Mark Perera: 0:04

So Pfizer, and their science based targets, they're looking to get 65% of suppliers by spend to be committed to science based targets on climate by 2025. So how do you get your suppliers to commit to your climate change because if they're committing the same timelines as yourselves, then there's a good opportunity by working together with them around the commitments that you're gonna be able to deliver against that.

Tom Raftery: 0:30

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening wherever you are in the world. This is the digital supply chain podcast, the number one podcast focusing on the digitization of supply chain. And I'm your host, global vice president of SAP. Tom Raftery. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the digital supply chain podcast. My name is Tom Raftery with SAP. And with me on the show today I have my two special guests, Peter and Mark. Peter, Mark, would you like to introduce yourselves with maybe Peter going first?

Peter Smith: 0:59

Thank you. Thanks for the invite Tom. So I'm Peter Smith. I'll keep it brief because I've been in procurement a very long time. So I I've been a buyer, purchasing manager, procurement director and public and private sector since President worked in consulting for a number of years, then ran the spend Matters website in Europe. And I've written a few books. My bad buying book came out a year ago published by Penguin business, and our new book procurement with purpose will be out very soon.

Tom Raftery: 1:28

Superb and Mark.

Mark Perera: 1:29

Yep, I haven't been in the pecking order as long as Peter. But as the Peter myself, works very early on in my career in procurement. So I'm the founder of procurement leaders set that up in 2003. Peter joined us in Amsterdam, around 2005, our first European events, so nice to keep the collaboration with him. And I took her procurement leaders all the way through to an extra couple of years ago. My day job today is I'm CEO of a company called visible, but they're leading supplier collaboration platform out there in the market. And we help companies around collaborating with suppliers around delivering sustainable growth to their business.

Tom Raftery: 2:06

Okay, but you're on the podcast today. Because as Peter mentioned, you're coming out with a new book called procurement with purpose is the name of the book. Correct.

Peter Smith: 2:17

Procurement was purposes the name and there's quite a long subtitle that I'm struggling to remember. I think it's something along the lines of how organizations can take action now to to help save the planet and its people. So it's using it's using our procurement spend our spend with third party suppliers to drive real change in terms of environmental, social, economic improvement. So everything from climate change to modern slavery, from deforestation and plastics to Circular Economy and supporting diverse supply chains. Yeah. So

Mark Perera: 2:53

the whole lot. And I think the that subtitle, which is quite long is, this is the decade of our lives, time, if we think about what we've generation, the generation before us in terms of what we've done to the planet in terms of the way we've consumed things. And things have been manufactured. And we travel around the world, there's been a pretty big impact on the environment. And as we know, from cop 26, and all the carbon discussions, this is the the decade that we have to start rolling back some of the problems or at least putting them on hold if we're going to leave the planet in a good place for our kids as well. So there's a real impetus around this over the decade of our lives. That's that's a shortened version of that tagline.

Tom Raftery: 3:34

Yeah, no, it's, it's very true. I mean, at least here in Europe, we passed legislation in June of this year to say that we need to reduce our emissions 55% by 2030. And that's legally binding on all 27 nations of the EU. And I thought I don't I don't think people really realize yet the actual implications of doing that. Because if you think about it in 2020, we reduced our emissions 7% Just because of the pandemic because nobody was moving. And that brought our emissions down. 7% They went back up again, 5% this year? No, we have to get them down 55% against our 9090 baseline in the next eight years. It's a colossal undertaking. I mean, it's, you know, this whole world war two kind of analogy is out there. And it's that kind of scale of change. And I'm hoping that your procurement with purpose book will be kind of at least a framework to help organizations move in that direction. Yeah, I

Mark Perera: 4:44

think that's why we it was 2019 that, Peter myself, I think there was suddenly myself in the New Yorker and realizing that we need to do something more but really to help organizations take that first step and share some of those stories and get to the maturity side of Around how companies approaching not just the environment, but the social impact side as well, Tom, because I think these all come into the ESG agenda. But yeah, helping tick these things off. And as you say, you know, we're now every five weeks represents 1% of the decade. So we're coming up to 20% of the decade already gone. And if everyone thinks it's gonna be a massive hockey stick at the end, we're going to do everything in the second half a decade. And I fear that's not the case. So it's what companies do in the next, you know, month, quarter year, which will give the foundation of how they hit those 2030 targets. And that is a attenex thinking approach rather than an incremental 10% approach that companies need to take.

