Transcript 0:00 Stuart, great to have you on the podcast. And you were just saying this is podcast number two for you. 0:05 Um, and to be honest, I'm just thinking, I think I've only ever been on two podcasts as a guest, so it's a very different experience t- compared to a host. But, um, hi, first off. Yeah. Hey, Dan. Thanks for having me on. 0:17 Yeah, a bit of a funny one. Like, I'd, I'd never done this before until last week, and now suddenly it's like London buses and we've done two in a week, so- Yeah... 0:24 maybe we'll have to wa- watch out when we, when we post it. Yeah, no, definitely. And, um, well, I think it'll just be good. Like, we don't really know each other. We, we've chatted on LinkedIn. 0:33 So for me, personally, it'd be good to get a bit more of a, an intro into what you do. I, I've seen your content on LinkedIn. I think just anyone listening or watching, it'd be really cool as well. 0:42 I guess my, most of my career has been, been in marketing procurement, so 14, 15 years brand side marketing procurement. 0:48 Some regional and global roles at places like Danone, Nike, uh, Reckitt Benckiser, uh, Betfair, uh, online sports betting. 0:55 And originally, a long time ago, back in 2008 or so, for the, for the Olympics, so when London was awarded the games. So yeah, that, that's what I was mostly doing in m- in terms of procurement. 1:04 About nine months ago, decided to, to set up my own thing. W- Wanted a ch- a change of scene, was really curious to do, to do some other stuff and maybe manage the work-life balance a bit differently. 1:14 Yeah, what, what I've been doing for the last nine months is a little bit of normal procurement work for, for a couple of smaller brands. 1:20 But really, mostly it's actually been helping agencies and intermediaries kind of demystify procurement and understand how to navigate it a little bit better, and that's ended up looking like helping agencies with their, with their own marketing and sales process and strategy, really. 1:33 Yeah. So I, I, f- firstly, I didn't realize, um, you only made that jump nine months ago. But that, that's a brave move, right? During COVID to, uh- Yeah... to go on your own. Yeah. 1:43 So mid- middle of COVID, middle of lockdown. I think at, at the time, I was really keen to do, like, a little bit of training and, and coaching. So I'd- Mm-hmm... 1:50 obviously working in marketing procurement for a long time, if you, if you can't sort of talk marketing, of course you don't get a seat at the table. 1:56 But I wanted to do some marketing learning, so I, I, I did the Mark Ritson Mini MBA in Marketing, sort of straight off the bat from sort of thinking about le- leaving work. 2:05 So lear- taking a couple of learnings from that, I sort of reached out to a few agencies that I knew and I said, "Look, I'm thinking of providing this service to agencies. Would you buy it?" You know? 2:14 [laughs] A bit of product testing. Bit of- Yeah... mar- bit of market dynamics, market analysis, whatever. 2:19 And they all said, "God, yeah, that would be pretty handy, actually, if you could understand procurement a bit better, if you can help us with our pitch responses, just, like, how to, how to frame the pricing message," like just bits and pieces like that. 2:31 So everyone I reached out to said, "We could, we could do with this sort of thing" and that gave me the confidence to, to do it. That sounds awesome. I mean, when I, uh, think about... 2:40 Like, uh, I think one thing a lot of procurement people think, uh, forget about is, uh, there are, uh, there's a whole team at the other side of the, the piece of paper you send out, whether it's, uh, an RFP, an RFX, so whatever you're doing. 2:53 That, that, that's, that's something there, right? And marketing, uh, to me seems like a really weird place for procurement to sit a lot of the time because the objectives do not... 3:02 Traditional procurement objectives don't align very well. Uh, I'll be very careful around, like, my terminology, uh, around objectives of procurement. 3:09 So yeah, like, that, that service sounds really cool, like you're, you're doing. I mean, what's... Uh, uh, obviously they, they, they've been keen on that. What, what kind of... 3:17 What have you learned, really, from that process? 3:19 'Cause I guess, uh, like for me, uh, thinking about this, I, I, I would, if I was a marketer, I wouldn't really understand how the, how on earth procurement people even function half the time, i- in a very traditional sense, that is. 3:31 I think what it's given me is a lot of understanding of the things that I intuitively knew to be true when I was working brand side. 3:39 So the amount of effort that agencies put into building relationships with procurement, uh, with, with people at brands, the amount of time and effort they put into RFP responses, how it feels to kind of be left hanging for, for answers- [laughs]... 