Transcript 0:00 Most procurement technology advice is written for a company with one ERP, one suite, and one way of buying. For the largest, most complex organizations on the planet, that setup is rare. 0:11 If you run procurement in a global organization with a dozen ERPs, a stack of best-of-breed tools around them, an acquisition on the calendar every few months, requests coming in from every function in every country, and a production line that can't wait for a sourcing event, the textbook stack was not built for you. 0:28 But these next seven episodes are. We're starting a series where we explore what makes the complex enterprise, well, complex. 0:36 More specifically, a series for organizations where multiple ERPs and point solutions to consider is the default forever, where there's high volumes of merger, acquisition, and divestiture activity, where requirements come in from dozens of business functions multiplied by geography, where you manage both direct and indirect purchasing in parallel, and where global supplier onboarding and third-party risk management is necessary. 1:01 For each of these challenges, this episode series will provide important principles that hold regardless of what software you run, where those principles break, and how you can deliver value without having to wait on ERP and system consolidation programs. 1:15 This series is for CPOs, procurement transformation leads, and the technology owners who work with them in organizations where SAP usually sits next to Oracle, a handful of best-of-breed systems, homegrown tools, and whatever came in with the last acquisition. 1:30 If your landscape is smaller, that's okay. These principles do scale down. But very excited to get going on this so we can get at the meat of what makes complex organizations tick. 1:42 This is Building the ProcureTech Stack for the Complex Enterprise. Let's get into it. Technology presumes there's just one right way to do things, and there never is. 1:53 AI will do what you tell it to do, but that may be very different from what you had in mind. Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. 2:01 For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve our quality of life, please press three. Hey, everybody. 2:07 Welcome to ProcureTech Unpacked, the show where we help procurement professionals understand and master the technology shaping our function. I'm your host, Joël Conneen-Demesre. 2:17 My guest today is Chris Vesse, VP of Innovation and Customer Value at Oro Labs. Before Oro, Chris spent more than two decades on the buying side in two of the most complex procurement landscapes you'll find anywhere. 2:29 At JPMorgan Chase, he ran global accounts payable and then global source to pay operations. 2:34 And at Goldman Sachs, he led the spend management transformation, product strategy, and the third-party risk management functions. And before banking, he started out in operations and logistics at Procter & Gamble. 2:46 So when we talk about running procurement across dozens of systems, functions, and countries, Chris ran it from the inside long before he started selling into it. Chris, welcome to ProcureTech Unpacked. Thanks. 2:58 Great to be here. And so maybe we could just start there, right? Because i- in, um, the banking sector, to, to me, that's mostly indirect based purchasing where there's no- Yeah... inventory, materials, all this stuff. 3:09 But tell us more a little bit about, like, your work at Procter & Gamble. Did you get to put your hands in inventory, so to speak? Yeah. 3:16 I mean, I have to say, one of the great things about working for a company like P&G is you really get a, a feeling of touching something real. 3:22 I think one of the hard things of working in banking is it always a little bit nebulous at times in terms of what you're actually working with. 3:27 And so when I, when I joined P&G out of college, actually, I, I started on a, o- on a kind of a five-year journey with them and ended up running their kind of order management and warehouse management function around their prestige beauty or their fine fragrance business. 3:42 So getting to be involved with some of the very seasonal work around, like buying perfumes and aftershaves, and the fact that, like, the peak season's around Christmas time, and making sure that you're planning your kind of Christmas delivery is well advanced without working with planning teams and manufacturing sites and packaging organizations to bring all that together, and then working through logistical problems around, like haulage and getting kind of lorries to the right place at the right time. 4:06 It was, it was a great place to be because I think I always felt proud when I walked in into that department store at the Christmas holidays and got to see all of the, uh, the stands full of products was a very satisfying moment to see. 4:16 It was a, it was a great start to my career. I really enjoyed that. Yeah. And I could see you like-- I don't, I don't know if you have this tendency, but I'll, I'll, you know, like a seven-year... 4:24 my seven-year-old niece or whatever will go, "Hey, do you wanna know what a perfume bomb is?" Right? 4:28 [laughs] Literally, I mean, honestly, the, the amount of detail that I know about high notes, deep notes, and middle notes on perfumes is, is far too much than really any person should ever have to know. So absolutely. 4:39 [laughs] Cool. So, so that's great, Chris. Thanks for, for sharing, and I wanted to highlight, right, that, that you've kinda touched both those, both those worlds, direct and indirect procurement. 4:48 I'll ask you just up, up front, right? Why did you wanna do this series with us? 4:52 Like, why is, is the complex org enterprise and, and diving deeply into the nuances that are different from, you know, smaller businesses or less complex businesses, I should say. 5:03 Why is that important to, to you and Oro? Yeah. I, I mean, I think it's super interesting, right? 5:07 I think one of the things that the challenges of this world in general right now is that people like to diminish and simplify things. 5:14 And actually, some of the most interesting things to work on are complex, and it's not always complexity has to look difficult even, but there's just a, a deeper problem to have to solve. 5:24 And I think one of the things we love doing here at Oro Labs is being able to really engage on those gnarly kinda problems, the ones that have not been solved so far, the ones that don't have an obvious solution, and to bring to bear not just great technology that helps you solve those, but also bring to bear experience, ideas, vision, perspective that can actually bring that to life. 5:44 And I've worked alongside and worked for some fantastic people who've sought to try and solve these problems and, and have struggled to do so in some of the biggest companies in the world. 5:54 And I think it's a great opportunity for us to share that experience, that when, when we've made progress, it encourages other people that there is progress, there is hope, there is a way forward. 6:03 But also I'm hoping to learn. I'm hoping that there will be kind of feedback and thoughts as well that come through this. There'll be people that reach out with other suggestions or ways they've solved the same problem. 