Transcript 0:00 Before today's episode, a quick heads up. We're adding a new format to the show: interviews. The minisodes and the deep dives aren't going anywhere. Interviews will just sit alongside them. The thinking is simple. 0:14 More perspectives means more opportunities to discuss and learn, and that's valuable any way you slice it. Same rules as always, of course; no vendor pitches. 0:24 It's all about discussing the ideas that procurement pros can use to correctly leverage technology and reach business objectives. And to kick it off, I couldn't have picked a better person. 0:35 I'm very excited for you to listen to this interview. 0:39 As always, if you appreciate the work that goes into this podcast, I cannot tell you how much a follow or a five-star rating helps us out, and it doesn't cost you anything. All right, enough groveling. Let's get into it. 0:51 [electronic music] Computers have lots of memory, but no imagination. Man is a slow, sloppy, and brilliant thinker. Machines, on the other hand, are fast, accurate, and stupid. 1:03 AI will do what you tell it to do, but that may be very different from what you had in mind. Technology presumes there's just one right way to do things, and there never is. Computers are useless. 1:15 They can only give you answers. For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve our quality of life, please press three. 1:24 Welcome to ProcureTech Unpacked, the show for procurement professionals who want to cut through marketing to understand the technology shaping our function. I'm Joel Conne Demas. 1:34 Today, I'm sitting down with Patrick Ramby, a name that carries real weight in my office. Patrick is the IDC's Research Director for Procurement Applications and Agents, which is a long title for a simple idea. 1:45 He has one of the clearest, most complete views of the procurement technology market that exists anywhere. 1:51 If a vendor raises money, ships a significant release, or gets acquired, Patrick thinks through what it means for the market at large. 1:59 When buyers, vendors, and investors want to know what's actually happening in this market, his research is the reference point they reach for. 2:07 Before turning full time to making sense of the procure tech market, Patrick spent a decade in operations as an aircraft maintenance officer in the US Air Force, followed by a 20-year run in procurement and supply chain consulting in the world's most respected consulting firms. 2:23 The IDC MarketScape he launched two years ago and updates regularly helped legitimize spend orchestration as a distinct software category. 2:32 Few people have watched this market take shape and watch the hype cycles roll in and roll back out as closely as Patrick has. 2:40 And today we're talking about what his data says about where ProcureTech is heading and what that means for you, the procurement pro trying to make sense of technology in the age of AI. Patrick, welcome to the show. 2:51 Where are you joining us from today? Thanks so much, uh, Joel. I am, uh, joining you from the--my global headquarters here in my basement in Dayton, Ohio. And, uh, that's a very, uh, generous introduction. 3:04 I appreciate it. And I have to say, you know, I am, uh...–we've obviously met, and we know each other, and I'm a fan of yours. 3:11 I'm a subscriber to your newsletter, and every Sunday night when that hits my inbox, I always marvel that you're able to pull it off every week. 3:21 So I know there's a lot of work that goes into that, and, uh, it's a great, uh, piece of research, so I, I appreciate it. All right. Well, I appreciate that, uh, Patrick, of course. 3:31 And it's funny, right, how you end up in, in, in these roles and, uh, doing this type of stuff later on in your career. 3:37 And so I think that's, you know, it's a great segue to my first question, which is, you know, what took you from, you know, this electrical engineering background and doing sourcing optimization projects into a chair where your job is, is watching and analyzing this market that we both love? 3:53 Yeah. I'll, I'll do this quickly. Um, you know, I went to school under, uh, uh, with an ROTC scholarship, so then I owed the Air Force four years, and I stayed ten, and I really enjoyed it. Met my wife in the Air Force. 4:06 We both got out at the same time, and, uh, I joined, uh, IBM, um, IBM starting out in a logistics role, but, uh, quickly moved over to, uh... We, we have this shared history, by the way. 4:20 Moved over to, uh, IBM Global Business Services, where I was introduced to strategic sourcing and procurement consulting, and then I, uh, moved on from there to other consulting firms. 4:31 And, uh, I was happy and doing my thing, and IDC came to me and said, "Hey, we want to, uh, really go full bore into this, uh, practice area of procurement applications." 