In this episode, Beth and Lee talk to Microsoft's Dave Andrews, Procurement Lead, about the issues around sustainability in the area of supply chains and procurement. From responsible air travel to diversity and inclusion in suppliers, we cover a lot!

Some useful links: Procurement | Microsoft Responsible Sourcing Recent article from Dave Andrews: From modern slavery to sustainability: A deep dive into responsible procurement – Microsoft Australia News Centre

Diverse business communities that Microsoft Australia works with include:

• Supply Nation
• WEConnect International
• Social Traders

GlobalSocial impact reporting and certifications:

• B Corp
• UN Global Compact

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TRANSCRIPT For this episode of The AI in Education Podcast Series: 5 Episode: 5

This transcript was auto-generated. If you spot any important errors, do feel free to email the podcast hosts for corrections.

 

 

 

Hi and welcome back to the uh increasingly and again Beth we really got to think about changing the name the AI and education podcast that talks about almost everything other than AI and education. Uh Beth, how are you? I'm well thank you Lee. How are you? Did you enjoy a long weekend just now? I did. Yes, I did. Although Usually these things go by so quickly. And I remember my daughter said to me on I think it was on Saturday afternoon. She said, "Dad, it feels like Friday today." And I said, "Well, that's good because you know, actually we got this extra time." And I said, "But in my head, it feels like it's sun Monday evening, 9:00, and everything's about to come smack smacking me back in the face, but it's great to have the weekend off. Did you do anything fun with your weekend?" Oh, well, um, in some cases, yes. Although it always sounds more fun before you have the actual experience. So, we got a a puppy um on Friday. So this little kavoodle which um the kids have been looking forward to for months turned up and um and he was the the center of attention for you know an hour um before the novelty wore off and kids were bitten and messes were made on the floor. Yes. We've been trying to keep up with him ever since. So uh it's it's going to be a wild ride I think for the next um couple couple of weeks and then hopefully he'll settle down. But no, he's he's good fun. Um and uh and it should be it should be a a great experience um once I'm over the the sleepless nights. And it's it's like having a baby again. It is. It is. Yeah. We we we grabbed what we we grabbed we got a puppy during co uh who's now falling asleep next to me. He's 18 months old, so he's no longer a puppy anymore. But yes, that whole early stage, nobody talks about that. They talk about the magic of puppies, but early age puppies. We had to sleep on the floor next to him and take him out for a we every 20 minutes. Thankfully now we've got a dog that is pretty well house trained and I can tell you at that point it is a wonderfully like it's the best thing ever. Um except for the fact he he does take up the bed space but um but no loving having a puppy. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Do you know the other problem I have with a long weekend is you never leave me alone in front of my computer too long and if I can open up eBay or Amazon or anything like that because I tend to make rash purchases and I started down a journey of going a bit nostalgic. In fact, I'm going to show you this on the camera. Apologies for people who are not here. I went out and bought this thing. Now, this is a Nomad jukebox. See, it's a circa 1999 MP3 player because I started having one of those nostalgia moments like, "Oh, I remember the tech I used to use." And I've now acquired through eBay purchases three or four of these ancient MP3 players that will be of no use to me whatsoever. I don't know what I'm going to do with them. So, long weekends probably not, but I've got it just in case. This one was sealed. brand new from like 1999. It was actually still had. So yeah, it's great that sex, you know, is the Walkman making a a comeback anytime soon. Well, this is an interesting link because we're going to we're talking about things that have lasted a long time. We're talking about sustainability and we had this whole conversation last podcast about sustainability. Uh but Beth, I think today you've brought along a really interesting gu. Oh, by the way, for folks know Dan today, Dan couldn't make it so you just got Beth and I and our guest. But Beth, I'll let you introduce our guest today. Yeah, thank you. So, uh, we are joined today by a wonderful Microsoft colleague, Dave Andrews. Dave is, um, a partner of both of ours, I think, across lots of different projects. And, um, having worked with people in this area before, I think we're really blessed to have someone with Dave's passion and experience um, and sense of humor in regard to the work that he does. So, hi Dave. Thanks for joining us. Hey Beth. Hey Lee. Thanks for the invite. Ah, it's great to see you. Can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do at Microsoft? Yeah, sure Beth. Um, well, my my role at Microsoft is uh the procurement lead for Australia and New Zealand and we've got an outstanding group of procurement professionals that work at Microsoft. We've got over 260 professionals, but lucky for me, I'm the single representative across the Australian and New Zealand markets. And and my job essentially is to to to be the account lead or the director of procurement looking after um all of the needs of our business and that spans every business group that lands in our country from our data center team to our quantum