6:11 So there's obviously a, a slightly selfish intent as well as part of this. Well, for, for me as well, because I just, I love talking about the complex enterprise, right? 6:20 And I think to your point, there's a lot of nuances and, and complexity that, you know, always brings me to, to the answer, it depends, right? 6:29 Or trying to write an article, you know, that people can read in five minutes that end ups-- ends up being 22 or 30 minutes or whatever else, right? Great. So, so let's dive into making this concrete, right? 6:39 Why- let's define together what the complex enterprise means. Mm-hmm. I have a little bit of like a couple criteria that I would think of, and then I'd love to get your take. So if we-- what is a complex enterprise? 6:50 To me, it has, you know, a few, if not a dozen or more ERPs and/or bre- best of breed systems, specifically in procurement, right, and across the board in all functions, of course. 7:01 It's engaged in M&A activity several times a year, and so it's, it's unrealistic to think that you're going to have your whole business on a single technology stack at any one point in time, right? 7:12 You're always in motion, so to speak. 7:15 Demand for procurement services or procurement assistance, procurement strategy comes from five to seven functions, traditionally, you know, and then across countries multiplied by geographies, if not more. 7:28 If you know, you know, I always think back to those classic functions that you have in any business around marketing, around sales, around production, around- Yeah... 7:35 uh, finance, and, and, and, uh, and the others, right? But a lot of businesses have their own dedicated business functions that are industry specific, right? 7:44 And so you've got this demand coming from a fire hose of different places. Number four, direct materials feed into production. 7:52 So if you're in a, a manufacturing space, you're more complex by default to me than, than an indirect only purchasing business. 8:00 So, you know, you're managing sourcing in flight for MRP generated requirements without trying to slow down operations. 8:06 You're managing co-contract and priceless updates into various ERP systems or source-to-pay suites based on complex pricing formulas that may or may not be tied to market indices. 8:17 You're managing PO confirmations, advanced shipment notices at scale, and hopefully in a multimodal fashion, right? 8:24 So you've got this long tail of suppliers with variable capabilities from a technology standpoint, from email all the way to, uh, you know, these more sophisticated EDI- Absolutely... CXML connections. 8:36 And then finally, you're doing supplier onboarding and risk management programs spanning all of that, right? And trying to make sense of, you know, your footprint with a single supplier. 8:46 What would you add to that list, Chris? I mean, I, it's fairly, fairly long, but I'd love to, to get your take. It's, it's fairly technological as well. Yeah, yeah. 8:54 I, I think you, I think you've nailed a lot of the kinda bigger items. 8:56 I mean, hopefully not every company experiences all of those in one go, but I mean, each of those items on their own adds a layer of complexity that for sure has to be unpacked. 9:05 And then the other things that I'd add that kinda lean towards complexity are things like the, the organizational structure, the people side of things. 9:11 So oftentimes, especially in a procurement function, it's rare that you own everything that you need to touch as part of your journey. And it's quite unusual, actually. 9:19 A lot of businesses will really own everything they need to do start to finish to be effective, and yet in procurement, that's not true. You've got third party risk management that may sit outside of procurement. 9:28 You've got finance that may sit outside of procurement. You've got legal almost certainly outside of procurement. 9:33 You've then got things like InfoSec, tech risk, op risk, anti-bribery, internal audit functions, all these groups that look in on what can be one of the highest risks processes in any organization. 9:44 And so I think the people, the organizational structure is a layer of complexity to consider as well. Obviously, regulation. 9:51 I mean, I think w-we work with some of the most regulated industries and some of the biggest companies in those regulated industries. And so you can't practically vibe code a regulated solution. 10:01 Like that's, no matter how good you are, like that, that takes effort. 10:04 And I think making sure that you're not just delivering against the current regulations, but looking at future regulations and deciding as an organization, are you gonna just meet the regulation or look to exceed the regulation? 10:15 There's a whole strategic intent that you have to work through there as well. 10:19 And then I think operational changes, like the, the whole GBS function that's been called into, into account recently, like what's gonna happen in that space and how does the evolution of AI technology and, uh, the evolving geopolitical reality, the gig economy and how people are moving around, like all of those things change our operating model as well. 10:36 And so they're perhaps just like three other things I'd maybe add into to that list that you've just outlined. 10:42 Yeah, and then, and it leads me to asking you around like what do you think in that list is the thing that we underestimate the most? Sure. 10:49 And I-- as, as you were talking, there's one of the bits that, you know, especially in the era of AI, seems to me most relevant, but I'd love your take before I chime in. 10:58 Yeah, I mean, look, I, I think master data, I mean, everyone says it, right? 11:01 And I think I've got a, uh, maybe a slight view to some people in terms of what we do with the master data problem and-- but I, I think from my point of view, you've probably got almost certainly the same supplier set up across different ERPs differently, or you've got six versions of one supplier set up as individual suppliers in one ERP rather than parenting them appropriately. 11:20 And you've got a complexity that exists there in terms of other attributes that make up that supplier record, be that the, the risk profile, the commodities, the geographies, the legal entities, all of those things that need to sit in there. 11:32 And so I think that, that is, that is an underestimation in terms of how do you handle that, and almost what's the, the minimum viable quality, I call it- Yeah... 11:40 that you need to deliver value i-in, in an area where master data is imperfect because none of us have clean data. There's always a, a problem there. 11:49 But then the other thing that people perhaps underestimate is, is actually at its core, like complexity doesn't even have to mean 18 ERPs, right? It can, but I think complexity can just be doing the basic stuff well. 12:01 Mm-hmm. 12:01 And one of the things that I've realized working with many different organizations, but not least in, in this role, but also even in when I was in my previous jobs as well, and you get to meet different companies at different events and hear what they're doing, and you realize that actually complexity is all relative. 