Love Procurement: The Podcast

Rapid advances in technology, geopolitical volatility, and constant business disruption make it impossible for procurement to have every answer, and pretending otherwise can undermine credibility.

The strongest communicators take a different approach, combining humility and authenticity with the ability to make complex ideas human, memorable, and relevant to their audience. Effective communication isn't about commanding the room; it's about listening closely, knowing when to say less, and helping people understand why the work matters.

In this episode of the #LoveProcurement podcast host Kelly Barner welcomes Neil Perry to the show. Neil is Content Director at Outlook Publishing, as well as an experienced moderator, voice coach, journalist and broadcaster.

Neil shares what he has learned from many years of public speaking, interviews, and facilitation:

• Why communication skills are so critical for procurement leaders
• The role that active listening plans in effective communication
• How to project influence through communication style as well as substance

Links: Neil Perry on LinkedIn

Savings will never be unimportant to procurement, but procurement can easily damage their credibility if they selectively report savings without accounting for the full movement of costs, including increases, market conditions, and the baseline against which their performance is being judged.

In other words, procurement should stop defining their value in terms of savings and start building credibility through the transparent measurement of costs, business outcomes, and supplier performance.

In this episode of the #LoveProcurement podcast host Kelly Barner welcomes Roberto Fabris to the show. Roberto is the Founder and Managing Director of We Procure International, a procurement advisory firm focused on industrial companies across Italy, the UK, and France.

Roberto shares a number of well-considered perspectives on the role that savings play in procurement's priorities and performance:

• What can go wrong when procurement claims savings without establishing a clear market or price baseline
• The larger conversations (and agreements) that procurement and finance need to have in order to validate savings delivery at the project level
• What procurement credibility looks like at the C-suite level, and how it enters into conversations with suppliers

Links: Roberto Fabris on LinkedIn

Modern procurement calls for a team that can combine world-class functional expertise with judgment, curiosity, communication skills, and the ability to build trust across the business. As a result, CPOs should spend less time directing transactions and more time understanding business priorities, bringing the outside world in, and empowering talented teams to turn data and insight into confident decisions.

In this episode of the #LoveProcurement podcast host Kelly Barner welcomes Hiten Parmar to the show. Hiten is the Chief Procurement Officer at Beazley, a global specialty insurance company. He has held leadership roles across banking, pharmaceuticals, consulting, and technology, and has worked in legacy procurement environments as well as 'blank page' ones.

Hiten shares his perspective on leadership and cultivating procurement talent:

• The skills and capabilities he prioritized when building his current team from scratch
• How connecting procurement with overall business objectives allows the team to contribute far beyond cost and efficiency
• How building a 'sophisticated-skills-first' procurement team changed what is required of him as the CPO

Links: Hiten Parmar on LinkedIn

Despite the hype about AI, procurement must still take a pragmatic approach to transformation that includes a focus on governance, processes, and day-to-day execution. Rather than treating AI as a destination, it is the next step in a longer maturity journey, one where technology must earn its place by delivering clear, measurable value and making procurement professionals more effective.

In this episode of the #LoveProcurement podcast host Stephen Carter welcomes Callum Jolly to the show. Callum is the Head of Strategic Supplier and Commercial Management at Smart DCC, a company that runs a secure network to allow smart meters across Great Britain to communicate with energy companies.

Callum shares his perspective on the operational foundations that make procurement transformation and AI adoption sustainable:

• His 'earn the right' philosophy and how it has shaped his procurement journey
• The approach he has taken to evaluating, adopting, and scaling AI
• How the challenge of working in a regulated industry plays out in his priorities

Links:

Callum Jolly on LinkedIn

Stephen Carter on LinkedIn

Agentic AI is rapidly moving beyond the narrow, task-specific agent model to become a single, dynamic capability that can specialize on the fly rather than requiring a new agent for every new problem.

In order to take advantage of this new agentic framework, procurement will need to consider "governed autonomy," human accountability, data privacy, and the role expertise will play in making agentic operating models smarter over time.

In this episode of the #LoveProcurement podcast host Kelly Barner welcomes Paul Zammit to the show. Paul is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for AI and Platform at Ivalua, which includes the newly announced IVA and IVA Studio, the agentic operating model for procurement.

Paul explains the process of creating and using IVA:

• How IVA and IVA Studio are different from other procuretech approaches to leveraging agentic AI?
• IVA's ability to 'understand' the context of the user (role, permissions, business unit, and responsibility) and factors that into the work it does?
• How IVA works in environments where data lives across multiple systems
• Ensuring IVA meets enterprise safety and information security requirements to balance autonomy with accountability in an enterprise setting

Links:

Paul Zammit on LinkedIn

Introducing IVA Powered by IVA Studio: The Agentic Operating System for Procurement

The World Cup is more than the biggest sporting event in the world. It is also a rare global experience that brings together nations, cultures, and millions of fans around a shared passion. Beyond the action on the pitch, the tournament is a fascinating case study in logistics, commercialization, technology, and the economics of modern sport.

