Speaker 1: 0:14

it's been a while, hasn't it mate? How are you doing?

Speaker 2: 0:18

I'm good. I'm good, I uh. I'm trying a new technique today of recording of what's the word Co-hosting. I need a toilet, I need a wee, but maybe that might make me more clear and concise. And ready to ready to rock and roll? Maybe I'm going to drink a tea at the same time as well. Seems logical. Actually, caffeine doesn't count, does it? Caffeine just goes into your blood, so it's not actually liquid technically.

Speaker 1: 0:54

Fair enough. And today we're talking about waterfalls, aren't we? And running water?

Speaker 2: 0:58

We have to listen to stream sounds for seven hours? Yeah, yeah, I'm sure, yeah, yeah, consecutively to stream sounds for seven hours? Yeah, yeah, I'm sure, yeah, yeah, consecutively. I don't know what. What made me think this, this, uh, this can be my bulletin, uh, my bulletin item.

Speaker 2: 1:16

Um, it makes me laugh that we are on the same platform as, like, actually good artists, like people that spend years creating music and making albums and stuff, and it's as easy to listen to us as it is to listen to them. They probably got a whole media team. Like you know, taylor Swift seems to be quite, quite popular at the moment. She's probably got a load of load of media people that she, uh, you know, if I pitch this song at a flat minor, then, uh, then you do well in the charts and then it's us just like coming onto it, you know, sitting down with some microphones that one that you gave me and, and you know, in your case, in your, in your room, in your cosy little bedroom, sat in your race car, race car bed unlike Taylor Swift, we don't mess around with a flat minor.

Speaker 1: 2:24

We are proper, professional and how did you say that?

Speaker 2: 2:28

back to back, serious huh. You said that and then you said we're professional yeah, exactly, we're serious.

Speaker 1: 2:36

You know. We're helping all of our listeners become top dollar procurement professionals. Fuck's Taylor doing none of that.

Speaker 2: 2:45

So she, she doesn't welcome dollar procurement professionals. What the fuck's Taylor doing? None of that she doesn't welcome. She doesn't welcome everyone like you do.

Speaker 1: 2:57

Exactly that you know. And Would she win a procurement's hottest male competition?

Speaker 2: 3:06

Probably Not as it currently stands. We don't know. In the future, do we?

Speaker 1: 3:10

No, that's true. Well, yeah, I must admit, it does feel nice, doesn't it, that you can go straight from Taylor Swift or, I don't know, kendrick Lamar Super Bowl performance to a let's Talk Procurement episode.

Speaker 2: 3:26

Yeah, or you could go from the thrills of the Rolling Stones, the rock and roll, high energy, high octane, to us just droning on about stuff.

Speaker 1: 3:41

Well, I also think, actually now you said it, who sponsors Barcelona? I?

Speaker 2: 3:52

don't know, is that a joke?

Speaker 1: 3:55

No, no, they renamed their stadium after that. I don't know. Well, no, it's now called the Spotify Camp, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 4:08

Ah, something like that, yeah, something like that. They sold the rights to spotify and, um, occasionally there's their kits, get uh like a qr code or whatever to to an act, to an artist album, but they have like a reference. Instead of the actual spotify logo, they have reference to an artist and obviously we're on that QR code. I think it's yeah QR code or like a logo. I think Drake's was like an owl or something that you know. He was like owl.

Speaker 2: 4:32

I think they had that as a sponsor for the game. So you know, we can dream big would you want to be on Laminia Miles shorts?

Speaker 1: 4:45

it's more about it's more about.

Speaker 2: 4:47

It's more about shirts Than shorts. Oh, it's on the shirt, it's okay, okay, good.

Speaker 1: 4:52

Yeah, so I'd rather be on his chest. Why does that sound so?

Speaker 2: 4:58

dodgy. I, I, sometimes. I sometimes think For an actual Serious procurement person who's you know, maybe typed in whatever the title of the episode is, I thought, oh, there's a, there's a podcast on this subject that I'm sort of interested in. Imagine this is the first. This conversation is the first they hear of us we hope you stick around.

Speaker 1: 5:20

thank you for uh tuning in. If that is you obviously much appreciated. We do have some professional content sometimes, but if you want to get in touch with us about you know, I don't know anything, how's your day been? Any sort of crap you know tell us to shut up Whatever you want. Then you can always reach us on our socials.

Speaker 2: 5:42

Yes, you can. That is Instagram. Hopefully you have instagram. If not, procure it. Uh, what is it called? Handle at, our handle, our at is let's underscore, talk, underscore procurement, and you could get in touch with us with us there by sliding into our dms. Alternatively, you could get in touch with us via the text function which should be in the description of this episode and every other episode. Alternatively, you can email us. The email is 2lucs1sip at gmailcom. That's the number two LUX plural, the number one CIP at gmailcom. And the last method is to do a FBI, cia-style investigation on us, find out where we live and either come and visit us in person or send a letter to our house.

Speaker 1: 6:44

You know what would be incredible. I'm currently selling um my house, so if a listener can book a viewing, and then yeah, I don't have to buy it, just book a viewing and just, you know, come and get an insight to my life maybe.