4:43 And, uh, I hadn't really knew nothing about what it meant to be an analyst or, uh, the analyst community, and, uh, very glad I made the move. It's been a tremendous experience for me. And, uh, just, you know, 4:57 o-one of the hidden benefits for me is, is my fellow analysts. Uh, you know, we are competitors, but we're also friends. We see each other at the same events, and it's been great getting to know the other, uh, 5:10 uh, people who, uh, are in a similar role at, uh, at other firms. So, uh, it's been a very good experience. Yeah. 5:18 No, and I think that's one thing that stands out from, you know, w-where you sit now as your practitioner first background, right? 5:24 And I think that, that shows in how you analyze, uh, the market and how you think about where it's going and how it's evolving, which I think is also a great segue into why I wanted to bring you on the podcast, which is that you just refreshed the IDC Marketscape, which is the Worldwide and AI Enabled Spend Orchestration 2026 Vendor Assessment, which is a mouthful, but I got it out there. 5:46 Um, and I wanted to dig into the details with you to see what the data is telling you. Uh, so maybe we, we, we dive straight in, right? 5:54 Which is if we step back from the, the vendor by vendor detail, what's the one thing that the data is telling you about where this market is going? Yeah. Uh, fair question. 6:05 I-I'll, I'll step back just one second and just talk about the genesis of this report. 6:09 This is a follow on from my first one was published in September of 2024, and that was, uh, I'll, I'll, I'll blow my own horn here for a little bit. 6:20 That was the first, uh, analyst deep dive vendor assessment into this space. And as such, you know, th-this was a net new area of procurement applications, and I had to think of something: What do you call this? 6:34 And I, I didn't really know. So I just-- I came up with spend orchestration, uh, a, a nomenclature that did not land. I think I'm still the only person [chuckles] that still calls it that. 6:45 Most people kind of settled upon intake and orchestration. Um, but the first one published in September 2024, and the, the refresh to that just published, uh, what, last month or June or July. A-and so 7:01 broadly, what I can say about this space is wh-when, when the f- when the space first came on the scene, there was a pretty divergent view, 7:12 uh, amongst people, including the analysts community, as to this is just a niche offering, and, and why on earth would somebody buy this net new thing to add to their procurement tech stack which is already bloated? 7:29 And then the other view was that this is totally disruptive. It's gonna change the game, and the STP providers need to be really concerned. Um, I didn't have strong views towards either of those polls. 7:41 Uh, but I mean, the market has rendered its verdict, and the market has said, "I like this, I want this, and I'm very interested in this." And so what's changed the most from first to this one 7:59 is, is you have so many great options out there. I could easily promote any of the vendors that participated in this, uh, study. 8:14 I, I have no problem recommending any of them, depending upon where an organization is in their journey, how mature they are, what they're, what they're trying to accomplish. Um, that's the biggest takeaway. 8:29 Number one, just, just the quality and depth of the offerings. And the providers in this space are not resting at all. They are continuing to add features, functionality, 8:45 and they're continuing to expand to take on more, to provide more features that put them in more direct conflict or competition with the SDP space. Now, having said that, 9:04 the SDP providers, while they were slow to respond to this, um, and, and I think they would acknowledge that as well, they have seen what the market has told them, and they are... 9:18 They have quickly moved to infuse elements of intake and orchestration into their suites. So we have this both sides are, are, are converging, and I think we're going to get into more, more, more of that later. 9:34 But, you know, i-i-if, if 1.0 of spin orchestration was intake and, and some measure of orchestration acro-across the enterprise, uh, intake is now a, a, an expected offering, right? That-that's table stakes. 9:50 So we are truly moving to the, the orchestrated experience, and that's not slowing down. Now layer int-layer on top of all of that, you know, November 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT, and that changed the world. 10:08 It, it, it certainly changed the procurement application space. It changed the entire SaaS universe. And, and so, you know, you know, they're, they're, they're following the progression. 