12:16 Like when, when I talk to my kids and I kinda talk about, like, how they're doing. "Oh, I'm so stressed and life's so hard," and I'm like, "Oh, you have no idea how stressed it is." [laughs] Um, but it's relative, right? 12:25 I mean, at the end of the day- Yeah... they, they don't know any different. And so if you're in a small organization, it can feel very complex to you. 12:31 And actually it's not like complexity is a, an absolute thing, and I think you've outlined it very well in terms of some key measures there. 12:36 But I do think we underestimate that even some of the simplest processes in a large organization can still be complicated because people are complicated, and people like to add a different dynamic into things. 12:47 And so perhaps they're, they're perhaps the two things that I'd call out initially. But I know you, you were gonna mention something you thought of as well. 12:52 No, and I, I just add, I'd love, I love that second piece around the approval matrix of requisitions just came to mind- [laughs]... when you were talking about that, right? 13:00 Like small organization, very complex approval matrix. Like, why, [laughs] right? So that's a, a concrete example. 13:07 And the one I would add is, is in the era of AI specifically, like the tendency to wanna build, and we could do an whole, a whole series on that, right? But building has become much easier. 13:17 But then to your point, maintaining in a regulated industry following as things evolve and keeping software up to date is a whole, is a whole competency or capability that, that, you know, I think people underestimate in the age of, of AI. 13:30 Yeah, right. But, uh, we've, we've covered that on other shows as well. All right, so if we shift gears here, right? 13:36 I think the last decade or so, maybe, maybe a bit before that, right, we've been in this new era of, of, uh, procurement software, uh, a couple years now. 13:45 But source-to-pay suites traditionally have been the answer to, to the problems we're mentioning for the past decade, right? 13:51 The vision was, hey, if you, if you're doing indirect purchasing in multiple ERPs, sit a source-to-pay suite on top of your ERPs and centralize your indirect purchasing. 14:00 But I feel like we've, we've hit the limit of that approach for a number of reasons, right? We've reproduced certain problems. Hmm. We haven't addressed the master data issue. 14:09 And so, you know, the, the source-to-pay suite model, at least from my perspective, has never really delivered. It has delivered in some respects, right? It's, it's, it's moved the, the, the goalposts further, 14:21 and mostly in di- in direct spend, right? So mostly on catalog goods and, you know, maybe services to s- to a certain extent, if it's not complex services, you know, free text field, that sort of thing. Mm-hmm. 14:33 A- and some of them have also provided vendor networks that plug, uh, directly into ERP to support direct spend. 14:39 But this was rarely a focus, I think, in, in the marketing of it being like your, you know, your source-to-pay suite for- Yeah... ERPs as well. Which to me usually meant 14:49 hitting a wall at some point in time, whether in the, in the scope of what the software can support or in the type of spend that it can support, especially in heterogen- heterogeneous, um, environments, right? 15:00 Is that something you would agree with? Does that perspective, uh, resonate with you? Yeah. I mean, absolutely. I think, I think y- you're right that there's been... 15:09 It's almost like that the way that the source-to-pay suites were designed was very, was very functional first, and that there's great functionality built in. 15:15 But, but the reality is that no one experiences the functionality within the process, like you're experiencing the process itself, like, uh, what's happening end to end. 15:23 And so you, you end up with a situation where it's designed around the happy path, where there's gonna be a, a simple request for one, one item, [clears throat] that item's in a catalog. 15:33 The catalog is, like, perfectly organized and structured and priced appropriately, and then it, it's gonna go through to a PO. An invoice will come in with no exceptions whatsoever and go straight through to single ERP. 15:42 And those things work great, right? That when that happens, and there are scenarios like that in every company. But the reality, as you say, is that it's actually much more complex in reality than that. 15:50 Whether that be indirect, and you've mentioned like services, like you add in things like rate cards. You start adding in kinda time sheets. 15:57 You start adding in outcome-based metrics where you're paying a, an SI based upon a deliverable. That's complicated to manage in terms of how you track that in quality. 16:06 You start thinking about absolutely direct spend, and you start thinking about managing like MRO and how you're gonna manage that and all the price updates that need to happen, the complexity around different timelines and different kinda user groups involved again. 16:19 I mean, absolutely. I mean, source-to-pay did some great work, right? And then there's, there's definitely been some progress there. 16:24 And the, the idea of a single source-to-pay suite, like that vision is not illogical initially, but the more I've unpacked that over my career, I've realized actually, why would it ever be the case that you could produce a single software solution that would work in a JP Morgan and a Goldman Sachs just because they're in the same industry? 16:42 Like why would we assume that that is identical because they both happen to work in the same type of s- type of area? 16:48 And my experience at both those companies is we implemented Ariba in both of them, and I, I-- the configuration's completely different because actually the way in which you need to deploy those solutions is not the same, even in the same kind of industry vertical. 16:59 So look, I think life is complicated. People are complicated. Systems try their best to, to do that, and source-to-pay has done a good job, but it's absolutely not got to where it needs to. 17:08 And I think it was like a very, uh, you know, to draw on how you, you painted the picture, it's a very linear model, right? Like you, you do a req- It is... and then you do a PO. 17:17 You get an approval, you do a PO, you do a receipt, you do get the invoice, and you match it. 17:21 But to your point, like things can happen in that concept, and we actually touched on this as well in the sourcing, the state of autonomous sourcing episode earlier this, um, this month around the fact that things change as you get more context, right? 17:35 The process needs to change and, and evolve as you get more context, which leads nicely into exploring this, this intake and orchestration cons- as a concept, right? 17:44 And I know Oro, y- I think you see yourselves as being more than that, but I'd love if we can define intake and orchestration and then also people keep asking me the difference between the two, right? 17:55 Because they, they seem to be packaged at least recently, in recent years together. Yeah. 18:00 No, no, no, and I think, I mean, I know you did a recent kind of, um, YouTube clip this week that I, I was kind of watching that I think you did a good job explaining intake orchestration, actually. 