team uh to our marketing and operations team philanthropies team and even sometimes when Lee gets a bit curious about old technologies you might have a a chat to me about that as well um but I I think the the important part for me I'm lucky to represent a lot of our core services Um, and I'm lucky to to represent this cap company and have an opportunity to to follow a lot of my passions, one of which is procurement, but also inclusive procurement and and how we apply technology moving forward. So that's awesome, Dave. And yes, now I know I'll go to you to buy old stuff. You can get me better prices. Um, but like so you say procurement a lot there and I I mean I don't know what the word means, but kind of in real terms that means that whenever Microsoft buys something for us to use, it goes through you and your team. Is that kind of how it In reality, it works. I think uh in the olden days, Lee, yes, when when your uh MP3 player was new, that is probably how um procurement was looked at. But I think as we have evolved, procurement has really had to look at itself in a different way. Um we I often use the analogy that sometimes the most powerful thing a procurement professional uh can do is know when to get out of the room. Um and the the feeling that we know when to get out is because we have coached, educ educated and mentored the business on how to do procurement well. Um we we sometimes forget that people procure things every single day. Um what we're really here to do is empower Microsoft employees to procure things in a compliant way, make sure they get great value for money, but above everything, make sure they drive great business impact and outcomes. Um and uh my philosophy is really uh around uh empowering people to do that independent of us. Uh we provide the structures, we provide the policies, the frameworks, the tools. Um but ultimately we need to support our stakeholders to do procurement effectively and efficiently without having to engage us every single day. Um if if that was if they engage me every single day, I'd have over three and a half thousand stakeholders talking to me every single day. Some days it feels like I have that many stakeholders. case of me, but it's more important that we play an advisory role and really help the business achieve the outcome that they want in the time frame they want with the budget that they have. Well, I mean you absolutely in all seriousness you lead to that issue of scale like you are one team and there are literally hundreds of thousands of people across Microsoft and certainly thousands in Australia who are buying stuff all the time. So that so I got to ask because obviously you know from a tech point of view how do you do you use technology to scale out a function you do to like all the things you said about getting the best price and being compliant. How is that a technology function that works there? Yeah, the the the longer we we work in procurement, the more we figure out we're actually using and leveraging technology in really powerful ways to enable us to scale. If if you were to look at a procurement department in Australia or New Zealand that managed the similar level of spend that goes through our Australian New Zealand businesses, we'd probably have 20 people there late to be frank managing procurement. end to end. Um, lucky for me, we have one. Um, or or is that unlucky? I'm not entirely sure. Um, uh, but we can only do that through the appropriate use of technology. Um, and we continue, uh, to talk about digital transformation. I actually like to flip that around, Lee, to be digital evolution because I transformation kind of tells us that there's an end date. Um, uh, and I don't think the, uh, transformation and evolution of procurement and the technology we use will stop. We've got some really innovative projects that we're working on, some really uh strong guided buying experiences for our employees, uh leveraging um uh artificial intelligence, uh leveraging uh chat bots to help people with a guided buying experience. How can we help you buy a good or a service on behalf of our company without having to engage procurement uh in the best possible way? Um uh how can we identify uh risks in our supply chain. How can we ensure that we're uh creating an inclusive economy? And there's so many different ways that we can adopt our own technology uh and leverage some existing technology to ensure we're doing that efficiently. And Dave, you were talking there about inclusive procurement and in inclusive economies. I know that you do some really amazing work to uh create um economic opportunities for indigenous businesses um as part of that Microsoft ecosystem. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Sure, Beth. And and when I talk about inclusive economy, I always like to talk about it um as uh supporting all underrepresented groups in our economy and and in Australia, New Zealand's case, that would be indigenous businesses, womenowned businesses, and social enterprises. Um so what we do as a as a company is we're really focused on trying to identify suppliers that can help us solve business problems that are representative of those underrepresented groups. We've got some really great partnerships with intermediaries in our um in these countries that help us identify these businesses. Uh and what it's uh what it really uh takes from there is for us to understand capability and capacity of those businesses and really it takes me trying to introduce those businesses to stakeholders in our business where I think they can help solve their business problem. Um, and I think uh that to me is something that I'm super