Peter Smith: 5:46

I think what's also struck me, just in recent months, really, is I think, we stand more chance of achieving some of this through big organizations, frankly, commercial companies than through governments, because it worries me that governments basically have a relatively short term perspective on things. Certainly in elected democracies, you know, the politicians are thinking about the next election, not 10 years, or 50 years, or our great great grandchildren. Whereas companies, I think, do have quite a long term perspective. And we actually interviewed, having some in hold university friend of mine, but he now runs his chair of a huge pension fund, and sits on the board of a couple of others. And he's done working around environmental reporting and company reports. And he says, Well, I'm responsible for people who started working for this particular company, who are in their 20s. And the pension fund I'm responsible for will be paying them money in potentially 7080 years time. So where that money is invested, and making sure that there is a world and functioning companies and functioning economies in 6070 years time is literally the perspective he's got. And that's way beyond any politician. So, you know, I think I think the business world actually has an opportunity, I almost almost has to step up, because I don't actually have an awful lot of faith in politicians, to be honest.

Tom Raftery: 7:16

I don't think you're alone there, Peter. But I saw a report last week, I think it was talking about, you know, my own company SAP, where it said, SAP found that by directing just 5% of its addressable procurement spend to social enterprises, it could unlock 10s of millions of dollars each year for social impact. And I think, you know, that's huge. And it speaks to how you can affect markets just by redirecting where you're putting your spending.

Peter Smith: 7:48

Yeah, sure. I'll start on that. And I think that's absolutely true. I think it's also interesting, because I've heard from a few people I've spoken to who maybe work for smaller organizations, who say, Well, we're into this, we want to help. But we don't generate huge emissions, we're not very powerful with our suppliers, how can we drive change? And that's an example of one of the things I respond with. As they look, if you just look at how you're spending your money, even if it's not hundreds of millions of pounds, can you redirect some of that towards charity, social enterprises, startups run by, you know, minority owners, and disadvantaged people and so on. The stuff you can do, however big you are, that genuinely are things you can do that will make a difference, you might not be able to stop the orangutangs being destroyed in Indonesia and rainforest if you're a small company in Basingstoke. But you can do something to help local small businesses in Basingstoke and encourage diversity and get them to employ some more apprentices. And you know, take on school leavers who maybe maybe aren't going to go to university, train them. So there's Yeah, the stuff everybody can do, I think,

Mark Perera: 9:03

I think it's an interesting point in their time. And we interviewed Paul, who's the CEO of give with for the book, actually. And I think he's doing some work with a with a rebrand that and you know, some of that sometimes joint investment between the supply and the buying organization to go some of these social impact bonds. And, you know, you put in 100,000 pounds into their jointly, and the impact of a good social impact program can really amplify. And that's great for the ESG reporting. But also, you know, we talk about the individuals coming into companies, they see that their company is doing good, both from a buyer and supplier side if it's one of those joint programs, but they can be really amplified into the impact coming through. But I think the other part is smaller organizations can make a difference. We've just signed up to the tech zero commitment of carbon neutrality by 2030, which smaller tech companies, you know, we have the same customer base as SAP, but we should also be making those commitments. Encourage other kind You know, scale up companies to make this commit to carbon diversity as well, we may not be able to do at the scale of SAP, but it's on all of us as business leaders and owners to make the difference as well. But yeah, we see that coming through. And it's great to see some of the work that SAP has done around the plastic side and circularity. And that said, I think it's really interesting to see how how parts of the community now are looking at opportunities to work within the broader industry side around circular economy and plastics and recycling that side as well.

