Nobody reads the fine print until the bill arrives

My absolute pleasure.

So the story is a bit of a a long time in the making. I actually grew up in a small medium business. from the ages of eight, I was in my mum's salon, you know, changing the the beds over, cleaning, processing manual transactions, which r I don't know if you remember manual transaction machines. They were this thing that you put paper and a card down and you'd have to use like sheer force of will and frustration to kind of get it to work. that's how that's how old I am that I I remember those and used to use them. and that lit the entrepreneurial fire in my in my belly. but it wasn't until I was God October 2020 and I was made redundant from my my role in in in procurement in the middle of one of the lockdowns in the pandemic, that it kind of got put in front of me of I've got two options here. I can either go back to being an employee or I can go back to look through the pages of my life and see when I was most happy. And I was most happy when I was working in my mother's business. Yes, I wasn't the boss, but when you're a part of a small family business, business is personal. And it's probably something I've taken into my my career moving forward as the owner of my own business is business is personal. it involves people's livelihoods, it involves putting food on the table and and a roof over people's heads. You need to take it with all that seriousness and and kind of leave the the the noise of of some politics at the door when you start the day. for me I I haven't looked back. could I ever be an employee again for another company? I think the right conditions, maybe, but those conditions haven't presented themselves. the biggest gear shift for me has been that you answer to to yourself, but you also answer to your staff. and that's the scary one. I I I have moments, I still have moments where I'm like, what am I doing? What on earth am I doing? Like, am I I'm I'm kidding myself doing this. And I think that's probably healthy skeptics skepticism. I think it's also the fact that I'm Romanian, even when we're we're winning, we're losing. and and that's always come from my my parents' very, very strict, very strong work ethic around you've you have to give this. Forget about 100%. I mean, growing up, if I got 98% in a test, they'd be like, where's the last two percent, Sylvia? So for me, 100% is like the the minimum entry level. You've got to give 200, 300%. And it's not sustainable. I totally recognize it's not sustainable, but it's it I I think it just speaks to the passion of loving what you do and and being able to help organizations write the ship where their spends concern, write the ship where their processes are concerned, and get that that that value. So it's That's that's how I professionally got in there. Academically, I've got I'm sure you've linked LinkedIn searched me and you've seen that I've collected quite a wall of of qualifications. I originally started as a as a tailor and fashion designer in in my professional life, but I found that I was fascinated with business. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Taste knows taste, right?

yeah, so I I realised that the I was never going to be a a a Vivian Westwood or a Vera Wang. I all the way here from Aust from Australia. I think very there's very few really amazing, great designers that make it into that stratospheric level of very public success. And I I just knew that I didn't have the the patience. Probably the one the one downside to me being a business owner is that my patience and my desire for continuous forward motion is constantly being tested. I'm also a Sagittarian, so it's like I want it now, I want the result now, but it's not always feasible. so yeah, I I very quickly pivoted. My mother pushed me to do business school, so I did that. and I landed my first job in telco doing sourcing for for Ericsson or working as a strategic sourcing associate, which was an awesome opportunity. My then mentor, guy by the name of Mohit Karat, he he sat me down one day and was like, Right, I'm gonna teach you how to do this job. 'cause I see that you you're hungry. And he he taught me how to do it. and I still carry a lot of those lessons today. But around the same time that I was working there, my dad's like, You gotta do your masters. I was like, I okay, what what's I'm gonna do it in procurement then. He's like, No, no, no, diversify. So I did I did a master's in property and that was that was a crucible. but I coupled that with the law degree at the same time. Again, that giving two hundred percent. it's it's my default setting. but all of those qualifications that I've accumulated have helped me be really diverse and have a almost a portfolio specialization in terms of I can buy anything. I can buy anything for anyone.

My my Yeah. My my grandfather very, very f wisely and I didn't think anything of it at the time because I was a a brightly little teenager at the time. He said to me, The only person that knows how your story ends is the one that's lying on your deathbed. So it's it's very very reflective family mine. but I it it's it's stuck. It's it's stuck in my head enough that I I now respect every situation for what it is. People are doing their best with the information that they have. they're trying to cover their blind spot and protect themselves, but also achieve a a objective. don't don't take it personally and and and just respect that everyone in the room's got a view of of how it's meant to go down, but it's just not always going to align with yours. So yeah.