10:20 Initially it was, it was, you know, chatbots and AI assistants that truthfully were not that great. But today they're, they're pretty great. 10:31 Now, um, the agentic experience, uh, they're all moving forward very, very quickly towards agentic offerings that, that continue to facilitate that seamless orchestrated experience. 10:45 So a long answer to your question and, and keep me honest if I got too far away from the original question. No. Well, I think, you know, I heard three distinct things there. 10:55 One is like the market itself is growing, and we can potentially get into your forecast around how, how fast it's growing. And, and you know, you alluded as to the why. So I, I tackled that first point. 11:05 The second point, which was most interesting to me, is like you exclude source-to-pay suites from this spend orchestration category, but you have hinted at the fact that there's a convergence going on, which is something- Yep...we've touched on in the newsletter as well, and I'd love to dig into that with you. 11:20 And then the last point, which is probably the one that's most important to a lot of listeners, is where does Agentic AI sit in all this, right? 11:27 Where does the ChatGPT moment of almost four years ago now fit into all this? Uh, and so I'd, I'd peel back the onion on those three things, uh, with you, if you're willing. 11:38 Um- Sure...maybe first, you know, looking at that, at your forecast of, of the market and l-looking at what's, what's driving it, right? Yeah. And, and 11:48 so I produce a separate report, uh, that, that's focused on the STP providers, so tha-you know, that's separate and distinct from this report that we're referencing, Spend Orchestration. 11:59 Uh, I don't know what the future holds with respect to these products. And, and what I mean is The next iterations, maybe they'll all just be included together and we'll call it something entirely new. 12:13 I, I don't know the answer to that. I'm gonna let the market decide that. 12:18 It's not unreasonable to expect that, that this could be a much larger research piece that then includes all those providers, and is called-- You know, I posited in something I wrote earlier this year that, uh, 12:34 you know, we're all moving towards this, and, and I proposed the name i-i... We could call it many things. I propose the idea of this intelligent spend operating system. So maybe th-that's the next iteration of 12:48 this vendor evaluation that includes all of those together. I, you know- Yeah... I, I just don't know. But the market- Yep... will, will decide that. Um, and I me- Yeah. I mean- I, I was- No, sorry. 13:01 I was gonna say, I've been calling it like end-to-end procurement platforms, 'cause to me it's also like yeah, I'm seeing, right? 13:06 Like you've got these, uh, these o- older or let's call it more traditional, uh, source-to-pay suite providers releasing intake and orchestration functionality or acquiring it. 13:16 And to your earlier point, you've got the spend orchestration tools, uh, releasing more and more module-like functionality to, to help with sourcing or contract management or P2P or supplier relationship management, which have traditionally been source-to-pay suite modules. 13:32 So I, I see it happening, uh, as well for sure. A-and so yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's a, an interesting prospect to, to hear you say like, "Oh, maybe those two markets," [chuckles] Case need to become one at some point." 13:45 A-a-agreed. And, and, and, um, you touched upon the forecast, so I think this would be a good time to get into that. Okay, so, um, this is something that I produce every year, 13:59 and the, the specific numbers are less important than, than the trend and where we're going. So, you know, we, we profile the, the, the procurement application space at large. 14:12 Uh, so this is a global revenue, uh, i-in totality. And each year we produce this, this five-year projected compound annual growth rate. 14:24 What I want to highlight here is for the third consecutive year, I have increased the projected five-year CAGR. And I think that's very notable because this is a mature market. 14:39 A mature market, uh, for a function that, you know, it has shed the connotation of being a, you know, sleepy old back office procurement. Procurement has successfully shed that, that image. 14:54 Um, but this is a mature space, and to see a mature space that's still growing at a very healthy clip and the pace of growth is growing is very noted, notable to me. 15:08 You know, I, I, I can say with no reservations, you know, I've been in this role for five years. The interest in this space has never been higher than it is today. It has never been higher. And that's very telling. 