Peter Smith: 10:30

There's a good point there about collaboration, because there's having done the index for the book myself, rather than getting someone else to do it. You know, the word collaboration comes up an awful lot in the book. And often it's, it's by a supplier collaboration, right. But probably just as often it's groups of buyers coming together to drive change. And again, that can be smaller firms. It can be bigger firms, but in everything from you know how the chocolate industry tries to improve the working conditions of people out on the cocoa farms, you know, there's been collaboration between confectionery and chocolate firms that through to plastics, looking at technological development in that area. There's some really great examples of businesses working together and seeing this as not so much an individual competitive advantage thing, but something where they can, they can make more happen by working together and it will benefit everybody.

Mark Perera: 11:23

I think things like Unilever's program, they're looking to have all their suppliers. It's fair living wage is the right term, there's a few but fair living wage by 2030. That has a ripple effect for everyone in that industry. And you know, the other companies that use that supply chain, because it's not just about you know, the people that deliver against Unilever's new, it's about those organizations, that whole thing, fair living wage. So I think we're seeing that part coming through, I think in the FMCG space, that they're definitely probably at the forefront of collaboration within the industry, we see multiple groups coming through there, and diversity and sustainability as well. So that cross collaboration sites there as well, which is great to see. Because we're gonna we're gonna have to work together to deliver it, we can't do it alone and individual focus.

Tom Raftery: 12:41

No doubt, no doubt. If organizations or people listening to the podcast want to, you know, chase this down and develop strategies in their own organizations, how do they go about doing that?

Peter Smith: 12:53

I think the starting point is understanding your stakeholders. So So I mean, let's, let's be sort of hard edged about this. There has to be a business case for doing this. Even if it's not going to cost you a lot of money, it's going to be time and resource. So I think starting to think about the business case, you go back to your stakeholders. So is this because your your customers, your consumers are demanding it, you're going to be able to sell more, because you're doing the right things here is that your investors want you to do it, is it going to reduce your cost of capital, or your your shareholder value by doing it? Is it is it your own staff who are pushing this and you're going to find it easier to recruit great people, and maybe even pay them less, because they want to work for you, because you're such an amazing company? Maybe not that. So I think understanding your stakeholders is key. And then thinking about where you can make a difference. So that does mean being ambitious, but also being pragmatic. So as I say, there's no point, a little tiny little company or my local council, saying, Well, what we're going to do is we're going to save the rainforest, just because that's just not a reasonable ambition. So So I think it's looking at what you can achieve what's interesting to your stakeholders, and therefore he's going to make a difference to you and have that business case. And then planning how you can actually drive that and take action. And that's where in the book, we'll get into the practical stuff around. What can you do at every stage of the procurement cycle? How do you build this into your supplier selection? How do you build it into your contracting strategies, your contract and supplier management collaboration? So we go into some of that more more practical stuff as well. I have to do the thinking up front. Yeah.

Mark Perera: 14:37

So uh, if I was to fast track that thinking done, I think we've got 26 Just around the corner. Scope, three carbon greenhouse gas escapes, really is probably the the era to start in terms of aligning a chemo with purpose strategy to the stakeholders of your board. You know, the governance is with the board now to deliver against those that were probably already made the 2030 commitments or if they haven't, they'll be coming out early next year, getting a hold of scope three with, you know, in most organizations, 80% of their greenhouse gases come from, you know, the third parties in scope three. So internally in scope, it's the hardest to quantify. Yeah. So internally going for the scope to and looking at the energy in, you know, is a bit of low hanging fruit fruit in there, but have you actually work with your suppliers around, aligning commitments? We spend a lot of time and we sit in the conversations have had to, I think sort of Pfizer and there's science based targets that are looking to get 65% of suppliers by spend to be committed to science based targets on climate by 2025. So how do you get your suppliers to commit to your climate change, because, you know, if they're committing the same timelines as yourselves, then there's a good opportunity by working together with him around the commitments that you're going to be able to deliver against that. And then obviously, you're gonna have to collaborating with suppliers about your value chain and supply chain of how you change that to a low carbon approach in parallel to it. But I'd say scope three is the place to start. And I think, where we've seen procurement, being strategic and coming up the food chain, over the years, I think scope three is clearly an important part of why procurements involvement in the board discussions going to get bigger and bigger, because everyone will be looking at their 2030 targets and saying, Are we on track to hit 2023 2025? milestones? And do we have the capacity or the the amount of collaboration to now deliver our commitments in 2030? So I'd say scopes really is a great place to start. And I don't think many CPAs are going to have a challenge in terms of working with their supply chain, colleagues to work and show a strategy of getting resource and time in order to help deliver on those as well.