Yeah. Okay. I love this question. where do you start with this one though? So I work in procurement. That's my professional discipline. And that's basically the process of identifying the need that a business might have for a good, a service, a software, whatever it is, and taking it through that process of getting quotes, negotiating the contract, evaluating it. I'm totally doing this out of order. and Deciding on which is the best option for you, right? And the idea is that you do that in a very fair and very equal playing field so that you know that you're comparing as close as possible apples to apples, right? Because you can't compare an apple to a a steak, right? They're two different things. the biggest misconception that I and every procurement practitioner in my industry faces is the perception that. Procurement is a blocker, is not there, it doesn't enable it's a governance function, it's an administrative function. So people outside of procurement don't understand what procurement does and the value that it brings. And the reality is that the the value that it brings is it allows very, very deeply technically capable people the ability to work with someone who has that commercial. lens and that analytical that aspect of an analytical lens together to get the best value for money outcome for for for the organization. I probably stick my nose in a little bit more because I also have this fascination with how do we communicate the procurement process in a in as simple a way as possible that anyone can understand it. And it's not about the intelligence of an individual. It's about the cognitive load of most people in their career will, like an engineer, for example, an electrical engineer does electrical engineering things and they're told, I need you to do a procurement or I need you to respond to a tender. It's a completely different gear change for them that has a cognitive load. So aside from them having to do their day to day, they've got to do this thing that is not natural to them. You're gonna face this like natural resistance, but why do I need to do it this way? So it's breaking down those barriers to actually make it so seamless that it it it slots in with their day to day. So yeah, there's a lot of misconceptions about procurement, but those probably are the two that stick out the most.

I I I think Well, I'll put it to you this way. So let's let's say that you wanted to buy a piece of software and you your first the first thing you were to do is to go reach out into your social media network and go, I'm thinking of buying and I always use a CRM as an example because I I must have a thing against CRM. I need a CRM keen to talk to anyone who who knows anything about CRM. That is such a random, very high level sentence. That you're going to get this level of information so broad, right? And you have some conversations and it starts to give you a an idea. So this this fan starts to get a little bit narrower, a little bit narrower, right? And as you then start to explore, well, different types of software, you then start to have different questions. But if you don't have it in a structured, documented way, the questions that you ask. Company one, company two, company three, are going to not necessarily be the same unless you're organized and you have a structure and a system in place, which is what procurement does, right? So then when you sit down and you go, I've got to compare these three systems, you go, well, this one didn't have this, but you didn't ask it if it did. but number two doesn't have X, Y, and Z. But you didn't ask if it had X, Y, Z. You only asked about A, B, C. And that's before we even get to negotiating a contract, looking at commercials, which is its own level of specialization and and separate beasts entirely. So that's it's not an intentional thing. I I think stakeholders in in in businesses aren't doing it on purpose. They're purely they want to just get to the outcome and they're doing what their common sense approach would be. it's the same as if you were to get someone to build a house who'd never built a house before. They would apply their common sense and then you'd get a real builder come in and they'd go, Where's the foundation to the house? You just put bricks on a on on on the ground with with mortar. Great. Good on you. But where's all the other stuff? So it's it's it's a bit like that. It's not done on purpose. Excuse me. it's it's it's done with the best intentions. And that's what kind of makes it a little bit heartbreaking at times when you've got to sit down as stakeholder and go, I know you meant well, but here's what's fallen out of of of approaching it this way. Let's peel it back and let's start again. But let's do it this way this time so that at the end you're not having to deal with the headache of different suppliers going, but that's not fair. Because that's that's ultimately if if we if I had to say what procurement really does, procurement is in the relationship management perception business. They're there to manage third-party perceptions of your organization, being fair, equitable, and an honest entity to do business with that ultimately protects. supply chain resilience if I had to be super fancy with my words.

Yep. everyone benefits from procurement is the is the short answer to that one. The the little bit longer specifically of what D1 Advisory does is a lot of my clientele are enterprise and they're doing big-scale projects like procurement transformations. they need help pulling procurements that need to be rescued out of the fire. The the the real benefit for of procurement or having a dedicated procurement team. Doesn't really start to have a bankable return for businesses unless they're sitting at at least that $150 million a year revenue, net revenue, because there's going to be costs associated to getting in that revenue that aren't labor, right? but there are small businesses, and this is the this is the space that I'm currently trying to figure out and build a service around. So I'm not gonna talk too much about it with you today because I don't know what it's gonna look like yet. And it's those small, medium business owners and those founders that are looking to to do it right from day one. And that is more of a mindset and first principles conversation, having the right when I talk about first principles and mindset, the the corporate word for that is policy, right? In in in in my world. Having those those right attitudes around how you procure something, from day dot. I've worked with a a a client before who was similar to my mum's in industry in in beauty therapy before she retired. I I just purchase the the piece of equipment after I've spoken with the the the sales rep at a trade show. We're like no no no no no that's You're you're getting the vibe of the person there and you're seeing the equipment in their conditions, do it this way. So there's there's practical tips around how to actually assess whether a piece of equipment is valuable for for you, regardless of what size your business is. Those practical tips I haven't figured out how to put into a affordable service offering for for small, medium business and founder clients. But when I figure it out, I'll be I'll be here for episode two to to tell everyone all about it, I'm sure.