passionate about. I think we uh quite often underestimate the power of these businesses. Uh these businesses are actually the nursery for future talent of indigenous employees, whether that be at Microsoft or another business. They're they're still the nursery for womenowned talent uh sorry women um uh talent in our workforce as well. We've got some outstanding womenowned business. and social enterprises are creating opportunities for people people that are disproportionately disadvantaged in our economy. People with a disability, people that may not have an opportunity to be employed. We've had some really great outcomes in using social enterprises um to employ people um uh that have autism uh and they've driven some great business outcomes in in Microsoft and I hope that continues moving forward. So, If I can ask and this is probably a difficult question to ask but like obviously by doing that and being a company that kind of distributes its procurement across a broader range of dis as you say dis disadvantaged or disrepres under underrepresented communities. Obviously there's good in that that we are injecting wealth or the distribution of money into sectors of society that aren't always necessarily as well represented. So it's kind of good for everybody in that way. But I assume there's more to it than that. I mean there we're actually getting the as you sort of touched on then there really unique value and experiences from these groups because they are so underrepresented but they represent something really unique to Microsoft. Is that how we kind of see procurement as a as a mechanism? I think the the there's a lot of uh conscious and unconscious bias associated with empowering or creating an inclusive economy. Um and a lot of people have a perception that this is a handout. Um and what I'm going to tell you is uh these businesses are amazing. businesses that are extremely capable and can do the job. What they've struggled with Lee is opportunity. Um big c big companies like Microsoft uh or our peers, we quite often like to play with other big companies. We think that reduces our risk. We think they will have all of the standards and policies required to do business with a company like us. Um and we believe based on their scale, it's going to enable us to um drive outcomes whether we have higher demand or lower demand in a more efficient way to be honest. Um I I think that simplification of a really complex landscape of suppliers um and in my experience the thing that we need to focus on above everything else is creating equity and opportunity. Um these businesses are capable. They're super competitive. They're just not given a chance to bid on work. Um so when I talk about creating a more inclusive economy, what I'm really trying to create is an opportunity bias for these business owners to bid on work for companies like us. They're not going to win everything, but what they do win, they're going to win on merit. Uh and they're going to excel. They're going to be supported, and that's going to help them grow. Uh the power of winning one job for us uh uh can be amplified throughout a a supplier's history and and future. I I think um the the impact of working for Microsoft has been extremely significant for a lot of the underrepresented business owners that we've engaged today. And Dave, just in terms of I I think that point is so important that we're we're awarding this work on the basis of merit and the fact that the companies can actually do it as well. Do you think that um you know that said there's a a role for a company like Microsoft to play in helping to build the capacity of some of these smaller suppliers. Um even as you look um and and your role is quite interesting. Because not only are you looking at the procurement piece, but as we're talking about partners and the procurement supply chain, we're also talking about how these partners might straddle into our partner ecosystem and work with our customers. Um and and that's where I see that there is some opportunity for us to support those businesses to build their skills to, you know, improve their tech technical skills and understand how some of these technologies are growing and shaping so that they can become more competitive. Do do you think that there's a role for Microsoft to play in in helping those organizations flourish? Absolutely, Beth. Um I I think if not us, who? Right. If if we're not here to empower businesses to achieve more, who is ultimately that's our company's mission? And I think the the challenge that we have in such a dynamic business like Microsoft is people see this as a risk. They see providing a business a new business an opportunity to uh win and execute work is a risk to them. Um and I kind of challenge that because we we provide businesses opportunities to win work or execute work for us all the time. The perception of uh these diverse businesses or underrepresented group uh owned businesses is it's a risk. It's no different to providing a new company a job at Microsoft. And I think the the thing that we need to do is really remove that conscious or unconscious bias really look at the the the objective look at the ability of this business to achieve that objective and then provide them an opportunity and help them be successful. Um I I think the the role of large organizations uh in procurement particularly we we saw our role to aggregate spend which we basically said oh well if we aggregate we get better value for money simple economics um and what we're finding is local businesses um as well as diverse businesses really have a competitive advantage in our market. Our market is a high-cost