18:09 So I'd encourage people to go and look at that as well for a kind of fuller Kind of answer. But I mean, at a high level, intake is really the front door, right? 18:15 It's, it's a single place to go to where you are gathering what we would define as intent. Like, what, what is the user trying to do? Like, what is their intention at that point of the process? 18:25 And then orchestration is everything else that happens between that initial intent and the outcome you're going for, whatever that outcome is. 18:31 And so it's really about routing through the policy, the approvals, um, the systems, the behaviors, gathering the data, enriching the data, bringing the right groups together, giving visibility of what's happening. 18:40 All of that happens in the orchestration, but, but the intake is really that kind of point of capture. And that-- It's funny, actually. People often ask me, "How do you describe it?" 18:48 I'm, I'm, I'm a big believer in analogies. I always love the idea of trying to bring it to life for people. 18:52 And the best I've come to, and I'm very happy for people to send in alternative ones, is it's a bit like going to a hospital, right? Where you walk in the door, and there's normally, like, a triage nurse. 19:01 There's someone who's going to assess the symptoms you've got and kinda say, "Right, how life-threatening is this situation right now, and what do we need to do with you?" 19:08 And there's this, like, intake front door where someone is triaging the variety of things you say you need. "I've got this, I've got this, I've got this, I've got this." They're like, "Bang, bang, bang. Okay, great. 19:16 I know what to do." And then what they do is they route you to maybe a, a general kind of surgeon, someone who's going to do, like, general work on you, gonna help you with a general problem. 19:26 And that might be represented in the orchestration layer as some of the functionality that we would have in sourcing or contracting or risk or invoicing that's native within the Oro platform, where you can do certain things in the platform directly because you don't need to do anything more than that. 19:39 It works fine. But then there's times where a specialist is really needed, and you, you don't wanna have heart surgery by someone who's a general practitioner, right? 19:48 So you, you need to go to a heart surgeon, and that's where you then orchestrate out into a point solution or a best of breed, and you start to pull in that expertise that can then solve that specific problem. 19:58 And so that's probably one of the best, it's n- imperfect, right, but one of the better analogies that I've kind of found to help people understand how you think about intake and orchestration. And, and I like that. 20:08 Uh, but-- and actually, I would further that a-analogy just based on discussions that we've had together around the fact that you may, you don't necessarily have to come in through that front door, right? 20:18 Like, it doesn't have to be the, the human initiating the process. You could be transferred from another hospital, right? [chuckles] Like, right? 20:26 You could be, it could be a system initiated, I think invoice-- Like an invoice is a good example, right? 20:31 The invoice comes in at the end of the process, and that's also a form of intake because it's, you're intaking a piece of information, and it's, there's a trigger to start an orchestration type workflow or a proc- a business process. 20:43 Yeah. I think that's great, actually. I mean, I mean, one of the things you've heard us talk about before i- is this concept of idea to pay rather than source to pay. 20:49 And I think the reason we say that is because we really wanna engage the user at that point of idea. 20:55 Uh, when they first realize there's something they're trying to do, and they don't quite know what it is yet, but they've, they know they've got a problem to solve or initiative to manage. 21:03 But more than that just being in a user's head, there's many other signals that, that signify an idea is being developed or is coming. That can be a budget. It can be a renewal from a contract. 21:13 It can be an external event that's happened that needs to trigger a review internally. So you're right. There's many different other areas where the, the intake, quote unquote, is there. 21:20 And I, I wonder whether, given where the world's going, we will see much more autonomous intake where there's triggers that are happening based upon understood signals from the ecosystem that actually mean the user's not having to be the one to remember to do something or to go and do something, but actually we're constantly prompting them and encouraging them and shaping that journey for them. 21:42 And that, I think, is one of the greatest, like, adventures we're gonna go on with, with AI and with agentic specifically. So yeah, I think that you're spot on with that. Spot on. 21:49 And, and let's, let's double-click on that idea to pay concept, 'cause having been in this space for a little while now, I've heard, like, analytics to pay. I've heard, you know, I've heard all this rebranding- Yeah... 21:58 of, like, the source to pay process, right? And so I think the, for the, for the more skeptical, uh, of us that have been in this space too long is you go like, "Oh, another, another acronym," right? 22:09 But why is this different? And having taken the time to kinda, you know, pick at the scab, so to speak- Mm... um, with you, like I've seen kinda what the implications are. 22:19 What, for you, why is idea to pay different than, than other rebrands of source to pay, uh, in the past? I mean, firstly, and this has been central to, to Oro Lab since we started the company, right? 22:29 But it puts the user back at the center, right? So I think source to pay is by definition transactional. 22:35 It starts with someone coming in saying, "I've got something that sourcing need to do," and usually that's going to be, "I've chosen a supplier. I've got the scope. Maybe I've even got a contract. 22:44 God forbid I've got a signed contract." 22:45 And so that, that transactional nature of source to pay, when you move that into idea to pay and you start to say, "I wanna engage the user at the point of where they are," and that's the beauty of, like, all the MCP integrations now, that you have so much rich intent data that you can gather when someone's starting to go into their Copilot at work, their Gemini, their Claude, whatever, and they're saying, "I'm trying to solve this problem. 23:07 What do I do?" That actually there's data points there that through kind of knowledge graphing we can actually pull that intent through and start to say, "Okay, is this a signal we need to pay attention to?" Mm. 23:17 So I think there's, it puts the user back at the center. That I think is, is important. 23:20 It also starts to realize that procurement h-has always had adjacencies that we can't ignore, and the biggest one for us is, is finance. I mean, you could argue supply chain's a bit of an adjacency. 