This is it it it's it's it's not even it's not even eight AM here, Mick, in Australia. you and I haven't had my coffee, so thank you. If look talking brass tacks with you right now, I think it's discipline. It's it's such a and it's such a a simple answer, but it is the thing that undoes everyone. paired with consistency. And what do I mean by that? From day dot, and this is how I I do cost out, like I need this information, whether you're a $50, sorry, a $50,000 a year turnover business or a $500 million turnover business, I still need the same information. In a in your transaction reports, that however much detail you put into that, What you strip out of it because of laziness, because of being time poor, because of whatever whatever the the the situation that brought you to put in the bare minimum information is, that is has a compounding effect. So if you start off as a as a $50,000 business and then you become a $250 million business. And you bring me in and you go, Why are my costs out of control? And you've, let's say, you've achieved this growth in five years, me being a nosy little thing, I am going to go through the last five years. I'll go through your sock drawer if I have to, to figure out what went wrong where. And it almost always comes back to the the standards that you set on day one of what is what and how your business is going to operate. So that discipline piece and that consistency is that as you carry forward that particular attitude, it it just compounds in its in its effect. So when I come into a business and we go, right, I I need to, you know, I'm struggling to make payroll, but I have a $250 million turnover business, what's going on, Sylvia? I I can only look at what the last two, three years is. So I can't give you a proper diagnosis. It's like asking a doctor, what's wrong with me, over a a a two way walkie talkie, and he doesn't even know who you are. Right? All all he knows is I'm sick. Okay. pan it all rest and don't don't isolate yourself. Like that's the only thing that you can really say to that level of of detail. But if if that doctor knows my medical history, if that doctor knows my age, my gender, where I live, all of a sudden, and he's got my backstory of what I've done over the last 72 hours, all of a sudden he can go, you've got the flu. you need to go do these things. Come back to me in five days. So When I've looked at businesses that have had really good practices from day one and they've said we need to cost out, the conversation has then become how realistic is the cost out figure that you're chasing? If the cost out figure is I want to cut thirty percent, but you've only got five percent to cut from because of market conditions and everything that's going on, then that's the conversation that I'll have. But if it's completely disorganized chaos and I can't see anything and it's very opaque, the the level of detail, then like I said say to all my clients, you're what you're asking me to do is hit a bullseye on a particular dartboard, on a wall of dartboards, while I'm well, my back's not even facing the the the right way. So how like it doesn't matter whether you bring me in, you bring anyone else in. the answer's still gonna see be the same. And that's where we we the conversation often ends up in a well, we need to do a procurement transformation activity and change how people's buying behaviors play out in in the organisation.

It is. And I and I will say, look, this all it it it is very, very unfair of me to sit in my ivory tower and and say, well, you should be disciplined from day one and you should be consistent from day one. The the reality is is and this has been an emerging area of of interest for for me, is job design. and not just job design within procurement, but broader job design in in the parts of businesses that buying occurs in is well if you if your workload for a particular individual is this much and then they've got to do procurement which is then this much again, something is going to something is something has to fall off. And often it is it's always the paperwork because no one likes doing paperwork. No. I like paperwork, but there's something obviously very wrong with me that I enjoy doing paperwork, right? Especially other people's paperwork. I I I totally see why it happens and how it can happen. But we can't sit there and go, you have to be disciplined and you have to do this and and and beat the stick. So it comes down to looking at how the role has been des how the roles have been designed and going, how do we gear change this to prevent it from happening in the future? Because at some point you've got to just draw a line in the sand and y you it's that it's that data paralysis in the in the pursuit of finding good data, you you kind of freeze the the leadership team and going, without data we can't make a decision, so we won't make a decision. And that's that's not fair on fair on anyone, really. I don't know if that makes sense.