In this episode of the #LoveProcurement podcast host Vishal Patel welcomes Philip Ideson back to the show. Both are well-known for their love of football (or soccer, depending on your location) and take this opportunity to elaborate on one of their other great 'loves' - beyond procurement, of course.

Philip and Vishal discuss this year's World Cup from multiple perspectives:

• Why the World Cup fan experience is unlike any other sporting event
• The business behind football, from ticket pricing and sponsorships to commercial strategy and the growth of the game
• Whether technology has improved or diminished the sport.
• Surprising parallels between football and procurement, including teamwork, governance, logistics, and designing systems that guide behavior without getting in the way

Links:

Philip Ideson on LinkedIn

Vishal Patel on LinkedIn

As AI capabilities are added to an increasing number of SaaS platforms, procurement must ensure that their evaluation frameworks match solution strengths to enterprise priorities and also separate real progress from marketing spin.

It is the evidence of impact and effectiveness, not talk or hype about it, that should drive decision-making about technology.

In this episode of the #LoveProcurement podcast host Kelly Barner welcomes Sandra Göttlinger and Max-Leonhard Böttrich to the show. Sandra is a Senior Manager and Co-Lead in Digital Procurement at Deloitte, and Max is a Senior Consultant on the same team.

Sandra and Max share their perspectives on:

• How AI impact is being assessed in source-to-contract provider evaluation and selection processes
• The most important dimensions or criteria to include in provider evaluation frameworks
• Ways procurement can evaluate AI capabilities fairly across providers, avoiding being misled by self-assessments or marketing claims
• ROI measurement, AI maturity, and where companies should focus next

Links:

Sandra Göttlinger on LinkedIn

Max-Leonhard Böttrich on LinkedIn

Sourcing & Procurement | Deloitte Deutschland

Deloitte_Selecting-Source-to-Contract-AI-Vendors.pdf

AI ROI: The paradox of rising investment and elusive returns

As this episode's guest explains it, AI is the jet engine, and supplier data is the jet fuel for procurement organizations looking to make the most of their supplier ecosystem. Performance aircraft will struggle to operate with substandard fuel in it, even if it is available in large supply.

In practice, this means that taking a grounded, thorough approach to supplier data may be the best way for procurement to deliver measurable returns from investments in AI.

In this episode of the #LoveProcurement podcast host Kelly Barner welcomes Jarrod McAdoo back to the show. Jarrod is Director of Product Marketing at Ivalua, and was one of the first guests to appear on #LoveProcurement in season one.

In this episode, Jarrod returns to talk about the data and process considerations associated with having a successful supplier data management program:

• Why it is important for procurement to decide what a "supplier" actually is (e.g. parent company, site, business unit) and to communicate that to the business
• Ways procurement can bolster their supplier data without sending those suppliers an unnecessary number of requests
• Why procurement should see supplier data quality as a cross-functional project rather than a procurement clean-up exercise

Links: Jarrod McAdoo on LinkedIn

Direct materials sourcing sits at the center of operational performance, profitability, and supply chain resilience. Because even a single disruption can create ripple effects across both production and revenue, companies increasingly view direct materials sourcing not as a transactional activity, but as a cross-functional discipline that requires deep collaboration, strong data visibility, disciplined supplier management, and ongoing transformation enabled by technology and process improvement.

In this episode of the #LoveProcurement podcast, host Kelly Barner welcomes Douglas Keeley, Ivalua's Director of Product Marketing, to the show. With more than two decades of relevant experience he offers a practical, supply-chain-first perspective to the evolving role of procurement in manufacturing and product development.

Douglas and Kelly discuss the unique complexities and meaningful opportunities associated with transformed direct material sourcing:

• Why direct materials sourcing has become a strategic priority amid supply chain disruption, geopolitical uncertainty, and increasing pressure for resilience.
• How leading organizations are improving collaboration between procurement, engineering, supply chain, finance, and their supply base to support better product launches and sourcing decisions.
• The critical role that data, supplier visibility, and technology-enabled transformation play in managing risk, controlling costs, and strengthening supply chain performance.

Links: Douglas Keeley on LinkedIn

Procurement professionals find their way into the field from many different directions and in many different ways, so it is not unusual to meet 'accidental' procurement converts. At the same time, very few people end up in procurement because they participated in an implementation that was so impactful and transformative that they wanted to keep repeating the experience.

In this episode of the #LoveProcurement podcast, host Vishal Patel welcomes Jose Bustillo to the show. Jose has held executive roles at companies like KPMG, BVLGARI, and LVMH, and is a digital transformation and change management advisor. He was won over to procurement through an Ivalua transformation several roles ago.

Jose shares his journey into procurement, and talks about his perspective on the current state and future potential of the profession.

As he points out:

• People (and not technology) ultimately determine whether transformation succeeds
• AI is a powerful enabler, but it doesn't replace the human element
• Most implementation failures come down to avoidable mistakes

Links: Jose Bustillo on LinkedIn