23:30 I know it's embedded in some ways. 23:31 But, but finance and supply chain and procurement are three of those interconnected areas where if you can, if you can capture the concept of an idea that's been captured in a budget line item or been captured in a strategic initiative defined by the board of an organization, you can carry that forward. 23:48 I mean, the best example I've got is at one of the companies I worked at, they were launching a new credit card, and at the time that they were trying to do that, they'd, they actually brought in the sourcing team into the conversation during the strategy. 23:59 And what that meant was the sourcing team were able to give advice upon how the card should be formed and whether it should be a metal card or a plastic card or a digital card, and able to think about the packaging and how that would be sold. 24:10 Because otherwise, these wonderful aspirational bankers would have a fantastic idea of what they could do. 24:15 But then by the time it hit the sourcing person's desk, then now the timelines are gonna blow out because to get- Mm... a new supplier to print metal cards is not easy to do, right? 24:23 So, so you, you, that kind of involving the whole procurement process earlier- It is really important. I- in the same way like a salesperson doesn't wait for like the person they're selling to to come and find them. 24:35 They go, they go hunting, right? They gotta find- Right... the people they need to engage with. Why don't procurement do that? Why are we not going out and seeking the ideas and trying to engage those earlier? 24:45 And that, that's the, that's the vision behind it. That's, that's the concept. Cool. And so that's like kind of the human aspect to it. Is there also a, a technology aspect to it c- to come support this? Yeah. 24:55 I mean, absolutely. I mean, I, I think the, the way we wanna try and build out the, the architecture, again, is very much around this data modeling. 25:01 You gotta think about all the connected data elements and how you're gonna bring together different elements from like a sourcing system or a contracting system or a risk system. 25:11 Even, uh, and even practically, sometimes people just wanna raise a PO. It doesn't have to even be complicated buying, right? 25:15 They just wanna try and how do they get into the right part of the process quickly, and how do you make that effective for them? 25:20 And so that's where the connectivity is really important between the different kind of systems. 25:25 It's where we wanna make sure that we're harmonizing the data model across those different systems, so you don't have friction points of data failures or, or, or, or issues there as well. 25:34 And then it's really getting into some of the more complex agentic technology that you can use to accelerate the, the time to d- time to value ultimately, which is what we're kind of focused on. Okay. 25:44 And, and out of curiosity as well, right, as, as I was defining kinda my criteria for a complex organization at the top, right, would, would that also mean 25:54 orchestrating or integrating orchestration with budgeting systems, with MRP, with, you know, essentially every functions, like the, the, the stakeholders you outlined, their source systems of where they're doing their work? 26:06 Yeah. It, it absolutely does, right. I mean, we're working with one customer right now doing exactly that. 26:10 We're looking at things like accrual management, month-end close management, budget management, because those things are still part of that end-to-end cycle. 26:18 And for the organization to function, like if you're a CFO and you need to know what capital you've got available to deploy to respond quickly to market conditions or an opportunity that's facing you, you can't wait for a year-end closure and reconciliation of all 5,000 POs that are open to work that out, right? 26:34 You need to know now. 26:35 And so how do you, how do you build that information into the flow, and how do you use agentic technology to synthesize that massive data set and kinda interpret that and then drive action from that? 26:45 It's absolutely where we're focused. I think you're, you're hinting to, to the answer of my next question which is, you know, we've talked about intake and orchestration. 26:52 We've defined it and then double-clicked on idea to pay. Is, is simple orchestration enough, right? Is to... 'Cause to me I see orchestrating as like, okay, I have this blank canvas, right? 27:02 I'm gonna design business processes. I'm gonna plug tubes between systems and get to the outcome I wanna get to. 27:08 But I know you guys do more than that, have other, I'll call it module-like functionality, because I don't think there are specific modules in the traditional sense of how we've thought, uh, about that in the source to pay space. 27:20 So love to hear you on, you know, yeah, is, is simple orchestration enough or is that sort of getting commoditized? 27:27 I, I think for us the, the journey has always been how do we help our customers mature from where they are to where they aspire to be. 27:35 And so that's where I think it's, it-- this is very much about a discovery conversation. 27:39 Like I think y- it's maybe in, in some software areas you go in, you've got a very specific product, it's a very specific job, and you can sell that and you don't really need to even ask the questions, you just sell it in. 27:48 I mean, we spend a lot of our time understanding where are you now though. Like, so yeah, you've got your, you've got your RFP, your RFI. You've listed out all the functionality you want, but where are you right now? 27:57 Hmm. And where do you wanna get to? Like what's your aspiration? What maturity curve do you want to see? 28:01 And so once we understand that, we're able to work with customers to say, "Actually, th- there's an element for sure orchestration's important because we know that connecting the data and connecting the experience is critical, and doing so quickly, deploying at speed, is gonna make sure your time to value is lower." 28:18 So basic orchestration has value, right? 28:20 It's, it's governing, it's important, it structures things even if it integrates like 20 different systems and actually the, the, the layer is, I think you referenced it in your previous kind of podcast, is quite a light or a thin layer I think you called it. 28:33 That's possible. There is value in that. But oftentimes customers want to move the needle. 28:38 And so what you then wanna say is, "Well, actually, if all you're trying to do is to democratize sourcing and get into like a three bids and a buy that you put in the hands of an average user, like well maybe that functionality w- we can do that. 28:49 We have that within the Aura Labs platform." Or maybe you want to create NDAs and basic SOWs or, uh, off the back of an MSA. Like well we can do that in the Aura Labs platform. 28:58 Or maybe you wanna try and gather risk information and you wanna analyze a contract and look at the risk of that contract and then trigger different kind of risk behaviors or risk domains based upon what needs to be reviewed. 29:08 We could do that. But there's some things we just can't do. There's some things we don't want to do. 29:12 And so that's where you're then gonna say, "Well, actually, we're gonna get you to a certain point on the maturity curve," and I'm gonna say, "Do you know what? We've got some great partners. 