My guest on the show today is Brian Bancroft. This is Brian’s second appearance on the show. We originally sat down back in episode 126, and I enjoyed the conversation so much that I have been eager to find an opportunity for us to record another pod.
Brian has a wealth of experience across, and outside of the procurement function, and has enjoyed roles including as Senior Director for Indirect Procurement and Shared Services, and then CPO of Asia Pacific and Africa regions for Kellogg’s, and most recently the VP of North America Indirect Procurement, and then of Direct Procurement for The Coca-Cola Company.
Since we last talked, Brian has made the move to Church and Dwight, where he is Chief Procurement Officer, embarking on another procurement transformation journey. And it is procurement transformations that are the subject of our conversation, where I ask Brian to share his learnings from executing a number of transformations around the world.
Digitization is a hot topic in procurement today, and while it will undoubtedly have a big impact on the future of our profession, it is often difficult to separate the hype from the reality. There are few organizations better positioned to help me explore this topic than HfS Research – a company I have followed for a long time – and their Chief Strategy Officer, Saurabh Gupta.
In today’s episode, Saurabh provides a “Three Horizon” roadmap. Horizon One technologies are those that must be explored and utilized today, while Horizon Three technologies are those that are more experimental. I also question Saurabh to share details of HfS’ “OneOffice” thinking, and to answer a question that has long been on my mind: how exactly an analyst research report is written.
I have long admired Vodafone as being a pioneer in both embracing and supporting supplier enabled innovation and last year Vodafone partnered with the government of Luxembourg to launch what I believe is an innovative approach to working with smaller, growing, companies that they named Tomorrow Street.
I wanted to learn more about Vodafone’s approach, and so I invited Warrick Cramer, the CEO of Tomorrow Street, and Mark Perera, the CEO of Old St Labs and a Tomorrow Street partner, to join me on the show.
On launching Tomorrow Street, Warrick shared how he had a blank piece of paper in terms of where to position it within the Vodafone organization. I really enjoyed learning why he chose to partner with procurement, and the opportunity that he sees for procurement in facilitating and delivering supplier enabled innovation.
Today’s show comes to you straight from the SIG Spring Summit last week in Washington DC, and features Danny Ertel, the founding partner at Vantage Partners. Danny’s practice focuses on helping buyers and providers of services enter into, manage, and when necessary, remediate their relationships.
Danny is a lawyer by training, and prior to founding Vantage Partners, he served in a number of high profile roles including as a law clerk to Justice Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court and as a Senior Researcher at the Harvard Negotiation Project. Danny has co-authored four books, including “Getting Ready to Negotiate – The Getting to Yes Workbook” with Roger Fisher, and is frequently cited in publications such as The Economist and Harvard Business Review.
I have followed Danny’s work for a long time. He first came to my attention as a thought leader and subject matter expert when while I was a Category Manager for Outsourcing & Offshoring, and I was delighted to welcome him onto the show. We focused our conversation on ways in which we can turn around difficult relationships, both with suppliers and internal stakeholders.