41: Time for Procurement to Return to the Office? With Kathleen Harmeston.

Much excitement in the studio this episode, as it involves talking about chocolate.  Jonathan and Paul are joined by Pascal Baltussen, Chief of Impact & Operations at Tony’s Chocolonely.  They discover why it’s Tony’s Chocolonely’s mission to eliminate child labour from the chocolate manufacturing industry.  What do they do?  How do they do it?  Why don’t others in the industry follow their lead?  And did Paul eat all the chocolate that was brought into the studio?  Find out the answers to these and other very important questions… Brought to you by Positive Purchasing, and produced by Fresh Air Studios Podcast Production, with podcast studios for Devon and Cornwall.

There’s an old song by Oasis where they sing about starting a revolution from their bed.  In this episode we meet someone who did exactly that.  Well, from his bedroom in Pennsylvania during lockdown.  Luká Yancopoulos founded Grapevine – a company using tech to reimagine the world’s medical supply challenges – and without any prior knowledge of procurement.  Jonathan and Paul find out how and why he did it.  We also discover that Jonathan and Paul are quite old. Brought to you by Positive Purchasing Produced by Fresh Air Studios, podcast studios in the South West.

Jonathan has been out and about in Amsterdam (but he very sensibly didn’t take Paul with him…)  The reason for his travels was DPW – the most notable conference and digital tech showcase for those in the procurement world.  You can hear from lots of people that Jonathan met, but most prominently he talks to Michelle Baker, CPO of Virgin Money, who discusses a wide range of procurement topics, with a focus on technology and AI.  We also find out if Jonathan still possesses any of his old vinyl… Brought to you by Positive Purchasing, and produced by Fresh Air Studios - the podcast production company.

There’s a lot of old and crusty tech out there that can often be of little use these days.  But why is it that when some new procurement tech is implemented, it can often be not up to scratch or can even fail altogether…?  In order to investigate this, we have CEO of Kinetic Talents and an Advisor to Apty, Matt Palackdharry.  Unsurprisingly the question of AI pops up.  Perhaps more surprisingly, Paul wants to bring back Clippy! Brought to you by Positive Purchasing, and produced by Fresh Air Studios Podcast Productions

In procurement, cyber security is extremely important, because you’re not only dealing with your information, but also the information of your clients and suppliers.  So, how do we tackle threats?  And how do we make sure our information is secure in the hands of others?  To take us through the dilemmas and the solutions, Jonathan and Paul are joined by the Chief AI Officer at Resilinc, Sumit Vakil. And listen out for what you should and shouldn’t measure in Ask Jonathan. Brought to you by Positive Purchasing, and produced by Fresh Air Studios.

A bold statement, but is it true?  Why do RFP’s fail?  Is all the technology and the ever-evolving AI making RFP irrelevant? To guide us through all of this and more, Jonathan and Paul are joined by a man who makes RFP’s easier and more sensible, Chris Heard, CEO of Olive Technologies. We now just need to figure out who Duncan is and what his role is in all of this. Brought to you by Positive Purchasing. Podcast Production by Fresh Air Studios in Plymouth.

There is a lot of new tech about and there will no doubt be more on the horizon, but why does so much procurement tech implementation fail?  There is a need to “orchestrate our tech”.  But what does that mean? To help them find out, Jonathan and Paul are joined by a self-proclaimed “Procurement Geek” – namely, the Co-Founder at ORO Labs, Lalitha Rajagopalan. Elsewhere in this episode, Paul invents a new word. Brought to you by Positive Purchasing Produced by Fresh Air Studios in Plymouth

To return or not to return?  That is the question.  After everyone was working from home due to Covid, some businesses are insisting all staff return to the office.  Others are doing partial returns.  But what’s best for staff?  What’s best for businesses?  And how does it affect procurement? Jonathan and Paul are in the studio – not at home – a and they’re asking all these questions to Kathleen Harmeston, who has over 30 years’ experience in consulting and operating at executive level in procurement. Brought to you by Positive Purchasing Produced by Fresh Air Studios, Podcast Media for Corporate and Business

Implementing effective supplier relationship management in a global organisation is a huge challenge.  So, in this episode, Jonathan and Paul talk to someone from a huge organisation – namely, Graham Scott from Jabil.  This is a company that has revenues of over $34billion and employs 140,000 people in 28 countries.  So, Graham knows what he’s talking about.  Meanwhile, this episodes Fun Fact might not be all Fact… Produced by Fresh Air Studios, Business Podcast Production

How do you think digital category management will transform how we determine and implement breakthrough sourcing strategies into the future? Well, in this episode, Paul and Jonathan ask that very question to Stephane Morel, who is Director Procurement Capabilities Standards for Fresenius Medical Care. Not only will you find out his answer, you'll also find out in this episode that Excel spreadsheets are quite exciting.