29:18 And actually let's introduce you to a specialist in strategic sourcing that's gonna do, go really deep with you on some of the more complicated haulage logistic sourcing that you need to do." 29:28 That we're not gonna ever want to become the specialist in because th- there's, there is real expertise in doing that work. It's not that someone again just vibe coded it. There's real work that has to be done there. 29:38 And so it's really part of a journey. 29:40 So our, our desire all the time is to partner with customers to articulate that journey, show them how we can get them up that curve, and then at what point we're gonna start handing off to those, as you call them, best-of-breed solutions, right- Mm-hmm... 29:51 that are, are, are logical to play within this space. That's cool. And, and so that kinda leads me to, yeah, addressing that point of what you won't do, right? 29:59 And I think it's probably a good way to address also the elephant in the room in this interview which is, you know, you guys just entered into a, a partnership or a solution extension partnership I should say with SAP- Mm-hmm... 30:10 which I wrote about on, on the weekend as well. And in there for me there's a couple things I highlight that, that I don't think you're going to do in the future, but I'd love your, your take on it, right? 30:20 I don't have inside information. We didn't discuss it beforehand, right? And I really wanted to put that out before speaking with you for that exact reason. 30:28 Um, so yeah, I'd love to-- Could you just give us some context as to what the solution extension agreement is, and then maybe we could talk about W- what it implies in terms of what you guys won't do in, in the future Yeah, yeah, it's great. 30:40 And it, it's funny, isn't it, how, how timing works out sometimes. This genuinely wasn't planned from a timing perspective. This was already on the calendar before that was even announced. 30:47 So, so look, I mean, it's-- so yeah, so we are, we are, we're basically gonna be partnering with SAP in this solution extension with them. W- the product is called SAP Ariba Procurement Orchestration by Oro Labs. 30:58 It's a single SKU that basically means SAP will sell our intake and orchestration functionality only as part of their list of services and, uh, and functionality. 31:08 And so that means that if you're, for example, an existing SAP customer and you've got Ariba today and, and you want to bring in an intake orchestration provider, you can now purchase that functionality from us, but via your SAP MSA and SIW. 31:22 And so in effect, the SAP kind of sales cycle will kick in and all of the con- kind of coverage you've got from SAP is, is there, and then we would th- partner with you to deploy that solution. 31:32 It is just intake and orchestration, so it doesn't cover sourcing, contracting, risk, invoicing, um, or any of the other kind of functionalities agentically that we've kind of deployed. 31:40 But it's really important to draw out here that this is, that, that while this is obviously, I mean, we're super excited, it's a great partnership, there's obviously a heritage and a history with SAP, both for me personally and my majority of my career has been spent deploying SAP products, so I know SAP very, very well. 31:55 But obviously for our co-founders who kind of spent a number of years of their career working at SAP. But, but that doesn't mean that SAP is, is now somehow a greater focus for us. 32:05 And I think we've been talking with our own internal teams to explain and reassure them that, that our, our vision, our strategy, and our objectives are unchanged. 32:13 Like, we believe that the reason that SAP chose us to be their partner in this space is because we are excellent at, as you mentioned earlier, the heterogeneous environments, right? 32:23 Where most companies now do not have a single provider that provides all of their technology fit in this space. There al- there's always something else. 32:32 And while SAP have done a great job in working out how they're gonna connect their systems, and we can talk about that later if that's helpful, uh, but ultimately there'd always be other areas they want to connect with, but they can't natively do so. 32:43 And so we solve two problems for them. We give them that connectivity that brings it into their visibility and their, and their tech stack, but also we solve the experience problem for them. 32:51 And we, again, all the things I've mentioned so far, those SAP customers that want to experience that single front door, that, that single process, the, the, the orchestration even between a Fieldglass and an Ariba as well as between a, a Coupa and a Valuer or a Jaggaer or whatever, all those things are now possible. 33:07 And so yeah, I mean, look, it's super exciting for us and we're looking forward to, to what it means going forward. Yeah. 33:12 And to, to me, it points to, you know, uh, it p- the fact that SAP and you guys would, would, uh, link up on this, right, points to the fact that 33:21 one of the things that I see as distinctive with Oro is you're not developing your sort of core system of record procure-to-pay functionality, right? 33:30 So, uh, p- PO goods receipt, uh, or service receipt, and then actually matching, doing three-way match of the invoice and, and okaying it for, for payment, right? Is that, is that a, a, a fair assumption, right? 33:44 Because to me that means you're able to layer in on top of an ERP, whether it be SAP or otherwise, that supports that process and g- is gonna remain the system of record and potentially 18 of them in your, in your business and acting as that experience layer for the, the added functionality or we're standardizing functionality that needs to happen above those processes and/or on top of a source to pay street- suite where there is the procure to pay, uh, system of record as well for mostly indirect type purchasing. 34:12 Is that, is that a, a fair, how to say, vision or view of, of what you guys are up to? Yeah. 34:17 I mean, look, it's fair to say there's, there's a number of kind of solutions in the market that actively talk about their aspirations to replace technology, and you obviously referenced that in your article a bit as well. 34:27 And I think o- our desire has always been, like we've said, to help our customers to deliver the outcomes and value that they are pursuing. And ultimately, to be really clear, it's always the customer's choice. 34:37 I mean, within, within this kind of, this sell X agreement, like we have the ability to also refuse to kind of work with certain situations or to not take on board certain business. It's still in our control. 34:46 But actually from our point of view, w- we, we believe that, that there is value in that kind of end-to-end connectivity. And y- and yeah, we're, we're not looking to try and go in there. 34:55 Obviously, SAP don't feel in that sense we're trying to replace Ariba directly for them. Obviously, that's part of the, the reality. But they also know that the world of P2P is changing. 