Peter Smith: 16:52

I think I think you're right, Mark, and that we're going to have the almost the regulatory imperative to do all that stuff. So I absolutely agree, scope three is key, I guess I would just like to see companies not not getting sucked into thinking that's, you know, that's the beginning and end of this discussion, because we have, we have about 25 different sort of examples of what procurement with purpose means or the different topic areas. And I think most companies can embrace more than more than just, I think, I think diversity

Mark Perera: 17:25

is the other one that's coming through. We're seeing that in terms of now, you know, more and more, we're seeing the call for diversity and suppliers. I think us being ahead of the game on that. I think maybe Europe has been a bit leading on the on the environmental side. But now diversity of suppliers is really important. And I think that's great in terms of the giving a player a fair playing field to suppliers, but also the benefits of having diversity in your supplier base in terms of different ways of thinking. And I think that's a fascinating competitive advantages around diversity of bringing in small, diverse minority and all these different people, but not just in terms of ownership. I think it's about the people who are sitting on the other side of the relationship. For me, I think some of the more advanced companies that I speak to announcing, right who's a team that kind of face up to us at the meetings and board meetings that we're working with and how diverse they are, rather than just the ownership of the company.

Tom Raftery: 18:22

Just from a practical perspective, how does one ensure that one's supply chain is more diverse.

Mark Perera: 18:28

So we're getting some dope, we're getting data sets coming through. So I think companies like Tilburg have got a good data set for North American and emerging data set for for Europe, Cooper acquired a company called Connexus, which I guess we're playing had that position before now. Tilburg seems to be the independent one. So there's good structured data in North America. In Europe, less structured data is just coming through. But we're finding companies associating themselves. I think it's the MSD. UK, and the UK, I think it is, yeah. And so that's the diversity side in the UK. So there's different groups or companies are getting involved in and making commitments to, that we're seeing through but we haven't got the structured data in the same way as the North American side. So we're seeing companies make commitments of we will put X amount of billion to suppliers based off a benchmark by this date, that's probably going to come more from the US spend, and it will be from Europe because of the data they have. But I'm hoping that companies will get a stronger data set. And we're seeing that that data set improving, coming through, I think also complexities of different countries around what you can ask your suppliers around these things comes from a cultural and I guess, regulatory side and each of those countries as well. So it doesn't mean it's as simple as as one set of rules for each country as you go around and look at what diversity is as well.

Peter Smith: 19:48

But a lot, a lot of that is goes back to good procurement really. And having been in procurement an awful long time. I think one of the slight negatives about what the profession has done in the last 2030 years is we've pursued strategies, classic category management strategies around aggregation rationalization, you know, I want fewer suppliers and I'm going to aggregate my spend, which has driven people towards towards big companies basically, and off often to the point where those companies become quite dominant in terms of power in the supply chain. And that's our, you know, our fault in procurement. We've sort of let that happen. So I think opening up our supply chains and looking for it Innovative smaller suppliers, people who think differently, you know, diversity in the widest sense, is really something forgiven should just be doing. Anyway, forget it forget about purpose, you know, I think it is just just good procurement, but it probably needs to change your thinking, from what we've heard for the last 20 years from, like the big consulting firms have, you know, just at all, you've got 38 suppliers in this category, that's far too many, we're gonna burn it all together and go out to tender and get that down to two. And of course, they end up being the two biggest firms in that market.