Speaker 2: 6:59

Maybe if it's a listener and we'll have to qualify it by saying someone who doesn't know where you live currently. Oh yeah, yeah, that's fair. Maybe you just like you get to exchange for I was going to say for free, but there's no consideration in that. Is there For one pound?

Speaker 1: 7:16

One pound, yeah, one pound house. Well, thank you for that. Thank you for reading off the socials Impressed. It's been a while, so it's always like that. Yeah, I was happy. I remembered that. To be honest. What's on the agenda today, then?

Speaker 2: 7:30

Good question. What is on the agenda today? Are we talking about buzzwords in procurement?

Speaker 1: 7:36

I think we were, yeah, but I'm sure we had a list somewhere, didn't we?

Speaker 2: 7:40

Did we, we did, did we, we did. Who has the list? Is it you or is it me?

Speaker 2: 7:50

I think it's Aaron actually yeah, aaron, I know you're hearing this in the future, but send us the list, would you imagine? You just send us a text right now. Imagine future him comes back in time. For those who don't know, aaron is our dos, director of sound dos, so he, he makes us sound good, basically. Um, but actually now we're on to it. I know we're about to start the interesting topic, but I've thought about something which I can moan about. I think Aaron's not pulling his weight. What do you mean by that? You calling him fat.

Speaker 2: 8:35

No, I think Aaron, he's got too comfy in the role. It's like in football Goalkeeper, for example. If you're the only goalkeeper in the club, you're going to become complacent. You're not going to be working hard to prove yourself week in, week out. I think we need to bring in a reserve editor, a reserve DOS, a backup DOSer, yeah, a DOSer to the DOSer no, no, no, no, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Speaker 2: 9:02

I like that. Are we allowed to say Dossa, by the way? Is that a swear word? No, is that some sort of derogatory term?

Speaker 1: 9:09

No, no, no. Dossa is literally someone who just slips around and does fuck all.

Speaker 2: 9:15

Yeah, and I'm saying that is what Aaron does. Yeah, he needs to fight for his place. Basically, wow, that is outrageous. Aaron, I want, I want you to, uh, to prove me wrong this episode.

Speaker 1: 9:31

Just go crazy with the editing just like over engineer it with somebody, yeah like I want, I want the best sound effects.

Speaker 2: 9:39

I want, like I don't know, warp our voices and I don't even know what the technical stuff is. But yeah, I want it all.

Speaker 1: 9:48

Maybe we just can you edit his voice so that he sounds like I don't know Barack Obama or someone, and then I can be like oh, look who I'm talking to today as a replacement for Luke 10.

Speaker 2: 9:58

Yeah, what would Barack Obama say?

Speaker 1: 10:00

How did I end up here? I was in America, then I blinked and now I'm in LTP Studios. Send me back.

Speaker 2: 10:06

That's what Barack would say.

Speaker 1: 10:08

I mean, you'd be Barack as well.

Speaker 2: 10:09

Hang on, this is going down the rabbit hole.

Speaker 1: 10:11

Let me steer us back. I think we were talking acronyms today. That was my plan, because we love an acronym in procurement, don't we?

Speaker 2: 10:20

We do, and I also feel like we especially have an acronym on this podcast as well. So it's double. We're double loved up on acronyms.

Speaker 1: 10:30

All right shall I throw some out there, and then we'll see if you know your acronyms?

Speaker 2: 10:36

Yeah, go on. Oh, is this a test?

Speaker 1: 10:40

Yeah, yeah, nda.

Speaker 2: 10:41

Okay, non-disclosure agreement. What is it? That is a contractual document. That two, is it two? Maybe it's more than two? Sorry, I couldn't speak. Then Companies sign to show that they're not going to tell anyone about secret stuff, stuff commercially sensitive stuff, technical information about products and things like that. It has to be specific to a purpose, or the fancy legal word for that is germane, not like it's pronounced, like germane genus or germane um, but it's not spelt that way. I think it's spelt with a g, so it has to be the purpose has to be Jermaine, which is like specific enough to make sure that it's enforceable um, so that that could look like something for example uh, luke one. Uh, we're going to enter into a commercial relationship, or, sorry, you, you might be providing bid writing services to me, so I'm going to get you to sign the NDA so you don't disclose anything about this specific bid that I'm going to get you to work on okay, yeah, I like that.

Speaker 1: 11:58

Um, how often do you do? Do you use them me personally or or the world? No, let's get personal, how you? Uh, I would say for your job, not not as in. Like you know, you don't just walk into like your phone company provider and chuck an nda at them yeah, yeah, um, I I think me personally probably probably once every couple of weeks.

Speaker 2: 12:28

I think I wouldn't say it kind of. It comes like that. I'd say that's probably an average, average number. I think it's more. It's like the start of the process. It's sort of let's start a bid, we might want to work with these five suppliers, let's get all five of them on nda and then for the next, you know two months, you don't sign any, or you know okay, yeah, yeah, I'm with you see what I mean.

Speaker 1: 12:49

Yeah, um, okay, I'm gonna go through our RFs, see. See how well you know your RFs, because we did an episode on, I think one of them, didn't we, or two of them another thing we tried to make into a series and then forgot about yeah, I don't know why we're so shit at series um so rfi request for information.