15:22 There are new providers coming on board that I learn about literally weekly, and each time I kick myself and I say, "Why didn't I know about you or this provider?" Right? 15:36 Um, and I, I'm sure you have the same experience, Joel. So i-it, it's, um, the space is healthy. There's tremendous interest. And y-one of the things this g-gets back to is 15:51 at, at a very basic level, the, the, the role of procurement is on paper pretty straightforward, right? But in practice, it's, it's, it's messy and it's complex and it's not easy. 16:06 It's not easy for organizations to answer just those, those simple questions of: Where are you spending your money, right? Um, where can you save money? 16:18 Uh, do, do you have a good sense of, for example, how well are you doing with respect to paying your suppliers according to the terms of the payment terms in your agreements with them, right? 16:32 Those are, those are basic questions that procurement practitioners should be able to answer. But in practice it's not always, not always so straightforward. 16:40 So, I mean, t-the, the takeaway from the forecast is that this is a vibrant, healthy market, and dare I say, for the first time in my X years in the space, I mean, procurement is cool. 16:54 It is a hot happenin' place to be, and I, I, I would venture to say you would agree with that. [lip smack] Yeah. Well, we've, we've been working long and hard to make that happen, so,[both laughing] I'm glad- Yeah.... 17:07 I'm glad it's finally happening. [laughing]Um, but for folks who are watching on YouTube or Spotify instead of listening to the audio, you can see Patrick's a-actual numbers on screen as we're going through it here. 17:18 Um, I'd love to know like what, what your methodology for putting this together is like, right? 17:23 Why, why, what, what from your methodology has brought you to increase your, uh, your forecast, as you said, year over year, s-you said the past three years? Yeah. For the, uh, increase for three years running. 17:36 Um, so I have a team of people that follow this meticulously. Obviously, the vast majority of providers in this space are not public, so there, there is some estimation here. There's no question. I feel good about-- 17:54 I, I have a, a, a strong degree of confidence in these numbers. They may not be exact, but I feel very, I, I feel much more strongly about the trajectory and the growth, um, c- because I've seen that. 18:07 And, and that comes from Whether we, we straight up ask providers their revenue numbers, which, um, many will not share. But then we'll ask directionally, "Okay, are we in the ballpark?" Right? 18:21 You know, you-- there are ways to, to try to settle upon numbers that you have a reasonable de-degree of confidence in. So, um, 18:30 I have a, I have a great team of people behind me that compiles this, and then we go through it, and does it make sense? And we'll, we'll go back and ask providers, "Okay, this is what we're showing for you." 18:41 And they'll say, "You're way off," or, "Yeah, we're okay with that." So i-i-it's a very iterative process, and it's a very dynamic process. No, I see. It seems very rigorous as well, right? Which I think is, uh... 18:55 And bringing it back to your initial point, like what's more important than the actual numbers itself is are they directionally correct, right? Are we getting, are we getting the signals that we want from the analysis? 19:06 And I think that's largely the case, because I don't, I don't do that. We don't run something as, as deliberate in terms of marketing the forecast or forecasting the market, I should say. 19:15 Uh, but I do when I read it, it resonates with me in terms of what I'm seeing anecdotally through our practice, right? And, and our writing and our analysis. 19:24 So, um, yeah, so I'm always super curious about that methodology. Um, and then if, if we shift to that second topic around convergence, right? Um, 19:34 w-we touched on kind of the drivers, uh, pushing to that convergence, right? 19:38 That essentially the market's asking for things and, and the providers are all, uh, racing to be able to provide it, which is that, you know, that end-to-end platf-platform or, uh, or, uh, operating system as you referred to it earlier. 19:52 Uh, so having said that, if, uh, I'm a buyer sitting on a mature source-to-pay suite today, what questions should I be asking myself in this day and age where we've got AI, which we'll dig into maybe a little bit more. 20:06 I've got the convergence happening with these, uh, different providers from different generations. 