Mark Perera: 21:03

We're also seeing some I met, wait for some drinks, I met some people in real life a couple of weeks ago. And there's a UK startup, I think it's called Kaleidoscope. But I might be wrong, I'll give you the link time at the end of that, okay. So they're actually going out to suppliers and getting the data directly from them around the diversity side and creating a marketplace. So companies can go out there and put their requirements in and know that they're getting it from diverse suppliers. Speaking to the CEO, there, as well as some of these companies that have the data on diversity at the moment, they're purely scraping data from multiple sources. And ultimately, you do want the suppliers to provide that information and be more auditable in the info. So you want to make sure it is really going to delight verse suppliers. So I think we're seeing two parts of getting good data in which is probably scraped, and, you know, maybe validate in some ways and then go into marketplaces where you have suppliers that have been validated and got the data through, and you know that the spend is going the right way. So that's probably where Europe will fast, fast track, you know, diversify, by going into more marketplaces do that. And maybe it's something that a Reba is already doing in terms of data that they have, because they have the discovery tool in there already, which, if it has the diversity data in there would allow people to pretenders out to a wider, wider diverse supplier base.

Peter Smith: 22:24

You have to be a bit careful, though, because I've got a couple of stories in my bad buying book, where there are a couple of examples in the states where people ended up in court because they were basically pretending that they were veteran owned businesses, because that can help you win contracts with the American government. And actually it was it was literally a veteran who was being paid to sort of pretend he was the chief executive or whatever, and sit sitting behind that was basically the mafia. So yeah, we need we need, we will need a bit of verification and auditing on these things. That's my only note of note of caution.

Tom Raftery: 23:01

I had a guy called Ken PACCAR. On my climate podcast, a couple of weeks back, he was the former CEO of timberland. And he happened to mention that when they started doing the reporting was two nuggets came out of just one section of what he said. And just he said, they started doing their emissions reporting in the early 2000s. And they were one of the first to do so. And he said, they were showing, you know, a steady 10 to 15% reduction in their emissions every year, year on year. But of course, it was only for their scope one scope two, because they had no access to scope three because it was just way too early. And people weren't weren't counting it at the time. And he said that, that 10 to 15% reduction was just in the scope one and scope two, which only made up about 5% of their emission. So the other 95% Was there scope three that they had no access to. So I thought that was one interesting data point. And the other one that that was really interesting was, he went on to say that, because they were doing this reporting of their sustainability. They had no problem attracting really, really good talent. He said, The executives that they attracted in anytime that they you know, advertised or rolled, the the people who applied for his work, you know, way more qualified than should have been the case. And it was just because they had a good sustainability story. They were attracting in the best talent. And they were keeping them because they were, you know, people were happy to work for an organization that was seemed to be doing the right thing. So in terms of recruitment and retention, their costs were way down, because, you know, they didn't they need to recruit as many people because they were retaining the good people they had on the people that they did attract in were very, very high, highly qualified. So is that still the case? That was you know,

Mark Perera: 24:51

I think years ago, I think Pete's got a narrative on that one. But I think the work purpose is where it's not sustainability, we're talking about purpose. I think most organizations have an authentic purpose that they're talking about now versus just doing sustainable not doing that ticking the boxes, sustainability, we find that on the front page, you know, this is what the CEO is this is what we mean to mankind type thing. It there's a purpose coming through. I think it's a real competitive advantage when a company can articulate their purpose and then how can you work with your supplier ecosystem to share that purpose and deliver on it as well. So I think that's what we're seeing and there's real passion and when you can talk about it and people can see that in your organization. And then they're going to stay and you're going to attract great people. And you know, maybe they'll be more loyal or they'll come at a cheaper price. But I think it's about also they're driven around the sustainable growth strategy of the business, which is not just about top line growth. But how can we do this and deliver on our other parts of the elements as well, I think that you had a another interesting example on that side as well.