Speaker 2: 13:09

Nice rfq request for quote yeah, quotation.

Speaker 1: 13:16

If you I'll have to guess at this one, I'm gonna say request for tender here we go. That's four, right, yeah, four out of four there. So, uh, well done, mate, I'm impressed. Do you want to talk us through them, or are you? Uh, you're just happy that you got your answers.

Speaker 2: 13:46

Yeah, that's me, dan. So what was the first one? Rfi, request for information. That is when you're requesting information.

Speaker 1: 13:58

Yep, it's kind of general information about capabilities, right. So it's like if I was the bid writer sticking with that and you you look to my website, you might want to message me and find out more information about. You know what qualifies me as a general capable bid writer. Like, am I actually a capable bid writer? Am I just chucking it in Pat GT and seeing what it turns out?

Speaker 2: 14:21

so so would a request for information always go to the company that you want to work with, like I'm thinking about? Would you call it a request for information if you were talking to a different company who had used luke one bid writing services before to get information about how good you were?

Speaker 1: 14:42

no, you don't really do like requests for second-hand information. That's a bit weird. Yeah, yeah, um, rf, sh I. Yeah. The only time people do that is when you know like you get the people in the business. You come up to you and say, oh, my mate runs a company and uh, he said he'd be a great fit for us, that's kind of second you have to kind of you know put them back in their box, but um, yeah, no general information and you kind of use that to really qualify.

Speaker 1: 15:09

You know, qualify out people before you get to your q's and your p's and your t's, like we did?

Speaker 2: 15:14

we did uh on that subject. We, we did get a bit of consultancy from uh 10 luke incorporated, didn't we? I hadn't heard of them, I didn't know. You know, I didn't know at all who they were. I didn't have any relations or anything. You know nothing suspicious going on there.

Speaker 1: 15:32

Kind of sounded like you, though, didn't it the bloke who turned up?

Speaker 2: 15:34

Yeah, and we were never in the same room at the same time so I never actually got to meet to meet them.

Speaker 1: 15:39

But yeah, you said he was a great guy, but yeah, it was weird. I thought he was quite a nice, nice chap actually. Weirdly enough, he had some similar interests to you as well. He liked sewing and ballet and also he had a hobby of blowing whistles. So kind of weird.

Speaker 2: 16:01

Three things I am known for, well known.

Speaker 1: 16:03

Exactly that.

Speaker 2: 16:04

He did have a bad haircut as well.

Speaker 1: 16:05

actually Can't have been me then Can't have been me. We can't get 15 minutes into an episode without mentioning your trim, so it's a rule I do. Sometimes I do wonder if we're a haircut podcast more than a procurement um rfq request for quote.

Speaker 2: 16:22

That was, wasn't it? Yeah, um, or quotation sorry, I've learned my lesson now. Just yeah, just what it says in the tin. Really, you get pricing from the supplier unit. You, you might have had information, you might have requested information on their different product options, uh, or commercial offerings, and then you would request a quote for whichever one of those products you want.

Speaker 1: 16:48

Yeah, what makes me laugh about this one is the business quite often view that we just go out and get quotes, so like an RFQ is basically all we do and it's like oh, you want this complex project delivered by this supplier, can you just go and get a quote? It doesn't quite work like that yeah, if it's getting a bit more complicated.

Speaker 2: 17:10

That's when you get your p's and your t's out and I've I don't know if this is a subconscious thing, but you know, digging into my thing, into my soul. But when it is something quite simple and someone in the business says can you just get a quote for that, it makes me feel a bit like, well, I could, I could, you know I could, you could, anyone could just.

Speaker 1: 17:38

It kind of diminishes your value, doesn't it a little bit? Yeah, I did get an interesting one actually though Again slight tangent, but a woman with sight issues and she needed a very specific keyboard with jumbo letters. That was quite fun. Was she happy with what you procured? Well, we had a bit of a hiccup because one of the suppliers sent through like a brochure thing with a couple of options. Yeah, she couldn't see it, so that kind of didn't really materialize.

Speaker 2: 18:09

Um, that's the type of thing you hear about like just awful process. You know, if you're selling, if you're selling monitors for people or sorry keyboards for people with, uh, with site issues, you're going to need to make the surrounding collateral available to them, right? It's just kind of like, did you not? Did you not think about that?

Speaker 1: 18:33

yeah, and it was a bit like, I think, that the actual person in the business kind of said, well, this is the one I would ideally like in the end, um, because obviously they couldn't, couldn't evaluate everything properly and all that stuff. So, and it was, it was yeah, so, so, so little value to me from a savings opportunity or a total cost value. So I just kind of went, yeah, all right, um, and got that exact model that she wanted. Um, because, yeah, part of me thinks, if I'm, if a supplier sending her a brochure that isn't considerate of her circumstances, it's yeah, we should question our suppliers. Yeah, yeah, sure, right, so we got rft as well. Um, did you do any of those in your time in the in the public sector?

Speaker 2: 19:20

uh, no, no, I did not. I I did itt's okay that was funny enough, that's.

Speaker 1: 19:28

That's next for me.