3:51 from the brand about how it's going. Now, being a s- a service provider myself as well, like really sort of walking a mile in someone else's shoes, if you like, as a service provider going, "God, this is actually..." 4:03 I've been a little bit, on occasion, too busy or too blind to realize the impact that the mechanics- Mm-hmm... 4:08 of the big brands, you know, um, how they go about their agency selection and, and how much, you know, investment, uh, emotionally in terms of time and resources that agencies put in. 4:18 I now see it every day, 'cause I'm helping them prepare for an RFP response or it might be a one-to-one discussion they're having with a brand to kind of understand what they can maybe do to work together. 4:28 And I see how important it is to them. And I've, I've always kind of sensed it, but when you're on the other team, when you're at the brand, you're a little bit more cold about it. 4:36 You're like, "Okay, we've got our process. These are our deliverables. We have to do this by this date," and- Mm... may- maybe it's savings or something else. 4:42 And now kind of getting into bed with the agencies and trying to help them navigate all that stuff, you really see, y- you really get a s- a sense of what it is from the other side. 4:51 So it's always been, it's always been something that I hoped I walked that line very well, 'cause I, I started my career at, at a marketing agency before I fell into procurement. 5:00 Always tried to see the agency point of view, and that's probably why I was relatively good at marketing procurement, 'cause I'm not, I wasn't just like a cost guy, a price guy. Yeah. 5:08 [laughs] But, you know, it's, it's, it's really just amplified by seeing it now more, more from this point of view as well. No, that's great. And I mean, like, it's clear you, you love marketing. 5:19 And is it just marketing in general or i- is it marketing procurement? Like to me, you, you sound very well-versed in just the whole piece. 5:26 It's not just about the procurement bit, it's about, you know, what marketing is all about. Yeah. 5:31 I th- I think, look, the, the best marketing procurement people that I've, that I've come across at different brands or doing, um, you know, engaging with things like the World Federation of Advertisers and so on, the people who, uh, have some marketing experience or really enjoy marketing, they're the best marketing procurement people. 5:49 I think if you, if you sort of picture more direct procurement, when arguably, and I really say arguably and it's- [laughs]... this is not... 5:58 If, if you can say, "The specification of this pen is"You know, size, material- Mm-hmm... um, functionality. What volume do we need? Where does it have to be delivered and by when? 6:08 You can kind of s- put that out to the marketplace and get, you know, get your, uh, get your quotes in. And with marketing, the- there's always been that little bit more... 6:16 The creativity part has always been the thing that marketing procurement, marketing themselves, and the agencies have always a little bit struggled to come together and say, "Oh, how do we articulate in terms of... 6:27 articulate that in terms of how we compare apples to apples?" And it's, it's one of the things that, um, has always been quite difficult. 6:34 What, what value can procurement people and procurement pros bring to, to marketing? A lot more than a lot of marketing people might think initially. Okay. 6:42 Um, I think there's, there's historically probably been the, the perception or perhaps the stigma around procurement that it's very much about price. Yeah. Get that. Um, of course. Yeah. 6:53 And, uh, you know, there are always budgets to be hit, and depending on where exactly procurement sits in, in any given organization, there may be- Mm... 7:01 some reporting that gets done to finance, which is about savings and, you know, did we hit budgets and so on. 7:06 But the, you know, the, the best marketing procurement people, I think, they, they go into the marketing teams and say, "What is it that you need? What are your metrics?" Yeah. "Is it, is it brand metrics? 7:15 Is it, you know, is it sales? Is it, is it something else?" 7:18 And if you can, if you can go into, uh, leadership teams at brands and say, "Look, I might deliver some savings at some point as well, but first and foremost, what does success look like for you in terms of how you engage with agencies? 