20:12 What are the questions that I should be asking myself to get to the right, the right answer for my organization and my context? Yeah. I, I would say stay abreast of what's happening i-in the space, first of all. 20:25 Re-re-regardless of your level of satisfaction, love maturity with your procurement current procurement tech stack, at least make an effort to be aware of what is happening in the space across all the providers. 20:39 Um, you know what one thing we, we tell prospective buyers all the time is: Your first question need to be directed towards your current providers. 20:54 In other words, okay, I've looked at the spend orchestration space. I think I have a sense of the utility and the value there. Challenge your existing providers. 21:08 Um, I see they have this clean intuitive digital front door. Do you do that, right? I see that they're offering a level of AI and adjunctive governance that I really think that I need. How can you get me there, right? 21:26 Ask those what could be even may be difficult questions, but they're fair questions. Um, it's difficult even to stay abreast of what your current provider's capabilities are. I mean, I mean, that may seem, 21:41 um, kind of an odd statement, b-but it's absolutely true because as you well know, providers are making three, four, five releases a year, and so it is a challenge to stay abreast of everything that's happening. 21:54 So the first questions need to be with your current providers, and then you need to satisfy yourself. Okay, did they fairly answer that? 22:02 Um, maybe I still should kinda kick the tires on, on what some of these others are providing because underpinning the, th-the whole journey is, is where do I wanna go with my procurement application? 22:19 Some, some, some level of knowledge of where do I sit on the maturity curve as far as my procurement application? A-a-and, you know, ask yourself. 22:30 Go through that exercise, and, and maturity models are, are very prevalent out there. You can pull them off of any of the LLMs or, or even, even Google and go through that exercise to say, "This is where I sit today. 22:45 Okay. I think I have some gaps here. Let's talk to providers 'cause I need to close those gaps." So I thi- I think it's just going through that exercise. 22:53 And having said that, I realize nobody's sitting around looking for things to do and [chuckles] maybe not have, uh, uh, an abundance of time to spend, but it's a very worthwhile exercise to go through. 23:05 No, and, and couldn't agree more, right? 23:07 I often discuss this concept of having somebody in your organization, I call it a digital procurement lead or procurement excellence, however you wanna call it, but that's doing this on a regular basis and thinking about 23:19 what are the highest leverage things that we can do from a technology and/or business process standpoint and/or data quality, 23:26 uh, you know, in our context to, to get more out of what everybody's putting into this procurement, uh, organization, right? Every-- The work that they are doing. 23:35 Who's, who's intimately thinking about how our operating model and how we organize work and how technology is used to leverage those efforts, right? So I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. 23:46 Um, and yeah, I mean, in the past fifteen--- I've been in this space years and I've never seen it as dynamic from an innovation standpoint as it is right now. 23:55 And so, you know, you m-your provider may very well have moved on and there's a new solution for the modules that you're using, and you may be able to migrate without new license costs and get access to all this new functionality 24:11 within your existing licenses without making a business case or having to go get funding, right? So I think that's the 24:17 hidden gems that digital procurement lead type person can find, absolutely And Pat, I'd, I'd love your take on like agentic AI, right? That's the big hot topic these days. 24:27 We've alluded to it as we've gone through the conversation. Like where does it sit in all of, of this as we're-- as organizations are thinking through the capabilities that they need? Yeah, very timely. 24:38 Uh, actually just before our conversation, I was having a conversation with, with my manager, uh, uh, Mickey North Rizza, which is a lot of people in this space know that name. I think everybody knows Mickey. 24:52 And she was challenging me to, you know,"Tell me where we're going. What, what, what are gonna be the hot topics for twenty-twenty seven?" And maybe the hottest topic is going to be governance, governance of AI. 25:09 You know, w-we, we have moved from a, from an AI pilot project test case to, you know, show me. W-We need to see the value. And agents are abundant. Every provider is, is providing them. 25:26 Most have, you know, what they're calling agent studios. You can build your own, you can bring your own, you can get them elsewhere. Let's play this out, right? 