Speaker 2: 19:30

Well, let's start on that now, because I want to know if they're different things, because ITTs stands for invitation to tender, right, yeah? So request for tender slash invitation to tender. Are they basically the same thing, but with different ways of wording it?

Speaker 1: 19:52

Yes, kind of. I think a request for tender is probably kind of smaller, like smaller public procurements. An ITT is more of a big thing like higher value, larger scale, longer term sort of projects typically.

Speaker 2: 20:14

Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 20:16

Yeah, and ITTs tend to be a little bit more rigid in their kind of conditions. So they'll set out a bunch of parameters and it's probably a bit more formal. So it might say you know, the contract is going to be these terms and here's a copy of it and xyz um other criteria for you to deliver against nice so I've got some ones I want to throw towards you.

Speaker 2: 20:43

Oh yeah, someone's I want to throw towards you. Oh yeah, it's another. It's another.

Speaker 1: 20:51

I one IP oh, we do love a bit of infringement of this intellectual property that's right, and why would that be important to a procurement person? Well, we've got to protect it. We've got a well, if we create it, we want to own it. It's all around, obviously, in this digital day and age. Um, so he's just got up and just walked off. Like how can you ask, ask someone a question and then just disappear?

Speaker 2: 21:26

I'm still here. Here, I'm just adjusting the heating.

Speaker 1: 21:31

Yeah, so intellectual property, right, you've got your background intellectual property, your foreground intellectual property, better known as IP. As a business, you've probably got your background IP, which is, you know, your digital assets, things that you bring to a party, not even necessarily digital, but your physical as well. Um, and then foreground is something that you might be jointly creating with a supplier or a customer as a result of the contract, and typically background ip is your own ip and you want to protect that at all costs. To protect that at all costs. Uh, foreground ip is is is typically up for grabs. So good, if you're working for a public sector client, then you're probably going to end up giving them the ownership of foreground ip. Uh, but some, some, there are some situations where you you might want to create, keep hold of it as well what could be an example of of back and foreground ip um, if I'm bid writing and I'm I'm trying to stick with the bid writing example.

Speaker 1: 22:41

Um, the the ip I'm bringing to the table might be a series of slides that are used to present to SLTs and they're my core templates. They're branded with my company name and it's something I use quite frequently. The foreground IP equivalent would be I work with the customer to populate a variation of those, those slide decks, and then that slide is then used by the customer to present it elsewhere or as part of their bid submission, and then they can they can obviously keep, keep those slides and own them.

Speaker 2: 23:18

Um and you wouldn't want your background ip to become ownership or property of the of the customer customer, because then you wouldn't be able to use it for your other clients. You'd lose that competitive advantage.

Speaker 1: 23:36

Exactly that, and I'm bringing these slides there for your use for this project only, not for you to then take as templates and go and sell or set up your own business doing the same thing, or you know. Just just keen to protect that, because that's part of my service package. Nice, I also. I also realized I just mentioned another acronym in my answer. Did you, did you clock it? Let me go back through the transcript of course, but you're such a little gen whatever you are.

Speaker 1: 24:11

Was it SLT? It was SLT. Yeah, I'm glad you checked.

Speaker 2: 24:16

Check the script. Yeah, the script that we run through and read word for word. Any ideas on SLT?

Speaker 1: 24:31

Slimy little Toads.

Speaker 2: 24:34

Toads, slimy little toads, is that what it is?

Speaker 1: 24:38

Yeah, that's it Senior leadership teams.

Speaker 2: 24:45

Sometimes in some companies can be other SLTs, can't they? Such as Slammy little toads?

Speaker 1: 24:55

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sorry, I thought you were going to come up with something else.

Speaker 2: 25:00

No, no, or sometimes it's called SMT, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 25:05

senior management team yes, yeah, totally yeah, n instead of m there shitty hearing so, yeah, they're just the people that you need to uh keep satisfied.

Speaker 2: 25:19

Bit of peep satisfied bit of management, mendel's mendelo bit of management mendelos mendelo mendel here.

Speaker 1: 25:41

Uh, okay, pr purchase requisition. Yeah, po purchase order.

Speaker 2: 25:46

How do they link in?

Speaker 2: 25:47

Talk to me so I can explain it from what I understand at the moment, which is that on a system like Ariba, for example, a sort of payment processing system, when you create a purchase requisition, that kind of sets up all the details and all the people that need to approve the spend of the money in the company and then, once that's gone through all the approvals, then something happens in in the magical cloud to turn that into a purchase order and the purchase order will detail money owed to the supplier, often when it has to be paid, as in you know, if it's a milestone payment or if it's monthly in arrears, then if it's milestones, it might have.

Speaker 2: 26:48

You know, on the first day of the contract we'll pay you for the licenses and then, and then you know, once you complete this set of professional services for us, then we'll pay you against that as well. That should be detailed in the PO, from my understanding, and also it should have a reference to the contracts that this money will be paid against. Basically, so yeah, you'd have to say contract signed for between luke 10 and luke 1 on 17th of april, april, november 2037. 2037? Okay, maybe I should have used an example in the past because it would always be in the past.