35:05 And I think when we look two years ahead, and this may be a great conversation for the future, is that I think the, the way that the agentic machine is moving and the way in, the possibilities now around that kind of the context-driven probabilistic nature, that there's so much cool stuff you can do in the future. 35:20 I don't know what P2P looks like in the future. What I do know is that there's always gonna be a need for a strong engagement layer. 35:27 There's gonna be a need for an ability to bring about and bubble up data at the right points in time, and to connect multiple different heterogeneous systems, um, because there's never gonna-- it's not gonna be a single landscape like that. 35:37 What is clear is that SAP have made the decision that the single suite assumption is over, right? That they're not g- they, they, they're not going to play for the place where it's only SAP that lives. 35:47 They have to- Mm... be more than that now. That's the reality. And so we absolutely support that. We agree entirely with that, that statement and that vision. 35:54 And then so we wanna see more of that value kind of being released quicker now. And certainly the acceleration this will bring for us is obviously very exciting. Very cool. 36:03 Yeah, and I know a lot of ink has been spilt, both mine, yours- [chuckles]... and many others on this deal. 36:08 And so, uh, I'd refer folks to, uh, actually I'll put a couple links in the show notes to, to articles that, that cover the topic from various angles. I'm also very much looking forward to, um, Debadatta Dash's article. 36:19 He said he's analyzing the deal, uh, later this week. Actually probably, probably in the past compared to when this goes live, but I'll put that in the show notes as well. And so let me, let me just end maybe where 36:31 we could talk about where it breaks, right, and play devil's advocate. 36:34 Like, are there situations where- You know, the complex enterprise concepts and solutions that we're discussing here are over-engineered for certain businesses. 36:43 Do you think, you know, we're entering an age where every business really needs these intake and orchestration capabilities as we've laid them out, uh, in our discussion? I think it's a great question. 36:53 And l- and honestly, no, not, not everyone does need all of that functionality. And I think one of the things that, that the world has been guilty of is overselling functionality. 37:02 But I, I, I, I even shudder now to think about-- I look back at some of the contracts that I was involved in kind of negotiating with software providers, and the extra SKUs that got thrown in there that we never even went live with, that never even got activated, let alone the sub-functionality in some of those products that we never turned on or never leveraged. 37:19 And I think that, that there's definitely this play around how do we make you feel like you're missing out on all this stuff you should be having and you must have it all now, and so go out and buy everything. 37:28 And the reality is that, again, it comes back to working with a partner that can help you assess where you are and where you're trying to get to. What objectives are you going after? Don't talk to me about functionality. 37:39 Tell me what you're trying to achieve, because there are multiple ways to achieve that same outcome. 37:43 And if I can understand your desire and your intent of what you're trying to get to, then we can bring to bear the right technology combinations to do that. Or even say, "Do you know what? 37:51 Actually, you don't need us for this," like, "What you've got here is plenty sufficient for what you need." 37:56 Or you can even have, uh, your small eng- kind of engineering team vibe code a solution for you that actually will probably work pretty well. Mm-hmm. And that's the reality in some of this stuff. 38:04 And so it's not a case of saying like our, our mission is that every company in the world needs to run Auro as its kind of back end, kind of, uh, uh, or front end g- w-as it were, intake to pay, um, solution. 38:15 But at the same time, I think also that there needs to be an understanding of what's available in these solutions, and that it's not just making things look prettier. 38:23 Like, there is deep, complex data elements that y- you can gather now, and there's greater value you can bring out of these solutions that was not possible before. Like, we couldn't solve the TPRM problem before. 38:34 I'm, I'm, I'm spent l- like most of my career trying to, and it's been really hard to do anything meaningful because it's such a complex data set. But now with AI, guess what? We can start to solve the TPRM problem. 38:45 We can start to solve the contracting problem because those, that, that complexity of data is now in our power to harness as part of a, an agentic solution. And so I would just say, look, 38:56 a- any organization listening to this should start with what am I trying to achieve? And then should think through wh- where am I now, honestly, what am I using now, what am I doing now, what do I need to get to? 39:06 And then who are the best partners to help me get there? Mm-hmm. And that might be one technology provider, multiple. 39:10 It may be different consulting organizations, maybe different analyst groups that can give you insight. 39:14 But i- if we can focus on those things, then I think everyone's much happier and much better off in, in the end of all of that, in my view. Yeah. 39:21 And, and I think to, to inform making or taking those decisions or drawing out that strategy of that plan, it's yes, go out, c-consume content like this, go to conferences, et cetera. 39:32 Go walk the floor with, uh, you know, an in- somebody in their, uh, an industry that's relevant for, for you as well, right? 39:39 Whether it's MRO heavy, direct manufacturing, et cetera, and get a sense for the art of the possible. 39:45 And that's how you'll be able to say, "Oh, we can actually, you know, potentially enable this capability that's gonna get us to X level of maturity on this set of specific, you know, sub-processes within procurement." 39:56 But I agree, right? I, I think the trap is trying to 39:59 climb the maturity curve on the whole procurement end-to-end process everywhere at the same time, just because we can or should or feel like we should, instead of really honing in on like, what are the value drivers for procurement in our business, and like how do we focus almost exclusively on those while 40:16 ignoring everything else? 40:18 And so, um, yeah, and the, the other example I was gonna bring was like, yeah, I've, I've spoken with teams that have vibe coded stuff or have used, you know, more generic low-code, no-code platforms to, to, as a team of two procurement team to like completely build out the function. 40:32 But to me- Mm-hmm... that's possible. 40:34 It's viable if you're like highly dil- dig- digitally literate, and if you have the time and bandwidth to keep up with the things that you've built and maintain them over time, but it certainly is possible. 40:45 I love your perspective on that, Chris. Um- Yeah, no. Yeah, I agree. I agree. 40:49 And so as we, as we close out here, I think we gave people kind of a snippet of what we wanna cover in, in this episode series that we're working on together. 