I I do use AI. so my company's policy is strictly procure procurement. AI is a enabler, it is not a doer. s what we also do in my organization is we have ex a lot of break builds, so we have everyone's got a a Claude license that is the top amount like I could not put any without getting a five hundred million dollar bill. I don't know if you've seen that article where the a company just said, hey everyone go this is this is what happens when procurement goes wrong. So a guy, someone in an organization said, give give AI to everyone, let them go nuts. We've got licenses. No, no, no, no, no. They used up all their tokens, usage credits. I'm I'm very, very, very loosely paraphrasing this story, by the way.

And then basically they got sent a bill for $500 million. That's what happens when procurement is not done properly and no one reads the fine print. So warning for everyone. Warning for everyone. Check your check your bill and and and and do procurement properly. So coming back to your AI question though, I think

I use AI to enable my business. I sit down with my with my team and I go, right, how do you work? Like there's the job that I want you to do, but there's also how you are going to do that job. So for me personally, I have multiple inboxes. That's my personal hell, right? If I I know what my hellscape will look like if I do go to hell in the next life. It's going to be sitting at a desk with like 30 inboxes. Having to answer emails for for all of eternity, which is a nightmare, right? No one wants that in in actual life, let alone in the afterlife, right? so for me, I've designed a tool that's gone, okay, how do I bring all of these together in a in a co in a cockpit that allows me to have all my tasks done? It re- it pre-drafts my my emails, it does all those sorts of things because it's read the email, and then I And the human in the loop that goes, okay, well, it's not to my voice. I need to make these tweaks. I need to do this. I need to add this file. And I send that. That's what I mean when I say it's there to enable me to do the work. But doing data analytics, I'm dealing with clients' data, so I have to be very careful with how I use AI. I will use it to I will manually redact data if I have to in contracts, but I will not I won't use it to to go, here's an Excel spreadsheet, run, run the numbers. And it's because I do not have the level of faith that others do that it will read the numbers and interpret them correctly. Okay, so I'm a I'm a Use it for the things that actually bring a person down, which is dealing with the 30 inboxes, keeping the calendar organized. I have one, I have a an agent for everyone in my team that's it basically locks you out of the computer at lunchtime so that you go take a lunch break. Like I i I don't care what you're doing. Go go stand on grass, go look at the sky, get some sun. Eat whatever it is you want to eat, go for a walk, like you need to get away from from the desk. I don't personally do that because I can override it. So, you know, do as I say, not as I do. typic typical business owner. It's like you should do all these good things. And then secretly they're like not doing any of those things. And it's like, yeah, because I know the the the toll of it, right? so yeah, like I look, I I have a very complicated relationship with AI because I'm seeing it really massively disrupt my my industry. There are people, sorry, there are firms that are saying, you can do AI can do all of this, and you just need these like touch points, these three touch points. And it's like, well, you're kind of taking all the fun out of procurement. Like, it'll negotiate for you. Okay, hell no, I want to do the negotiating. That's the fun part. it'll do the data analysis for you. No, no, no, no. That's the fun part because I can go into that negotiating room knowing my numbers better than anyone else. So it's it's I have a I I have a very strict h if if firms have paid for us to deliver work, we will deliver the work. AI will support how we deliver the work, but it will not do the work for us. It shouldn't. I I'm a I'm a humanist. I love I love I love organic. I'm not I'm not pro mechanic.

Again with the good questions before I've had my coffee. this is a tough one. What do I want everyone to take away from this conversation? Procurement isn't the bad guy. Procurement is there to help you achieve the the most that you can and have the best outcome, with hopefully spending a f a fair market price, right? And that speaks to that value for money argument. It is not about getting the cheapest price. It's not about paperwork. It's not about governance. It's not about being difficult. We're not being nosy. we're not trying to be mean. We are we are trying to help you maximize your potential in in in whatever the commercial endeavor is that that you're undertaking. So I think I think approach procurement like it's the helping hand it's does it's intended to be is is what I would what I would say is the thing I want everyone to walk away from this conversation with. And also that we're pretty cool people. We've we've got some pretty interesting ways of solving problems, if if you let us if you let us in the door.

you can find me in three places. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on our company website at d1advisory dot business, and you can find me at my Instagram handle, The Buying Baddie. that's kind of my anti anti-corporate pseudonym that I'm doing some pretty unhinged content on at the moment. So it's just it's just a bit of fun, Instagram. So yeah, but it's got good It's got good feedback at the moment. People are sending me, do this real next. I'm like, I'm not a I'm not a dancing performing monkey. Like this is not this is not my actual job. So yeah.

Thank you so much for having me. I'll see you for episode two.