25:37 So now we've got, we've got all of these agents that are minimally touching the procurement experience and how on earth do we manage that, right? 25:50 How do we, how do we know which agents are, are resident in our platforms? How do we control those? How are we paying for them? What are they costing us? So the agentic governance, I think is gonna be 26:05 one of, if not the hottest topic of next year. And that, that increasingly in, in the procurement buyer's checklist, that's becoming a very core area. Um, 26:21 b-because we have to get in front of this, right? So, um, th-that, that's, that, that is definitely a, a, a very key area for the future. Yeah. No, I, I agree, right? 26:35 Because i-as hearing you talking, there's all sorts of other questions that come up in my mind, like which models are getting used in the back end? What is... How are they charging for tokens and usage, right? 26:45 Um, are we using-- Do we wanna use certain models, lower cost models for certain use cases and higher cost models for other use cases? 26:53 And how do I get a dashboard where I can see all of this, right, and attribute budget potentially to users and/or to agents, uh, for, uh, these token based processes or workflows? 27:06 So I think it's, yeah, we're only scratching the surface in terms of like, okay, everybody's got their AI agent studio now. Everybody's pr-providing agents and/or to your point, bring your own, build your own. 27:16 But how do we ensure that the ROI is there and that we're governing it end to end, right? So I think, yeah, absolutely might have to have you back on the show next year to talk about that [laughing]. Yeah. 27:26 And, and I'll throw something out. I mean, v-very soon we're gonna see some measure of agent efficiency as a core KPI to, to, to get a sense of 27:40 the value received as a, as a, as a measure, as a, um, factor of the cost for that agent. So I think agent efficiency s- however we score that, is gonna be a very important KPI. Yeah, it's very cool. 27:57 And so I think that's a, that's a good way to potentially end this, this section, right? 28:01 Or-- And I'd love for, uh, folks who want to get a copy either of the, uh, Market Scope report or any of the other reports that you put out, uh, Patrick, what's the best way for, for them to do that? 28:12 Yeah, I mean, it is a, it is a paywall item. Uh, it's not freely available. But I, but I will say several of the participating providers have, uh, purchased the license, license rights. 28:23 So as you're talking to providers, you're, you're f-you're free to ask them if they can share that, and, and they can do that. So that's probably the best way to get it. Uh, and I'm not naive. 28:36 I know that anytime you publish anything, whether it's behind a paywall or, or not, it's gonna be out there in the wild very quickly. So maybe even do-- I shouldn't even say this, but maybe even do-... 28:49 It's, it's probably already out there. I mean, I, I, I mean- But it's also, I think there's a difference between like a single report and then getting access to your fee-, your constant feed, right? 28:59 Which are two different value props. Um, but yeah, so, so, well, that's very gracious of you, uh, to say that. 29:07 Um, and I always like to end these interviews, uh, on the person rather than the role that, uh, that we've been discussing. 29:13 So I'd love, you know, given our, our conversation and the obvious curiosity and, and passion that seeps out of you when you talk about this stuff, how would you recommend, you know, procurement pros listening in here, uh, think about having a, a fulfilling career, which I assume you have, maybe wrongly, but I'd love your, your take on it. 29:31 Look, the elephant in the room is everybody's okay, is AI gonna take my job? Well, that's certainly not unique to procurement. Every line of business is asking themselves the same thing. 29:44 Um, it is gonna change the mix of what procurement practitioners do. Its impact on the overall numbers of procurement practitioners remains to be seen. 29:57 But ev- as we've seen with every previous massive technology shift, there are a lot of things created at the same time that some things are destroyed. Is that too strong a word, destroyed? Uh, so, you know- Commoditized. 30:13 Net net? Commo- Thank you. Thank you. Commoditize. So net net, that remains to be seen. Uh, I can say procurement, uh, per earlier comments Remains a hot space. 