labor market. Um, and when you're applying those labor costs from international businesses as well as their corporate overhead and their profit expectations, a lot of Australian businesses and a lot of small and medium businesses um in Australia and New Zealand have a competitive advantage. They can do the job cheaper. They're here. They understand the market. So, I think our role is creating the opportunity um uh and building their capacity through building more and more opportunity off the back of that. The one of the the biggest issue we have, Beth, is typically if a business is successful at Microsoft, we make them drink from the fire hose. Um they have one job and then they have 50. Um and my job is to manage the expectations of our stakeholders and limit our exposure um uh exposing that business to too much work too soon. David, it's you were talking there a bit about kind of local businesses and I know you corrected us ear on this. You know, this isn't just an indigenous business challenge. This is about all sorts of underrepresented groups. But it kind of got me thinking because last week when we had the podcast, we talked about sustainability and we talked about the issues of supply chain sustainability and the fact that, you know, there's so much stuff that goes into the creation of any one product, service or offering that may well be out of your hands. So, how do you like I I can see how you've got this purview of perhaps the Australian market. You know, you can you can engage with that. You can see local suppliers and work with them, but how do you find all of these potential suppliers? And then how do you really understand the entire supply chain? How how does someone in your role think about, you know, the very raw materials that go into some of our products? I that must be a real issue. I'd love to learn how you've how you've thought about that problem. U absolutely it is an issue. Lee, I was talking to to one of our great partners, customers and suppliers um Telstra last week about this very issue. How do we know uh where uh we have supply chain risk? It's it's extremely complex problem. And when I talk about supply chain risk, I talk about things like conflict minerals. I talk about things like modern slavery. I talk about things uh like uh supporting underrepresented groups through economic empowerment. There's so many different things that we need to have an impact on. And that's not even talking about sustainability in its in the word sense of environmental impact. What are we doing to reduce our carbon footprint, reduce our use of water, um and uh also reduce waste. I mean as a as a function procurement is essentially driving these initiatives for global organizations whether that be Microsoft, Amazon, Google, uh Telra, uh BHP, Bilitin, Riotinto um and why is procurement driving it is probably the next question because most of these risks sit in our supply chain. Most of these businesses do not execute all of the work required to produce the products that they're generating revenue from. So procurement is tasked uh with uh driving transparency in that supply chain. Um and we're look really looking to technologies and and a lot of great startups in our ecosystem to support um uh our ability to drive that transparency report on our current state and then uh develop action plans for progress moving forward. It's So interesting, Dave. How do you how do you look at creating a a forward perspective when a lot of these a lot of the things that we've seen just in the last 3 years, you know, we we've had a global pandemic, um the issue in Ukraine with um with the Russia um invasion, we've had microchip shortages, like you there is a lot happening in the world, some of which would be quite hard to have predicted. um at least maybe it's possible to predict at some point we're going to have a p pandemic but it would have been impossible to determine exactly when. How do you how do we think about when these things are likely to happen? Is there a way for us to mitigate against these types of risks? Look, I think I think you're probably asking a question uh and this is something that um agitates me a little bit about procurement professionals approaches to developing strategy and I think we need to consider that uh historical spend does not equal future demand. Uh and how are we bridging that gap? How are we uh looking at our business and the way the way it's moving and trying to predict their needs moving forward? And there's a lot of heads of procurement and chief procurement officers that are trying to tackle this problem at the moment. And there's a lot of really great technology solutions that are in the market that are trying to use AI and ML to predict future demand and in particular one of our partners Robo Buy is doing a great job in in analyzing historical spend and looking at future opportunities and future demand opportunities. I I think we as procurement professionals put a lot of faith in uh spend analytics. Uh we we spend a lot of time looking at what we've done over the last two or three years uh in the hope that it's going to help us drive better strategies moving forward and predict predictable uh it better enables us to have predictable supply solutions um for our stakeholders. The the one thing that we want to move away from is being that roadblock. Uh and why are we that roadblock in some businesses? Um we're that roadblock because demand has changed. We need a new solution. Therefore, we need to go through a process and sometimes in in our company that process can take six months. In other companies, it can take 12 to 18 months um to actually put the