7:30 What do they have to be doing?" And, you know, over time you, you know, you build that trust and you might start to talk about performance measurement and, you know, different bits and pieces like that. 7:39 But there's been some good stuff recently that I've quite enjoyed sort of seeing from afar, which is, you know, things like Project Spring from the World Federation of Advertisers. 7:46 For anyone who hasn't heard of that, basically there's a top tier- Yeah, I haven't. So [laughs] that'd be- Yeah... a good one. Yeah. Yeah. 7:52 So, so World Federation of Advertisers is, is largely made up of the top 2 or 300 brands in the world by ad- advertising spend. Okay. 7:59 They are a great resource of talking about topics within advertising, best practices, surveys and learnings. 8:07 And something that came out from there last year, Project Spring, was essentially inputs from some of the, the biggest marketing procurement leaders at some of these brands. 8:15 And it really touched on, in a lot of detail, how procurement, marketing procurement delivers so much more than just savings. So value. So a more sort of 360 degree look at value. 8:25 Um, as I say, it might be speed, it might be innovation, it might be other more typical things like risk management and productivity. 8:32 But on the whole, it, you know, it's, it's basically saying, "Right, marketing, what are your, what are your objectives, and how can procurement help you deliver those through how we-" Yeah... "engage with agencies?" 8:42 Anyway, I- I've been seeing a shift. I, I move around quite a bit, like yourself, in roles. I'm actually in a permanent role now, so maybe I won't, I won't be moving around so much, but cover a lot of different sectors. 8:50 I don't actually cover marketing ever, so this is, this is really a cool conversation for me. 8:54 And I, I do think a lot of procurement people even consider marketing as a, as a profession to get into in that sense in, uh, in terms of marketing procurement. 9:02 But a lot of what you're just talking about, that alignment, uh, like is that alignment with the, the business or your stakeholders, I, I kind of seen a big shift wherever I go that, like, the business doesn't necessarily just want savings. 9:12 They might still talk about savings or, you know, "Can we get a, you know, 5% off of this supply this year or 1% or 2?" Whatever. Yeah. 9:21 But they're, they're actually wanting like maybe to have a speedier process so they can get products out to market faster, or just making sure that the quality is far better from the, as far as the bus- you know, it reduces risk and everything like that. 9:33 So I, I kind of feel like, I don't know, and [laughs] I'm sure there'd be like some really traditional- Yeah... people out there who will say, "No, procurement is very much about cutting costs." 9:41 I, it sounds like if you g- [laughs] if you walk into a, a marketing meeting with the marketing leaders at a company, they're just gonna not take you seriously if you do that. Yeah. E- ex- exactly. 9:51 I think the best relationships between marketing procurement and marketing are, are about their conversations about the consumer. Um, and that's how it starts. Yeah. 9:58 And it's like, how do we go and, how do we go and satisfy your objectives to meet, to have that impact on the consumer this year? 10:04 Um, so you know that depending on what it might be, it might be members- it might be membership, it might be sign-ups to the app, you know, Nike Training Club app or something. So- Yeah... 10:13 I would rather that my team would be equally allowed to celebrate the fact that the deal that we did to find the agency that delivered that- Yeah... 10:20 a- active users on the app, sign up on the app, whatever, like that, that should be something that we can celebrate as procurement as well, no matter what it cost. So it's- Yeah. Exactly... 10:27 you know, it's different, different metrics. 10:29 And as I say, we'd report on it differently, like the saving would go to finance and the, the uptick in membership and active users or whatever, that would go to the, the senior director of digital brand or, or whatever it might be to say, "Hey, we, we, we helped you out with that. 10:41 No worries," you know? [laughs] And what, what's really interesting in terms of different types of value, I think for, um, for marketing procurement is CPOs these days, they have so many different priorities. 10:52 But if you were running your own business and you said, "I've got 15 priorities," you'd get, you know, s- people would be like, "You can't have 15 priorities, you'll never do any of them." Yeah. 10:59 [laughs] But, but just reading this, this, this, um, publication this week from Deloitte, all the different priorities that CPOs have, I was having a read through and it was always the cost savings was number one priority. 