40:57 So in the next episodes, we'll double click on some of the complexity aspects. Uh, you know, the T- TPRM is one I know you're very passionate about, Chris, right? 41:06 And seeing like when we try to talk about these principles of intake orchestration, idea to pay, et cetera, in that specific context and, and we dive deeper into each of those, what does it imply? 41:17 What are the principles, the concepts, the reflexes you should be having to be successful, not just with technology such as Auro, but just in, in general. 41:24 So we want this to be valuable for you, uh, regardless, and I, I appreciate you, Chris, uh, and the Auro team for getting on this journey with us. 41:32 One last question for you is what's, what's one question or discussion that CPOs should be starting with the CIO to get some of these principles in motion, right? To get some of these discussions going. 41:43 What do you see as the next steps for organizations that, that wanna buy into this experience layer concept? Yeah. 41:50 I, I mean, I would say from my point of view, th- this is, there's never been a greater period of time in our history where th- that there is a first mover advantage here. There's a need to, to drive value now. 42:00 Like we talked about this in our recent kind of mainstay presentation at, at the SAP Connect conference, and we've, we're using it and talking about it in, in virtually every forum we're in. 42:08 I think there is a, there is oftentimes desire to think about this holistic transformation and like a rip and replace mentality or whatever it might be, but, but like why, why would you do that when you can release value now? 42:22 Like why would you want to do this like multi-year, you mentioned like ERP transformations. Why wait for that to happen when you could actually implement intake orchestration very, very quickly? 42:32 I mean, we do implementations four, six, eight weeks easily, front door deployments. And why would you not, why would you not wanna deploy that now? 42:39 So my question almost, if I was a CPO, would be saying like, "What can I, um, what can-" I change about how our people buy without changing like what they buy it in. 42:49 So it's almost a case of like if I can't change how they buy without changing the product, I've got this fixed immovable object. Yeah. What you need is the flexibility. 42:58 You need the ability to influence policy, procedure, approach, strategy without having to constantly do a relaunch of the product all the time. 43:07 And I think that message is now starting-- I think, I think CIOs are understanding that, and they're seeing that, and they are less afraid of this low-code, no-code thing that felt a little bit like mysterious or magical, and they felt had no governance or control around it. 43:19 And I think the CIOs we speak with at some of the biggest companies in the world are absolutely leaning into how do you leverage that kind of technology to move quickly in an agile way, deliver value and efficiency. 43:30 And I think, so I would just say don't wait. Like yes, it's great to go and research, but there comes a point where actually it's you need to start on the journey. 43:38 And the beauty of integrated orchestration is the flexibility is very powerful. You can move between and you can change things very dynamically. 43:45 You don't need to bring in like a, a massive team of like consultants to help you configure the solution. 43:51 Like it's a very, very agile solution to use, and we see that surprise almost at our customers when they go live and, "Oh, wow, this is really easy and it's driving value immediately. This is excellent." 44:01 And that's the kind of thing they wanna see more of. So I'd certainly challenge people to bring that timeline in. Don't be afraid of doing that, like move quickly. Yeah. 44:08 And I, and to put a picture to that, right, and it sort of draws on the SAP solution extension partnership to a point as well. 44:14 But it's saying like if you're, if you have an ERP, either consolidation and/or migration project on the IT timeline, right, and you're getting told like, "Hey, all the resources are for that. 44:24 We don't have, you know, we're gonna have to do procurement after," [chuckles] right? It's, I think it's, it's being able to say, "Well, how can we do both at the same time," right? 44:33 How can I layer in that experience layer and give a new user experience and, and drive new outcomes because of that user experience on top of whatever we already have, whether that's an- Yes... 44:44 you know, an, an old system that's getting upgraded or, you know, multiple ERPs that are getting consolidated. 44:49 And then we unhook the business transformation from the technical, the technical implementation or the technical upgrade, the technical change of the backend system. Does that, does that make sense, Chris? Yeah, it does. 45:01 That, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, absolutely. Very cool. 45:05 So, so when, uh, we'll have you on again maybe like once a month, Chris, in the next couple days so we can peel back the onion, uh, uh, the, the layers of the onion on, on these various topics of, you know, governing in multi ERP spaces, TPRM, supplier onboarding in the complex organization. 45:20 And I'm really happy to, to have these discussions with you, Chris. Uh, where can people find you in, in the meantime if they wanna engage in discussion? 45:28 Yeah, I mean, I've, I've, I've recently been quite active on LinkedIn with a few different articles and stories, so definitely I'd appreciate people's engagement thoughts there. 45:35 We, we release a blog pretty regularly from, on the Orla Labs website. I'm based in the UK, but regularly kind of visiting the US and the different conferences. But look, I'd just love you to reach out. 45:43 I'd love to hear your thoughts, your questions, definitely your challenges. 45:46 Like I'm a big believer that the way we all grow best is actually by encountering those moments of friction where there's different viewpoints that actually you get to wrestle with and to, to kind of be re-educated on some things. 45:57 So yeah, I mean, would, would love some engagement. So yeah, be great. Awesome. Well, thanks Chris, for, for coming on the show. It's always- Pleasure... very fun to, uh, to chat with you. 46:05 You know, the passion seeps out of you as you talk about this stuff, so it's always a, an easy conversation. So we'll talk again soon, and have a great rest of your day. 46:13 [upbeat music] That's a wrap on this episode of ProcureTech Unpacked. 46:16 If you enjoyed this one, give us a follow on your podcast app or YouTube, and sign up for the Pure Procurement Newsletter to get procurement technology insights delivered straight to your inbox. 46:26 Otherwise, what's the single best way to tell us you're enjoying the show? Leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, like the video on YouTube, or drop us a comment. 46:37 Whatever platform you're listening on, your feedback means absolutely everything to a niche show like this. All the links, reports, and resources we mention in the episodes are in the show notes. 46:48 And as always, a big thank you to our production team over at Resonate Recordings for making us look and sound good. I'm Joé Calmeirmas. We'll see you next week. [upbeat music] Resonate.