right supplier agreement in place to meet that new demand. So, how are we actually trying to predict the future? How are we adopting technology to help us do that? Um I I think that's a million dollar billion dollar question for for most CPOS and it'll be interesting to see and listen to um a person like Lee's perspective on on how we could possibly do that. Maybe we need to start developing our own solution there. Lee, oh, can I come in on this deal? I don't I've got the answer to that. But what you just said triggered a thought because, you know, sitting in the responsible AI world, what we there's some similarities in so much as we there's a lot of ambiguity with AI. We don't know what's happening. You know, we're working with data to create an outcome and there's no correlation necessarily between what happened before and what's going to happen in the future. That's kind of the sort of beauty of AI systems. So, in order to embibe that sense of of trust in the system, and I think about that, you know, trust in the sense of a uh your supply chain mechanisms or the process by which people procure through. In in responsible AI worlds, we create a consistency of process. So, you never know what the outcome's going to be, but you always know what process you're going to have to follow to get through that process. And you mentioned people like Robo that are obviously using technology and AI or intelligence at least to automate some of that process. Is that how you like do we do some of that here in Microsoft or do you see that as being a an a mechanism to create a simplified or consistent experience? So, I'm just putting it in context like someone like like me who says to you, I okay, I need to get some equip I need to buy something for a particular event we're doing or for a piece of work we're doing. I wouldn't know where to go and find an indigenous partner or or or an unrepresented partner. I wouldn't know the process because I do it so infrequently in Microsoft. I could be put off really quickly because of those challenges. Do you use technology to help me as an internal procurement person do be better by giving me consistency? Yeah, absolutely. Lee, we attempt to is probably the answer. Whether we do it well enough right now and uh whether we need to evolve how we're doing it. I think the answer to that question is yes. Um when when we um uh if we look historically at where procurement thought technology was going to help them, we thought cataloges was going to be the answer for everything. Lee, we we thought if we've got a catalog, we can create a marketplace. Lee can go knock himself out and purchase whatever he wants through a marketplace. But what we're finding is the nuance and the slight differences in the services environment as opposed to the goods means cataloges are really hard um for us to use. Um we we're now adopting um uh different uses of technology. Uh we we're actually using a free freelancer services platform for professional services. That tool is called Upwork. Um and that really helps us uh shape a guided buying experience for people with professional services. Right now that guided buying experience is supported by people lee but in the future we'd love it to be supported by artificial intelligence. Um I I think when we look at goods there's some really great uses of technology right now. We talked about procuring devices before. Uh if someone wants to go and p purchase a surface we're currently triing the use of chat bots. Uh they might go through um uh a a process to uh identify the the device they need that's completely guided by a chatbot. Uh it'll be based on your previous purchase. Uh it'll be uh then amended to meet the current spec of the devices that are on the market in a similar way to to the way you might look at it, Lee. Um and then it would provide you some options to say here's three devices we think meet the spec that you need to do your job. Um which one would you like to purchase? Um and by clicking a button, all the other procurement activity that sits off the back of that raising requisition, purchase order approval, um all the delivery information sits uh and is done in an automated way uh through the appropriate uses of our technologies and that makes a lot of sense. You're automating that process stuff that is you know that that can be automated because once the decisions the com the bit that's not automatable somewhat is the kind of the making the right decision but once the decision is made the process is pretty automatable but you talk you know that that when you talk about that idea of the catalog and I remember trying to buy stuff from Microsoft online tools back in maybe five or 10 years ago. It was painful as all but but but the catalog almost denies that issue you brought up up front which is around how that's about de-risking things by putting things in boxes and saying okay well this all looks like buying you know t-shirts and swag and this all looks like buying event gear and it's hard to find the individual one. So I love the idea of a chatbot or some mechanism that guides me asks me the right question but guides me towards things that I wouldn't have seen otherwise. And I think that's a really that's a great outcome of that. But look I I think that um you know there's probably a lot of technology use and ways that technology can automate that be used in that process because I think that's that's one of the great things I see about AI is that it creates I think you said the personalized experience my procurement experience is going to be entirely different to to Beth's you know and and even though we're integrating with the