Speaker 1: 27:37

Well, it could be 2037 by the time we found a new director.

Speaker 2: 27:42

Aaron's quit, and now we've got no one to edit the pods. Yeah, aaron's quit, and now we've got no one to edit the pods. Yeah, that's quite a niche. Understanding, I think, is that applicable to other procurement worlds.

Speaker 1: 28:02

Yeah, yeah, a purchase requests your internal governance and processes. You know you've got different approvals or whatever kind of sits sits behind it, but it goes through your your spend function or your finance function or whatever it is, before it then churns out a purchase order. Um, a purchase order is actually, uh, a binding instruction to the suppliers, um, to go ahead and commit to price, quantity and the terms that are yeah wrapped around it.

Speaker 2: 28:35

When I uh, when I did work in public sector, as you suggested, we always used to say to suppliers don't make any commitments or spend any money that you're not willing to get paid back by us before you received PO.

Speaker 1: 28:53

I think you're talking to and about war, war, working at risk. Yes, and that's totally not an acronym that's ever used, um, but I thought I'd make it up on the spot and create a new one here we go. We've just made life easier, so we, we, like most people, like to avoid war.

Speaker 2: 29:20

Why is war bad, luke chen this feels like it's getting towards that episode that we had to, uh, that we had to abandon, um. So, yeah, working at risk, I suppose, if you think of it like back, going back to bid writing services, if, if you invest loads of time, um, putting together those powerpoints that you were mentioning earlier, and then, for you know, for a customer without a signed contract and a purchase order, and then the customer says, oh, actually, no, we're not going to use luke 10, sorry, luke 1 bid writing incorporated, then you've lost that money. There's no, there's no legal way for you to, there's no legal way for you to get it back. I don't know why I said it like that you could break into their factory and steal something of equal value or that, yeah, um, so there's no, yeah, you've got, you've got no way to to get paid by them. Basically, they don't owe you anything until you get a contract to the PO, right?

Speaker 1: 30:27

Sort of you don't have a legally agreed basis, but you could end up going down the court route and seeing what options you've got available to you to claim the money back if you've got reasons to believe that you've received an indicative warning to go ahead with the work, for example because somebody in in your customer's business might have said to you I don't worry, you're definitely guaranteed the purchase order and they said that in an email.

Speaker 1: 30:53

So you've gone. Yeah, all right, and that's a reasonable kind of instruction then, um, so the circumstances can be different. But as a supplier you shouldn't work at risk because you know you don't necessarily know if you're going to guarantee, get the work, if you're going to get paid, like you said, what you're being paid for and how you're being paid as well and when. Yeah and when, from our perspective as the buyer, obviously, if the supplier then comes in and, I don't know, puts a wet fork into a plug socket and, you know, just causes themselves injury or whatever, there's no agreement between you about kind of what they do in that situation. You know setting out the kind of liabilities, just general processes and rules of engagement. There's no terms underneath it. Effectively, you've just invited a stranger into your office and they've just electrocuted themselves and probably half a dozen other people yeah, although you you phrase it as a as a negative.

Speaker 2: 31:53

Well, I suppose it is a negative really, but there are, there are some times where you know, due to whatever people being off or governance delays or pro blocking or whatever, where the supplier might voluntarily say especially if it's a company that you've worked with for a long time and they have trust that they will get paid and get things signed off they will say you know what? We'll work at risk for another week if we haven't got the contract in PO by then. We're going to tell our people to stop you kind of for that sort of thing.

Speaker 1: 32:25

You kind of look for like a letter of intent or something that just confirms that you know, while the terms are still working, we do instruct you to carry out some work, and you know you, you don't have to have the full-blown contract as such, but if you at least have the principles of what you're going to agree then where does that?

Speaker 2: 32:42

where does that leave you in k in, for example, in the situation where you then don't sign a contract for whatever reason? Or is the letter of intent saying you have to at some point?

Speaker 1: 32:55

well, the letter of intent would probably set out what you're agreeing to pay and kind of just a generic engagement thing. So, if by, if by, you know, but within the next two weeks we agreed that the terms would be complete. So in the meantime, at £200 a day, go and change your light bulbs in the office.

Speaker 2: 33:15

We hereby instruct you to do so but then you'd still have to pay for for that if you cancel it, you'd still pay for what's happened.

Speaker 1: 33:24

Yeah, the worst kind is when someone literally just rocks up um, and you know, the procurement function have never heard of this. This company or um, somebody random, has just instructed them to come and do something. Not, they're not onboarded, they're not approved, you know they're, they're, uh, they're from a banned country or whatever, and it just gets messy.

Speaker 2: 33:47

Yeah, for sure. We did touch on another acronym during the explanation. Well, we didn't actually say it, but ERP. Is Ariba an ERP system? That was a question to you. It's a good question.

Speaker 1: 34:04

Because Ariba is many things to many people, so Quick Google.

Speaker 2: 34:11

Quick Google, and then we should go to the SM ones.

Speaker 1: 34:15

No, SAP Ariba is not an ERP system in itself, but it's closely integrated with SAP's ERP systems, like SAP ERP and SAP S-4 HANA. Ariba is primarily a cloud-based platform focused on B2B procurement and spend management.

