com or the um Advisory Board of a
17:18
company at the moment called um Revo um
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and they’re changing the way people do
17:24
buying uh selling sorry they they’re
17:27
really moving things around and uh and
17:29
bringing it into a more collaborative
17:32
space so that that’s growing as well so
17:37
yeah I think procurement technology has
17:40
definitely improved I mean I I quoted
17:43
this a while ago but um in 2015 there
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were 20 um procurement Technologies out
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there there are now about
17:51
400 um it’s massive but how do you tie
17:54
all of those together as well that’s
17:56
very very important um
17:59
so you need to think about you know
18:02
selling signals um you know what is the
18:05
selling intent everybody knows that
18:07
software companies like to sell at the
18:09
end of the or like or have to sell at
18:11
the end of the quarter and at the end of
18:13
the year um that’s not that’s a a non
18:18
Secrets kind of thing but what other
18:20
signals are there out there that you
18:21
could use um and Ai and automation are
18:25
going to help with that for sure going
18:26
to really help us to to dig in deeper to
18:29
what our suppliers want to achieve and
18:31
how they want to achieve it yeah and I
18:34
mentioned in that post earlier that
18:36
companies are spending money on offense
18:39
but not so much on defense but it’s
18:40
refreshing to see procure Tech budgets
18:43
actually being allocated and it’s uh you
18:47
can see the change just in that so it’s
18:50
very happy for
18:51
that oh yeah we’re we’re super happy for
18:54
that but I think we’ve built that right
18:56
yeah I think because of bringing new
18:58
technology it’s not the same and and
19:01
also the other
19:02
thing I like to to think about
19:05
is you know it’s it’s not about standing
19:09
still you have to move forward so you
19:12
can continue to use your old Tech or
19:14
your existing Tech um but you need to
19:17
enhance that as time goes on as well and
19:20
you can either enhance it with that
19:21
supplier or you can enhance it with with
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other maybe more Innovative suppliers
19:27
out there as well um so so bringing all
19:31
the different tools together you need um
19:35
but first Define what your business
19:36
needs are don’t just buy a tech for the
19:39
sake of buying a tech um actually think
19:42
about what you want to achieve in your
19:44
qbrs and how you want to gather that
19:47
data and where that data is being
19:49
gathered from you know do you have the
19:51
information you
19:52
need yeah I think I think the other
19:55
thing you know the the future of qbrs
19:57
more generally
19:59
um I think there needs to be less focus
20:03
on past M Matrix um but more strategic
20:07
alignment in Innovation and I keep
20:09
banging on about this in in a couple of
20:11
things I’ve said recently you know
20:13
Innovation is is really
20:15
important to the company it’s a way to
20:18
add money to the Top Line not just the
20:21
bottom line you know procurement is
20:23
really good at saving money that’s why
20:25
procurement teams were were made and
20:28
then things like ESG came in and and
20:30
other stuff that needed to be followed
20:32
and risk and all that kind of stuff but
20:34
but the next thing the next phase is
20:37
really about Innovation so if you can do
20:39
really effective business reviews with
20:42
your your partners we’ll call them
20:44
rather than the suppliers you can start
20:47
to glean information on how to do
20:49
Innovation what’s the latest trends in
20:51
the market what are you doing with other
20:53
customers that kind of thing and you can
20:55
bring all of that together into one
20:57
place
20:58
and then be able to start processes to
21:02
create that Innovation or at least
21:04
identify that Innovation and bring in
21:06
the right people from the other
21:07
different departments to to talk about
21:10
it as well so I think that’s really
21:12
important yeah and doing that saves time
21:15
and I think that’s probably the biggest
21:17
enemy for procurement preparing for
21:19
these qbrs is having the time to be able
21:22
to to do all these you know preparation
21:25
tasks so um you know so you at the end
21:29
of the day I think qbrs are really all
21:31
about partnership you know suppliers
21:33
want to feel valued and they they are I
21:35
mean you need your your your top
21:37
suppliers to do your business they’re
21:39
they’re important um you know trusted as
21:42
contributors to your company’s success
21:44
in the bottom line um but they really
21:47
want that trusted advisor status and I
21:49
think these qbrs EBC meetings um even if
21:53
you know how whatever these meetings are
21:55
um we call them qbrs like you said but
21:58
um use them for for both sides to make
22:01
sure that you’re advancing your
22:03
relationship and and adding the
22:05
Strategic to the supplier relationship
22:08
management yeah
22:10
absolutely yeah and you know procurement
22:14
it’s about QB as a tool for driving
22:17
alignment right creating value preparing
22:19
for the future when done right there’re
22:21
a winwin in fact they’re a win-win win
22:24
thinking about it because it’s a win for
22:25
the customer as well um for everybody
22:29
you know that’s what it should be about
22:31
I just noticed a note up there um
22:34
somebody had asked I started a supply
22:37
management consulting years ago and one
22:39
of the most critical pieces was to
22:41
provide smaller suppliers a platform to
22:43
get business and have more visibility
22:45
with large companies what is your
22:47
approach to providing this capability I
22:50
think when we when we think about that
22:53
and how companies can can grow their
22:55
business I think AI becomes really
22:58
important an here it’s it’s about going
23:00
out and identifying new suppliers and
23:02
bringing that new supplier information
23:04
to them um so that’s a kind of a a
23:07
outgoing one but um but I really think
23:11
that you know a tool to bring suppliers
23:15
in I mean there there’s some already out
23:18
there you’ve got you know the ARA
23:20
business Network and the the kooper
23:21
portals and all those kinds of things um
23:25
but really enabling that traction from
23:28
the procurement side is very very
23:31
important so being able to troll the
23:33
internet and find the right thing so the
23:35
most most important thing is to have a
23:37
really good approachable website I think
23:40
because that’s what AI is going to be
23:42
using um in the
23:44
future but you know just going back to
23:48
what I was saying it’s it’s a great time
23:51
to be in procurement at the moment this
23:53
is winwin win for for everybody if we do
23:56
it right you know procurement Tech is
23:59
catching up the visibility is high and
24:02
the ability to impact the business is
24:05
huge um it’s never been bigger than it
24:08
is today so I think if you can do your
24:11
qbrs correctly and and well if you can
24:13
do your ad hoc reviews as well if you
24:17
can bring in those new suppliers as our
24:19
our colleague was talking about there
24:22
bring those in at the same time you can
24:25
really start to understand more about
24:29
how the business ticks and add value to
24:32
that Top Line and bottom line um as we
24:35
were talking about agreed I think you
24:38
know the future of SRM is is bright and
24:41
it’s really exciting to see how qbrs are
24:44
evolving to help strengthen that
24:45
relationship between the win-win win
24:48
supplier um buyer and the internal
24:50
stakeholder so um involve them great
24:55
yeah
24:57
absolutely I I think that’s about it
25:00
what we’re going to do we’re actually
25:01
going to um send a guide out we’re also
25:03
going to have a blog post on our our
25:05
website so feel free to look at that and
25:07
please you know follow us on LinkedIn um
25:11
there’s a lot going on in focal point at
25:13
the moment um I really want to thank
25:16
everybody for joining this has been an
25:18
amazing uh turnout um let’s continue to
25:21
innovate um and Elevate those supplier
25:24
relationships to get that long-term
25:27
success
25:28
um and if you want to know more about us
25:31
reach out to me or Matt directly um
25:34
we’re on LinkedIn we’re not hidden we
25:36
want to be seen um there’s a couple of
25:38
other focal point people out there as
25:39
well quite a few of us and uh yeah
25:42
appreciate your time today thank you
25:45
yeah thanks everybody
25:49
[Music]