same system I don't know Beth you any thoughts or comments there. Yeah it's it's really interesting I think that technology can certainly play a role in trying to get us all to think differently about how we go through this process. But I also think perhaps some of the magic of what you do, Dave, especially around the internal evangelism is about um you getting people to stop and think about how they can use their their money that they're already intending to invest in buying a good or service in a different way. So it's more mindful and you know getting people to actually actively think about their procurement choices is is part of the benefit. of what we're doing. So whilst you want technology to help um guide the process, I think the important thing is that you're asking people to engage in some decision making which asks people to you know actively think about how how they can achieve more with the same amount of money. And I guess that was the question I was going to ask you Dave. It's um every time we have a conversation I I feel more excited about procurement than I ever thought was possible. um certainly based on um working with with this um kind of area and previous companies. The way you approach it is really really exciting. Do you feel like this is a way of actually really getting people to and companies to drive more um environmental and social outcomes at scale? And is what you're doing also sort of cascading into people's personal lives in in what they do and how they spend their money as well. Do you think? Um, so I'd probably answer the last question first. I hope so, Beth. I hope every single person I talk to at Microsoft thinks about the way they purchase and how that money is impacting their community, uh, how that money is impacting the environment, uh, and what they can do every single day to make better decisions to support both. I think the challenge that we have when we talk about um, making better decisions to create a more inclusive economy or making better purchasing decisions to support our sustainability objectives. To be frank, no large or organization that has a climate target can meet it without procurement. Right? No, no, no business that has a target create a more inclusive economy can do it without procurement. Um, and I'm not saying procurement as the function. I'm saying procuring goods and services are going to be critical to them meeting the targets that they've set in their organization and what what is the procurement functions role in that. Um I would say it's to empower people to do this in the simplest way possible. So making sure when you're making a guided buying experience the recommendations are sustainable options, the recommendations are inclusive businesses. Um it doesn't uh one of the things I found in my journey is people are more likely to purchase from an underrepresent group if they don't know they're an underrepresented group. They're just looking at the facts of what the business is capable of and how commercially competitive they are rather than questioning whether this business that's a small and medium business could do the job because they're womenowned. I find that ridiculous. Um for me, we as procurement need to help our business make better purchasing decisions to help us meet these targets that we've set which are extremely critical for our communities and our countries and and and the world to be frank. Um and to do that we need to um make sure these guided buying experiences are putting every possible uh solution in place to simplify the selection of the right business for the right outcome. And that outcome isn't just money anymore. Um procurement needs to have a whole view of this and I like to turn that the total business requirement. Your budget is one indicator of success. Your commit to reducing um carbon is another. Your commitment to creating a more inclusive economy is another. Your commitment to eradicating modern slavery in a supply chain is another. Um so there's so many layers to this and the complexity of the risk profile uh and the potential impacts of those risks if they're not dealt with in the appropriate way um is is what makes procurement beautiful at times. We need to simplify that for our buyers. So they can make decisions independent of us. So our organization as a whole can meet all those targets. Yeah. To to kind of question. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Uh the the the the way that we make purchasing decisions needs to empower every person in our organization to make the best decision and that's not just price. Um and I think the more that we all understand and have visibility to how impactful our decisions are and uh in terms of who we purchase from, the better we're all going to be at that. And and I see that as a core part of my job and probably the part of my job I'm most passionate about is helping people understand the impact of the money that they spend in our community to drive these outcomes that that we're all so invested in. Dave Dave, your passion just shines through and I know every time we talk about this, I can just sense how much this is not just a job for you, but it is a labor of love in the way that do this. But, you know, we've talked you you talked a lot there about kind of how you do the job to help people inside Microsoft be better and and do better and make these better decisions. I'm kind of keen. Last question from me. If we were looking at to our audience and maybe there's some people out there who are underrepresented or have our own business or are seeking that way into not just Microsoft but into the industry as a whole. What you do you have