Peter Smith: 25:55

Well, we interviewed Dave Ingram at Unilever. And and he said, When Paul Polman, started talking about this 1012 years ago, you know, they started quite quickly seeing a real difference in the sort of people who were applying to them. And that was, you know, that was a measurable fact, when they asked people why they were applying. The other thing that struck me as think about this recently, I hope it becomes self perpetuating, because if Unilever got a new CEO in now, who came in and said, Forget all this purpose stuff, we're going back to buying on lowest cost. I'm not interested in all this, you know, that we're doing in plastics and emissions, and everything else I think he or she would be would be kicked out within days, because I think the be like an internal revolution. Because there's there's, I think, a critical mass of people in companies like Unilever, and it's not just Unilever, who now are totally behind this agenda and just wouldn't stand for, for their company backsliding. And then I think you have some other industries, you know, we interviewed a great guy from from BP. And his view was, he's very committed to this agenda. And actually, an oil and gas company is the best place to be because you can make the biggest difference, you know, if you can help help move companies like that in the right direction, there's a real real sense of achievement there. So yeah, I think the it's, I'm not too keen on the buzz from the bottom expression. This is this is one of marks but but there is something in it. And I think this feeling of the people actually working in operating level, it really wants to do this and to make things happen is there is definitely something in that. I

Mark Perera: 27:29

think I just think that that term buzzer bomb is where the heroes will be. Pete, I think it's the individuals working with the cross functional teams who are collaborating with suppliers that will make the differences, the roll up of those collaborations that will help companies hit their 2030 targets, there's no other way that's going to happen, you know, yes, you need the awareness and the backing of the CEO. But that's not, that's not going to deliver your 2030 targets is going to be individuals who are going to go the extra mile to collaborate with suppliers, or groups, suppliers to change the value chain around it. And they're the ones who are going to be there as the day. Yes, they need to get the environment of where they have the time and the resources to do it. But without those individuals doing the collaboration is just not gonna deliver on the

Peter Smith: 28:15

value. If you've convinced me I'm going to get the slogan on the baseball cap. That'd be a birthday present. Well,

Mark Perera: 28:23

there we go. We all get the buzz about AI. This is exciting. And I think this is where procurement supply chain can really come. If we think about that purpose side, you can see it in the conversations we're having. I mean, tell me what you're having the conversations as well, the excitement, the drive that comes about it, the the hairs on the back of people's arms as they start talking about these programs. And you can see that in some of the interviews that the leaders really care about, I mean, Ninian Wilson, has been the lead on diversity over at Vodafone and so passionate about that topic, airy, you see the same around scope three. So as part of their purpose of being in role, but also the leadership teams around them and the graduates coming through. And I think this is exciting for procurement supply chain organizations really now be able to shine and be recognized for it.

Peter Smith: 29:08

Yeah, the, the recognize things interesting. And I talked to someone from a very big sort of medical pharmaceutical company. And he was a sort of mid level, you know, senior Category Manager. And they've been doing a lot with social enterprises and trying to put more spend that way. And he said, you know, until we started this, the most senior person I ever got to present to talk to was probably a factory manager. He said a couple of months ago, I presented to the company president the number one person in this multi billion dollar corporation, because they were interested in what we were doing with with spend with social enterprises and how that was working. So it's getting, I really think it's getting procurement functions and people that that exposure at the top level and something to talk about. I mean, we know cost is important. We know securing supply is important. That's what procurements been doing forever. But this is something new and different that the top table the top teams really are interested in. So it's a great opportunity for procurement as well to be to be a bit sort of selfish about it as a profession. I