11:10 It just switched, didn't it? And it's n- Is that, is- It's- I think I saw your post potentially on it. Maybe it was your post I read. But yeah, I'll let you carry on. I got excited then. 11:17 I don't think I've posted about it yet. Um, but I'll- Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. But probably cause some waves in my circles. I saw someone post on this, so yeah, no, I'll, I'll let you keep talking for sure. 11:26 I can't claim it, I think. [laughs] Um, but, um, number one is now operational efficiency. Yeah. That's it. Savings. Now, now look, operational efficiency to me smells like a different way of saying savings. Savings. 11:38 [laughs] But it's what, you know, it's, it's, it's doing more with less, it's productivity- Yeah... it's streamlining things. And, and savings are still number two, to be, to be fair. But- Yeah... 11:46 what's really interesting, if you look at the priorities now, you see a real leap in things like digital transformation, input to CSR, sustainability, D&I, and so, you know, the external world and how you interface with it. 11:59 So CPOs have got so much stuff to do. Mm. And I think maybe five, 10 years ago it was, it was always about savings. There was maybe two other things underneath. 12:06 It might have been risk, risk mitigation and something else. 12:09 But there's, I think the, there's another thing in that Deloitte report, which I, which really resonated with me, which was the highest performing procurement teams, they have a really balanced scorecard of, of, um, of value delivery. 12:20 Um, so it might be the sustainability stuff, it might be innovation and digital transformation and, and whatever it might be. But supposedly brands who, who look at-... 12:28 procurement teams who look at multiple types of value delivery metrics, they are typically higher performing because they are more balanced in, in how they approach the work and they get better reach and, and traction within the business. 12:41 Yeah, it's a really, um, yeah, it's a really interesting point actually. And yeah, for some reason I thought I, I saw your post. Obviously you haven't done a post yet, maybe do a post. 12:48 I, I saw someone post about this, um, and I'm sure there were some funny comments in the, the comment area there. 12:55 But yeah, like I kind of agree with you that that whole efficiency piece feels like it's almost savings over, uh, people hours, like getting less, having a- Yeah. But, but the thing-... lean workforce... 13:08 look, we- we're, we're really cynical, aren't we, mate? But the, you know, the... I think it's just interesting to see that when you've got the option of saying savings and suddenly it's not top of the list. 13:16 So something, something has to be- Yeah... there has to be some mechanics behind that, that are... Like, and it's obviously it's, it's silly to say it, right? But like these CPOs at these big brands, they're not... 13:26 They didn't come down in the last hour, right? They, they know what they're doing. They're absolute- Yeah... experts, leaders in, in, in, in this stuff. 13:33 So it's brilliant that there are so many good procurement functions and procurement people now who can go into the business and say, "This is who we are. This is how to engage with us. 13:42 These are the types of value that we deliver." 13:44 And it's, it's good procurement people that are coming through, that are fueling that conversation within businesses and, and slowly changing the perception of procurement from the top down. 13:53 But also, you know, some of the, some of the best young procurement people I've seen have been fresh-faced interns that have come into a business 14:01 like a Nike or wherever else, and they just come in and they absorb everything. Mm. They... And you know, they're really brand focused. They're really consumer focused. 14:11 When you say to them, "Hey guys, we won't get a seat at the table unless we go in and ask about the consumer and ask about the marketing strategy rather than pushing procurement strategies onto them. 14:21 That's not how we do it." And the... 14:22 So they, they absorb all of that and they go off and, you know, within nine months, these kids straight out of university are engaging with some senior leaders in, in, in marketing and it's really cool to see. 14:32 So there's, there's people like flying up through the ranks that are, you know, just, you know, just getting better and better and there's amazing people in leadership positions, C-suite levels, who are really advocating for procurement in a brilliant way. 14:45 So it's, um, it's kind of cool to see, um, that it gets more and more embedded within businesses and I think 14:51 it