any words of advice or guidance to people in that position? How do they break down that door of the Microsoft procurement engine or any others and become part of that? system. This is this is always I get this question a lot, Lee, and I I always become a little bit You got a perfect answer then, I'm sure. Yeah. I I think um the the best thing to say is persistence and determination are omnipotent, right? They're all powerful. It's the one thing that is going to help you as an underrepresented business find other work. The challenge that uh these business owners have have typically uh is they they can't find the door. The front door is non-existent. They might be bashing on a on a door in a company which will never open. So um the the best way to uh drive uh these opportunities is becoming members of intermediaries. Intermediaries like supply nation for indigenous businesses. So or or or Amotai in New Zealand. Uh social traders or Akina Um so Australia and New Zealand uh we connect international um these intermediaries will allow you to connect with people in these organizations that are focused on this work from a sustainability point of view. There's a there's a great business called Givable that's starting to certify and register not only um uh diverse business ownership but they're also starting to measure and track impact against sustainability certifications across the globe. Um you should be looking at uh trying to enroll your business on their platform. There's lots of other platforms that are really looking to to drive the same. And I think as we as large businesses start to focus on this, I I actually see more progress in the medium and small business sector uh than I do at Microsoft. Um I'd challenge any business owner that's listening to this podcast to identify any business in their local community that's uh um uh owned by an indigenous person or or woman or or is a a social enterprise and go and support them. Um go and buy from them. Use the power of your dollars to help them because the more that we get support in the small and medium business sector, the more that we get support in the the large corporate business sector and the public sector, the more these businesses are going to thrive. And uh I think the last thing that I typically say here is uh procurement isn't your buyer, right? We don't have budget. Uh so make sure you're always talking to the person who's your buyer, making sure that you're always pushed to talk to the ultimate decision maker. Um because sometimes procurement can be a roadblock. Um but they should be there to empower you and their organization to do more. Um uh and where you're feeling a little bit of strain or or resistance, just be persistent. Um your opportunity will come eventually. That's so brilliant, Dave. I always feel inspired um when you talk. Um, that said, I was thinking with sympathy about your family and friends um because you must have um a hell of a a dinner party conversation or especially if you're going to a restaurant and you're procuring dinner and drinks must be um just a super quick question. Do you ever allow yourself an impulse buy? Even if it's um you know a in your personal life, do you do that? And what was the last impulse buy that you had? Well, I'm going to give away one of my passions here. I love golf. I I play golf all the time. My last impulse buy was a a a nice new driver for myself. And thankfully, or unthankfully, it hasn't helped me at all. So, maybe I need to think about those impulse decisions, Beth. Um but I I definitely think um we we all have room uh to to impulse buy. Um but fundamentally, when I'm making a large purchase decision, Beth. Uh, the facts are the things that rule my decision-making process and, um, I think my family and friends know one thing about me. They know that I'm not driven by emotion. Um, so when I see people that do, that's when they get the tough questions. Uh, so um, I would encourage everyone just to take the emotion out of their purchasing decisions. They'll get much better outcomes. Yeah, I love that. I'm going to say that exact thing when I take my daughter to Kmart next time and we're going past the Barbie section. Good luck with that. Yeah, it's awfully emotional um in Kmartat sometimes. Dave, thank you so much for your time. It's um yeah, it's great to be able to share these insights with people. I think uh you know, if we could clone you and um make you available to to our customers and partners, the world would be a better place. But I'm sure you're one of many people who are on this crusade for more um impact through procurement. So, thank you again for sharing those insights. Thanks, Beth. And and I'm definitely one of many people that are focused on this. And uh to all those people that are listening, just keep going. Um the the if we're better tomorrow than we were today, we're all going to achieve what we want to achieve. And I I think the ultimate thing for us is if we can meet these targets for sustainability, if we can create a more inclusive economy, we're really going to stop the division we see in the world. I think um a lot of division is caused through through investment. And um we can we can change that in in every single part of our life, even with our impulse buys. Love it. Well, I'm going to have to wrap up there. I can see that I've made um a sacrifice of a Javiana thong. The puppy has chewed through my single plugger. So, I might need to go and procure myself some new footwear. But thanks again. Good to catch up with you, Lee. And you too. Thanks, Beth. And thanks Dave again. Wonderful time. Wonderful session. Thank you. Bye, everyone. Oh, heat.