Speaker 2: 34:34

So SAP is my bad for confusing the uh the names. Sap is an erp which stands for no sap.

Speaker 1: 34:48

That's not an erp so basically, this company, sap the company, has um a bunch of different modules and products and things. So SAP Ariba is their procurement system, right, b2b procurement, business to business procurement portal. But they do have a product called SAP ERP. Okay, so you picked an absolute stink here. It's got loads of different names, loads of different and have you said what erp stands for.

Speaker 2: 35:19

Yet what?

Speaker 1: 35:20

sap stands for. So I think sap's the company name. So I'm not entirely sure what sap stands for. It's probably like a french acronym or something like that. Um, erp enterprise resource planning system. Correct, well, not the system part, but Enterprise Resource Planning System.

Speaker 2: 35:40

Yeah, erp systems, yeah, yeah, yeah, erps are systems, right? Yeah, it's like saying something, number, shortening it to football number 10 number.

Speaker 1: 35:59

Yeah, yeah, luke 10 10. Yeah, luke 10 number. Okay, move on. Or do you want to move on?

Speaker 2: 36:09

yeah, erp is the one we're. Why not? Partly because, uh, it's complicated, it's just it's a it's a system that actually I don't know if I really 100 understand what the difference between the erp system and a crm system is crm focuses on customer relationship management, ie CRM.

Speaker 1: 36:39

what it stands for Enterprise is supposed to be the overarching hub, so an enterprise resource management tool, and kind of probably where you're getting with Ariba is that you know you might have Ariba as an overall overarching ERP system and then you've got your modules that you buy into it, as you know, sap ERP or SAP Ariba or whatever and you kind of build them all in to get the full central hub that works for you.

Speaker 2: 37:09

Yeah, so you'd invest in a suite of SAP products. Yeah, basically, one of them would be Ariba, one of them would be SAP CRM, one of them would be Ariba, one of them would be SAP CRM, one of them would be something else. Yeah, and they're meant to all integrate together and provide you with a better experience of.

Speaker 1: 37:27

Yeah, that's it right or other things, but basically loads of different things. Um, with an ERP, it's all about integrating what used to be different business kind of units and business operations, like the finance team might have their own bit, the procurement team would have their own bit and then the you know the team literally processes in purchase orders. What category management would have their own bit. It's about bringing all of that together and then figuring out how it flows literally from step A all the way through to the orders out the door, all the way through to receipting and invoicing, things like that. So it should avoid duplication of effort and work and it should give you more data and kind of efficiencies. But what you do find with them is they're quite expensive and they require a lot of input for them to be kind of successful.

Speaker 2: 38:24

Insightful comment there from Luke One. Now next acronym SR slash PM, spm, srm.

Speaker 1: 38:37

S r slash p m sbm srm supplier relationship manager and supplier performance manager would be my guess on that.

Speaker 2: 38:45

I was thinking of management, but I will accept your answer thank you.

Speaker 1: 38:51

Um, okay, so you're thinking of the functions as a function? Yeah, you say in management. Okay, that's something procurement, do they?

Speaker 2: 39:02

can. Uh, not always, not always, and sometimes, if it is done by a sourcing team, they are called commercial because they manage the whole commercial life cycle, yeah, whereas sometimes procurement is just the actual sourcing of the product or service in in the traditional sense. I think procurement would would do the sourcing and then hand it over to someone different, probably someone in the business who works with the supplier day to day or week to week. Maybe who's going to do the is get this the right way around relationship management. And then there might be a different person, maybe someone more senior, who kind of gets fed that information on a monthly basis and would go to meetings with the supplier to assess their performance, and that would be supplier performance management. Maybe you could include KPIs or SLAs in there.

Speaker 1: 40:12

Yeah, I can't believe we've got this far without mentioning those two to be honest, yeah, I mean, I can't believe we've got this far without mentioning those two. To be honest, interesting insight from you there, because you said you think that the performance manager might be more senior. Is that not? Your, your view no, not at all um, okay not at all.

Speaker 1: 40:29

Uh, for me, performance manager is normally someone who's close to the detail of the account, the technicalities of what that supplier is performing, right. So if, if I'm responsible for delivering 10 000 pencils a week or whatever, and they have to be a certain length and a certain sharpness, um, and then some narc comes in and tells me that my pencils were the wrong length, I'm only going to trust that information if it comes from somebody I know knows about the pencils, if that makes sense. So the supplier performance manager will be someone who can say you know, all the pencils you sent were 99 accurate and one percent were and I'm missing the rubber on the end or something daft like that. But it would have to be for someone who can talk technical about the actual product as well. Um, which is where the slas and kpis and stuff come in and effectively, you're right, you measure them, you churn them out and then you've either hit them or you haven't hit them and you don't have to agree how you resolve and how you, how you kind of move and things.

Speaker 1: 41:30

I wouldn't say that role is any less senior or any more senior. I think it differs for organizations. Um, supply relationship management is taken seriously or less serious at different organizations as well. Um, some neglect it completely and then wonder why they don't have good relationships with suppliers. Um, some suppliers, some, some companies only bother with their kind of strategic suppliers. Um, because you can't really do it with everyone if you're going to do it properly.