Mark Perera: 30:15

think we've seen it a little bit with the digital strategy and it was allowing, I guess, younger people to talk about the strategy and roll up their expertise and share it there but with the with the purpose and its environmental social side I think this is for for young girls. Coming into procurement supply chain functions into businesses. This is a time to grasp these opportunities and and share them with their leadership team and up through the organization's and how do you find activist people who are passionate about these things within the organization, whether it's within the function across the business and work with them. And I don't think senior leadership are going to be pushing down on trying to stop that, I think they're going to be encouraging that to come through. And if you if you try and do that for long enough, and you still get pushed down, then it's probably time to work out whether or not you can carry on working. Now you want to go to a company that has more purpose around them and give you the flexibility to, to help that organization get to a more sustainable approach to sustainable growth, it has to be hand in hand in terms of what a company is going to continue doing in terms of the commercial side, but find a place where you can be yourself and be an activist there and, and help companies deliver on these these big ambitious targets. But I do think it's going to take a different way of thinking, more Tenex thinking and less 10%. And I think that's what's gonna be a challenge for some organizations where they think it's going to be incremental changes over a period of time, there's going to have to be some bigger ambitious goals and then moonshots as they say about Google. Okay.

Tom Raftery: 31:47

Peter, Mark, we're coming towards the end of the podcast. Now, is there any questions that I have not asked that you wish I had? Or any topic we've not touched on that you think it's important for people to be aware of? No, it's a perfectly good answer.

Mark Perera: 32:04

I think one of the areas is a how to companies build the visibility of what they're doing. I think that's one thing that companies should look at is how do you how do you get the narrative in from the function of these these case studies, the collaborations you're doing? And how do you share them out? So I think this is where procurement supply chain, and you see it with the leading brands, they, they tell the stories internally, but they're telling the stories externally doesn't mean that they're hitting the numbers, and we've delivered X amount of tons of reduction by this collaboration. It's the potential of working around this proof of concept of new technologies that could help us deliver. So I think the the answer is the narrative and the communications both internally and externally. And if we look at most sustainability reports, on there, they're talking about the narrative. So I think this is where procurement supply chain execs need to be better writing narrative and be more forward on it. And it doesn't have to be that this is the final project that it's going to deliver. This is what the auditors the you know, that the investors, everyone else needs to see. And I think this is what the business needs. See. So how do you broadcast your buzzer bottom? How do you become marketeers around this? And also, how do you recognize those suppliers that are going above and beyond to collaborate with you as

Peter Smith: 33:15

well? I think very briefly, and it is linked to that we have touched on this. It's important of importance of measurement and verification. Because I think there's an awful lot of good intention out there now. But there's less it's really followed through into into sort of provable evidence change. And I've done I've done some work around this in the public sector and the government sector. And and there's quite a lot of government bodies now who are doing the right thing in terms of asking for stuff from suppliers when they go out to tender, sometimes even building it into the contract. But then you ask them the question, how are you actually checking that the supplier has done what you've what they said they were going to do? And that's where things fall down a bit. And we all know, contract management has always been a bit of a weakness of the procurement profession if you like. So contract and supplier management, I think is going to be absolutely vital. In all of this, we've got to actually be able to show that things have happened. Cool.

Tom Raftery: 34:15

Gentlemen, that's been great. If people want to know more about yourself, Peter, or mark, or your new book, where would you direct them?

Mark Perera: 34:25

So you can find both Peter and myself on LinkedIn, you'll find us fairly quickly on that with a simple search with procurement, probably an unnamed and then what we'll do is send you a link. So people can get a link directly on how they can get to the book. They can look at procurement with purpose website, which is just procurement with purpose.com. And we have some articles on there and some of the interviews that we've done from the book, but we'll send you the link so they can get the direct one and sign up for early access. Perfect.

Tom Raftery: 34:54

Gentlemen, that's been great. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.

Peter Smith: 34:57

Thanks, Tom.

Mark Perera: 34:58

Thank you very much, Tom, and I look forward to talk to you very soon.

Tom Raftery: 35:02

Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks, everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about digital supply chains, head on over to sa p.com/digital supply chain or, or simply drop me an email to Tom Raftery at sa p.com. If you'd like to show, please don't forget to subscribe to it and your podcast application of choice to get new episodes as soon as they're published. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people To find the shoe thanks catch you all next time