was probably initially driven by, "Okay, pr- we all need to save money, you know, we, we have to like, uh, do better on the bottom line." But there have, there have been enough people 15:00 who've been able to articulate and then follow through with, "Here are the other things we can do as, as procurement people." So it's been good to see. 15:07 Yeah, I was just thinking, uh, I've kind of got two questions for you. And [laughs] firstly- Good... I, I was just thinking, the, uh... 15:15 What you said about the interns or like m- the, the younger people coming in and maybe grad students, uh, and things like that coming in, and 15:24 th- they're learning within your world of marketing, a very different world to pretty much every other procurement professional. 15:29 And I was thinking like, uh, organizations such as CIPS, for example, they, like the, the... They don't align there, right? 15:36 Like, y- you see all these MCIPS people and everything and it sounds like a very good, uh, qualification to have. 15:42 And I kind of think it's a very, still a very tr- it feels very traditional procurement focused and people, if they went and did CIPS or whatever and then tried to jump into that marketing world might suddenly feel a little bit alienated. 15:54 Um, I, I, I was, uh... If you've got any views on that, it'd be good. It's more just me, me thinking out loud there as well. Yeah. So C- CIPS is a... 16:01 CIPS for me is, is actually, it kind of bookends my procurement journey. So- Mm... when I fell into procurement, I was, as I said, I was working at an agency when I started and, uh, started my career. 16:12 A teammate of mine, his background was in procurement and he, he got a job at the Olympics and kind of brought me with him and he said, "Don't worry, we'll teach you about procurement and we'll put you through CIPS." 16:20 Wow. So they... So like 15 years ago, I started doing CIPS while working at the Olympics, kind of juggling both. 16:27 And then I think when I went on to Betfair four years later, my first marketing procurement role, as part of my, um, like onboarding or like my contract negotiation, I asked them to put me through the next level of CIPS. 16:38 So, so I, so I did like two-thirds of the way towards MCIPS, like 12, 13 years ago at least. 16:45 And then when I left my, my role middle of last summer, I, I s- I reached out to CIPS and, and I signed up to do the management entry route to get to CIPS. Yeah, me too. 16:53 I- At, at, at around the time that I did the Mark Ritson's mini MBA in marketing. So for me, like it was really interesting to have had all of that hands-on knowledge 17:05 from some big global brands and all that practical experience, and then to try and put the CIPS lens over it, and they've got their global standard, and you have to me- you have to meet their standard. 17:16 Having done the marketing stuff on, on the side as well, as I say, the Mark Ritson stuff, it was kind of an interesting moment that second half of last year. 17:22 I was learning again for the first time, like formally learning stuff. Yeah. And trying to set up a business at the same time. And I was going to bed at night just like, "There's so much going on here." [laughs] Yeah. 17:32 Um, and I think it's really helped and I think I'm, I'm really, really glad looking back on the second half of last year that I finished my CIPS stuff because it, it definitely caught me out on two or three areas that I needed to get better at and it complemented a lot of the stuff that I, that I'd been doing at, at Nike. 17:48 And part of it was an interview process and it was actually really interesting and fun preparing for that interview, for that, that an hour and a half dis- discussion with the person at, at CIPS to talk about the CIPS global standard through the lens of my experiences. 18:03 Mm. And I realized, God, I've actually done quite a lot of stuff- [laughs]... and it was, it was really nice to talk about it. 18:07 But as I say, there was a couple of, couple of blind spots that I, that I had to go away and work on and it was really cool to kind of... for them to call those out. 18:15 For procurement people coming through, like definitely consider doing the CIPS stuff. Um- So actually that... I, I was going to ask a question about people coming through. That, that was going to be like part two. 18:25 So I'd be really interested to hear-On that point on CIPS, like is it worthwhile do you think? I'm, I'm kind of like you actually. I'm, I'm, I'm partway through l- my level five qualification. 18:35 I, uh, turned down a couple of, uh, roles last year and they offered to put me through that, the management route just to get it so I didn't have to go through another eight modules or [laughs] whatever it- Yeah. 18:46 That's what I, that's what I did, the management entry. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, it's, it sounds great and I kind of think, uh, yeah, it, it, new p- new people coming through, w- you recommend it? Yeah, definitely. 18:56 I think, you know, learning on the job and through mentorship and coaching through, you know, your leadership team is, is always gonna be 70% of the battle. But if you can do 19:07 the other 10, 20, 30%, you know, learning more formally, then I think it's, it's a great mix and it stops you getting into brand related bad habits. 19:18 So if you're, if you've come out of university, you get a job at a brand in a pr- in a procurement team, you can pick up some bad habits and you can become a little bit one-eyed by mistake because you've only seen the professional world through the eyes of one brand. 19:32 So if you can overlay a little bit of more formal training, I think it stands you in good stead. Sure. I, I've actually just realized like we're, we're almost out of time. 19:39 I, I told you this would go crazy fast in, in terms of the- It has... the podcast length. I just wanted to, to give you an opportunity to say like, where can people find you? 19:49 And if people have like liked what you, you're talking about, I don't, I don't know if we get too many marketers, but maybe something will come out of it. Who knows? Like- Yeah... 19:56 you know, the internet works in weird and wonderful ways, right? The company's called Don't Forget to Look. That's cool. Um, so we've got dontforgettolook, uh,.com. 20:04 It's, I mean, I'm no web designer so i- it is what it is. [laughs] Um, probably more, more of my stuff is on LinkedIn. There's a, there's a LinkedIn page for Don't Forget to Look and, and for me, uh, as well. 20:15 So yeah, that's where you'll see some of my, some of my, my chat floating around I suppose. 20:20 And, um, yeah, I think that we, we talked, um, b- before we started about like interesting, you know, resources and things and I think- Yes... 20:28 one of, one of, one of the f- one of the, we've talked about the WFA, Project Spring. Yeah. Things like that for brands that I would really encourage. 20:35 IPA as well for brands a, a certain more UK focused sort of resource for advertisers. 20:40 One of the things that I, that I was checking out recently, which I think all agencies should read, basically anything by, by Blair Enns. Okay. 20:47 He has a really cool, he has a really cool book called the, the Win Without Pitching Manifesto and it's basically like, basically it's about how agencies can differentiate themselves. Mm. 20:58 Um, and how they should focus on their expertise and how that sets them, sets them apart from a very busy agency landscape. 21:06 And there's, there's a few other pieces in there about, um, you know, h- how to position themselves and, and, and drive one-to-one conversations with brands rather than being a slave to the RFPs that come in. Yeah, sure. 21:17 All those things. Yeah. 21:18 So, so, um, yeah, so having, you know, having had the, the marketing procurement piece sending out hundreds of RFPs over the years, it was kind of an interesting look at the other side to see, to see someone else's perspective on, well, why wouldn't you want to pitch? 21:31 How to have more dialogue and conversations- Yeah... and diagnostic rather than just pitches and presentations and these sorts of things. 21:38 So I found that fascinating and if I was an agency owner, I would definitely have a look at that. No, that's great. 21:43 I'll, I'll connect with you and make sure I've got everything linked up appropriately 'cause this is, uh, like I said, all new to, to me in that sense. 21:50 So we're, we're, we'll include everything we, we've discussed, uh, down in the, the description show notes, whatever we wanna, wanna call them. I just wanna say thanks for coming on. 21:58 I've, I've thought this was great actually. I've, I've learned loads. 22:01 I, I, I do think we've ha- had one person come on and kind of talk about marketing at, at the start, but I think you are like the first person to come on and yeah, give this sort of perspective on things. 22:12 So I think it's really good. Thanks for having me. It's been really fun. 22:14 Um, and it's funny like, um, with my, with my sort of friendship group outside of work, I always sort of feel like, you know, procurement s- always feels a little bit nerdy or something. Yeah. 22:23 But I really enjoy talking about it. Like I get, I got, get a lot of energy- I get that... from chatting about it. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's good and, um, yeah, happy to, happy to share another time as well.