Speaker 2: 41:59

Um, it's a good shout out to our episode with uh, medium-sized nige. Yes, we did it, we did it, we did. Episode on supplier relationship management with a supplier relationship manager yeah, and and a very good one at that, a very experienced one. So if you want to know more about SRM, get over to that app. I think it was in season one, so we probably sound even less professional than we do now. Somehow you might not believe that's possible, but it is a good app. You should check it out.

Speaker 1: 42:39

I think we still waffle as much as we did in season one. I don't think we've got any more concise. We probably waffle more.

Speaker 2: 42:44

to be honest, We've got the confidence to waffle now.

Speaker 1: 42:47

Yeah, yeah, fair point.

Speaker 2: 42:51

We should. Before we forget, we should remember to define SLAs and KPIs.

Speaker 1: 42:59

Is that like a general tip for people writing them down, or is that you?

Speaker 2: 43:03

asking for what they stand for.

Speaker 1: 43:04

Yeah, I don't know what they mean service level agreements and uh key performance indicators what's the difference between the two?

Speaker 2: 43:15

Is that a joke?

Speaker 1: 43:17

No, it's a question. Yeah, not a joke, it is a question. Obviously, service levels relate to services. So we provide a support service to you and whenever you've got an issue with your boiler, we promise to come out and fix it within 12 hours. So my SLA is that I will be there within 12 hours every time a boiler breaks. If it doesn't, I've failed my SLA. A key performance indicator would be slightly different and it's the kind of metrics that you might look around quality, quantity, um, general output that you can measure. So, going back to the pencils, all the pencils are um sharpened to two centimeters in length. You know that's key performance indicator, um, but it's the lay on that would be.

Speaker 2: 44:13

They're delivered on time, right so so it's either could be um, they don't have to be pass or fail is what I'm saying either could be a percentage, like like something you said earlier, like 99 of of the time you will be available, or 99.999, five nines, they call it, don't they? That could be either an SLA or a KPI, depending on whether it's about a service or whether it's about quality or quantity of a something that you believe is an intrinsic part of what you're buying.

Speaker 1: 44:54

Yeah, so service level agreements are more about where, when, timeliness of it um, you know, if you're delivering something over and over again, how do you? You know, I'm an auditor, I'm going to go and audit your accounts. I'm going to do it every six months. So you might want an sla to say that I turn up every six months and I audit the books. The performance indicator is the quality of audit that I provided and how you then judge that. So you can technically do I turn all audits around in 24 hours or something like that. But a KPI might be. A one-page report is provided that gives enough detail.

Speaker 1: 45:40

But a KPI might be a one-page report is provided that gives enough detail on, as a result, the findings of the audit, and typically you might then look at ways of if someone fails at either of those metrics. You can look at things like service credits, things like cash back. So it's almost like a penalty in that only five pencils were sharpened, so you're fine this month, but next month 90 out of 100 were blunt. So then that way you then got an agreement that you're not going to terminate the contract because actually every other month you're fine, but for this month you're going to pay a penalty for it because you slipped. It's a bit like when you ref right, you know the first time you ever ref you probably gave it 110%, whereas now you know sort of 12 games into your ref in career you're probably more of a 60% effort.

Speaker 2: 46:32

Over 12 games in and I've lost hope.

Speaker 1: 46:39

What's on a side note? Over 12 games in and I've lost hope. What's on a side note? What's actually? No, I'm not gonna say that right any more. Any more acronyms, yeah.

Speaker 2: 46:45

I've got two more. I've got two more for you. First is BAFO B-A-F-O.

Speaker 1: 46:53

Oh, we do love a BAFO. Best and Final offer.

Speaker 2: 46:59

So when would that be used?

Speaker 1: 47:02

Typically, you set a deadline for a baffo to be submitted to you and you're effectively setting the market of a supplier to say stop fucking around, this is your best and this is your final price. We're not going to accept any more iterations of price. We're not going to accept any more iterations of price. We're not going to accept anything different. This is the price you're committing to um. And that basically just stops conversations going on and on and on and oh, if I know a supplier has given me their baffle, I'm not then going to go and say, oh, can you, can you get a percentage off for me?

Speaker 2: 47:34

Yeah, that's not good form.

Speaker 1: 47:37

Yeah, I might try, but we'll see.

Speaker 2: 47:41

Do you have to tell suppliers say, for example, so you'd use it in a tender right or maybe a request for quote? Would you recommend setting it out first and saying we do this, then this, then this, and then we'll do baffo, or would you?

Speaker 1: 48:02

you would yeah so I mean, typically your final submission is your baffo um. You would probably make that clear in in the tender, um. But if you've got a massive tender you might have, you know, one or two rounds of submissions and you kind of fine-tune it and then you say baffo um. If you've only got one round of it, it's kind of obvious it's your baffo unless, unless you're stating the winning bid will then get to negotiate even more. But that's kind of not great practice.

Speaker 2: 48:35

Yeah, yeah, Cool. And then my last. My last acronym for you is what we almost called the podcast Diary of a CPO. What does CPO stand for?

Speaker 1: 48:51

Chief Procurement Officer. Is that right? Correct? No.