30:27 Uh, I'm optimistic on the future for pr-procurement practitioners. I think we're gonna see new roles crop up. 30:36 We already s- are seeing new roles, you know, uh, uh, procurement agent engineer or procurement prompt engineer, agent director. You know, it, it, it's those are coming. And so I, I, I guess I would say 30:54 lean into AI. Y- you know, at, at least be aware, make the effort to educate yourself and experiment. Mm-hmm. Experiment. Start small, make the case internally. Um, it's a very good time in my view. 31:12 And is that, uh, what's keeping you curious, curious these days and engaged this, uh, you know, essentially what I feel is like a big technological shift once more? I love the opportunity to just talk to all of these 31:26 people who are orders of magnitude more intelligent than I, that are creating these entities to solve a problem, and that are coming-- You know, 31:37 l- let's be real, most people don't start out in procurement, but we find ourselves here. That's certainly the case with me, uh, and I think a lot of people could say that. 31:46 And it's just to see all these people, really smart, innovative people come into the space with fresh eyes, um, that's exciting. And, and, and, and I love those conversations. 31:59 They're always--- I, I learn so much with each one. Very cool. And I think it's like... But yeah, the, the, the image that comes to mind is like biting into the fruit in front of you, right? 32:09 And not being scared to let the juices run down your face. 32:13 [laughs] Um, and, and on the mor- on the lighter side, like in your personal life, is there stuff that, that, uh, you know, k- keeps you, keeps you going as well and, and powers the career? 32:24 I always have something big that I'm working towards in, in, in my, my, my outside of work activities. 32:32 I don't look like it, but cycling is my main thing, and I always sign up for these big, massive races, at least one or two a year that I'm always training towards. And so that, uh, that keeps me going. 32:45 I've got a good friend group that we do these rides together, and that's a, that's just a lot of fun. That's very cool. How-- When you say, uh, these big races, is it like an endurance races or...? Yeah, like, um, 33:00 like last summer for example, we all did this, there's this legendary Colorado, it's just a one day event called the Triple Bypass, and it's a, it's a one day hundred and eighteen mile ride that, that traverses three separate mountain passes. 33:14 So i- it's just brutal. It's like a one day suffer fest. And again, look at me, I don't look like a cyclist, but you know, I did it. I, I completed it. 33:25 And tha- [chuckles] you know, that was one of the most satisfying things I've ever done in my life, to cross that finish line. And I wa- I was beat, believe me. Uh, took eleven hours. 33:35 I was on the bike eleven hours that day. Uh, but things like that. Those, those are the types of things we sign up for. Yeah. 33:41 And it seems like the process, the process is the reward because you're talking about like having the goal ge- gets you, gets you going, uh, and then creating a new goal in front of you, like keeps you, keeps you going towards those objectives, right? 33:54 And so I'm sure, I'm sure that those are things that bleed into, uh, to the professional sphere as well. 34:00 Um, Pat, thank, thanks so much for, for coming on the show, for being so generous with, with your time, your knowledge, your insight. Um, is there anything you wanna leave, uh, the audience with here? 34:10 Either how to get in touch with you or, or things that you're passionate about, uh, before we sign off? Yeah, I love hearing from people. Um, connect with me on LinkedIn. 34:19 Reach out, talk to me if you wanna talk about your procurement tech stack, anything we've talked about today. Um, analysts have a bad rap always asking people for money before they talk to you. 34:30 That, you know, [chuckle] and that's not, there's no, there's no cost to talk, right? I, I, I'd love talking shop. So reach out, I mean, connect with me on LinkedIn, reach out. 34:41 I w- I love talking to, uh, people in this space and it, it's always very mutually beneficial and, um, I, I'm very open to any conversation. Well, there you have it. 34:55 He's gonna have a flooded, uh, LinkedIn inbox tomorrow. [laughing] Thanks so much for, for coming on, Patrick. I really appreciate it, and, uh, hope we talk again soon. Great to talk to you again, Joel. Thank you. 35:07 [upbeat music] That's a wrap on this episode of ProcureTech Unpacked. If this one resonated, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and sign up for the Pro-Procurement Newsletter for weekly insights between episodes. 35:20 If something we covered sparked a question or an idea, we'd love to hear from you. All the links for the reports we discussed are in the show notes. We'll see you next time. Resonate