Speaker 2: 48:57

I don't know if I know any. Any of them? Chief procurement officer? Am I right, correct? But they're not in the unit then no, I don't know if I know any of them. Do you think it's because the chief part of it suggests that they would be on the board of directors? Yes, and not a lot of companies. They would kind of have a spot on the board of directors just for procurement. It could be like head of commercial and procurement or head of finance and procurement, or facilities and procurement or whatever.

Speaker 1: 49:35

Yeah, potentially, I genuinely don't know. I don't know if chief is an American thing. I don't know, honestly, I don't know if chief is an American thing. I don't know honestly, I don't know if you know any chiefs out there you know. If you want to explain where the chief has arrived, where it's come from, let us know. A lot of you still are directors and things.

Speaker 2: 49:52

Yeah, yeah cool, that was my, that was my acronyms nice, did I have one more for you?

Speaker 1: 50:01

ah, yes, I did have one more for you. It escaped my list. I'm in danger. Oh funny, you say that the acronym is bomb ah what you shouldn't discuss in an airport. What you shouldn't discuss in an airport? Probably not. No, yeah.

Speaker 2: 50:26

Who's got the bomb B-O-M? Without the second B, just B-O-M stands for Bill of Materials. If someone wanted you to get or a project wants to build something, they might need 12 servers, 3 gold HDMI cables, 20 monitors, 13 giant keyboards with letters big enough to see and 3 magnifying glasses to read the brochures that they come with, the instruction manuals. Yeah, that would be a bill of materials.

Speaker 1: 51:06

Oh yeah, and can you put a bomb in a briefcase?

Speaker 2: 51:13

You could do. You could do, although I'm not sure if I'd, if I'd recommend that, because today's fashion trends are just briefcases, so yesterday. So I wouldn't recommend doing that okay, so what would you?

Speaker 1: 51:28

what would you put it in a backpack?

Speaker 2: 51:31

I'd, I would put it in a clear ziploc bag along with any of your other liquids. They've got to be a hundred less than 100 mils though okay, you're taking your.

Speaker 1: 51:46

You're taking it through the airport onto the plane. Yeah, yeah must be an international trade deal you're working on there. That's actually a point.

Speaker 2: 51:55

If, if, uh, if security come up to you and say, have you got a bomb on you, you might have to say yes.

Speaker 1: 52:01

I do. Yeah, it's three pages long.

Speaker 2: 52:05

Yeah, yeah, you can read it if you want, mate, but I'll have to get you to sign an NDA Hashtag circular structure.

Speaker 1: 52:14

I've actually got a bomb for a clock. It's a bit of a ticking time bomb.

Speaker 2: 52:25

Does that mean it'd be a joke? Yeah, come on, that was sick. Wasn't it off the top of my head? Surely I can tell it's off the top of your head. Oh, is that shit, was it?

Speaker 2: 52:30

yeah what a shit note to end on then well, I want to say thanks to you, um, because you've helped me procreate. What, no, I mean, uh, procrastinate. You've helped me procrastinate I. I was meant to be writing my assignment, but instead I've I've been talking to you, um, and I've used all my brain power on the on the pod, instead of so the assignment well, if your assignment's about acronyms, you've hit the jetpot.

Speaker 2: 53:00

Sadly it's not. It's about category management and a scathing. Let me tell you now a scathing episode will be coming your way soon about that assignment.

Speaker 1: 53:13

I'm looking forward to it because you kind of got a bit cocky after getting 60-odd percent in the last one.

Speaker 2: 53:21

I did in the second one yeah yeah, by the time that comes out, the listeners will have heard about the third assignment. Um, so thanks for your thanks that you're going to send me for past for saying that I passed.

Speaker 1: 53:41

And yeah, basically this assignment is just it's the hardest one so far by a long way.

Speaker 2: 53:51

Yeah, we need to record this soon, then, while you're still frustrated about it, I think yeah, yeah, we do, we do, and then we'll do the results, for that the first could be the first fail. Oh, that the first could be the first fail. Ah, yes, very much could be the first fail.

Speaker 1: 54:06

Get in. The longer you take, the longer we keep the email. Two loops, one sip.

Speaker 2: 54:12

Yeah, although that does mean that the more valuable the email address two loops, two sips becomes, though that's true. True, might have to, uh, might have to bid for it we'll hire a new link and have three loops, two sips.

Speaker 1: 54:27

What if they've already got sips ain't getting a job then, are they?

Speaker 2: 54:32

they're only allowed. Maybe maybe we should, after all my my shit talking to Aaron, maybe we should get the email address two Luke's, one Aaron, one Sip well, he's got to earn his place on that email, doesn't he? Yeah, yeah, hopefully you've enjoyed Aaron's editing today no editing, just a pure raw episode.

Speaker 2: 54:57

Yeah anyway, we've somehow been recording for an hour and um, I think the listeners probably need a break from you, so I think we should uh, see you in two weeks. Sounds good. See you in a bit. See you later. I forgot you meant to say see you later, not see you in a bit. Oh yeah, see you. To say see you later, not see you in a bit. Oh yeah, see you later. Then See you later.