This month's podcast is hosted by Dave Jones and Oliver Mountain. We welcome Jonathan Wood, CEO of cybersecurity consultancy C2 Cyber.

We break down some of the reasons why cybersecurity is becoming increasingly important, and what we as procurement professionals need to consider around this topic.

Jonathan breaks down some of the risks, and explains that often the risk comes from weaknesses within the supply base:

• B2B vs. B2C businesses - some well-documented examples are cyber breaches at Maersk, British Airways and Spar, where the attack each time came through a supplier.
• Managing professional service providers - personal data within professional services provider is potential weak link.
• How to deal with small, non-tech savvy businesses to ensure that you're protecting the potentially most vulnerable parts of your supply chain
• Geopolitical risk and how to manage this from a cyber risk perspective
• How diligent is the internal process when deciding who to source goods or services from?

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Due to South Africa's complex history, they are somewhat ahead of the curve when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) legislation.

On this month's episode of ProctoCast, James interviews Chimae Goncalves, Co-Founder of Supply Chain Partner, a digital transformation consultancy based in Johannesburg.

We dive into how the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE for short) legislation has affected many aspects of how South African businesses both hire their employees and source their goods and services from their domestic supply base.

It's a very intriguing discussion as it gives us a fantastic insight into what may be in store for European and North American businesses in the near future.

Chimae shares with us how the legislation has impacted small businesses such as theirs, as well as how it impacts larger enterprises. We look at how it has been successful, as well as acknowledging some of the challenges it brings.

We explore how BBBEE impacts both the hiring process and employee relations, as well as how it is embedded into the sourcing process when purchasing from or contracting with domestic South African suppliers.

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Welcome to April's episode of ProctoCast, where we're digging into a very pertinent topic right now.

No, not inflation (that's a whole other episode right there, haha) but the increasing importance of having a proactive third party risk management strategy. Especially understanding who is behind a company's ownership structure in an era of sanctions and complex company ownership / shareholding structures.

ProctoCast is sponsored by third party risk management and supplier insight software startup Contingent.

Contingent, based in London, recently secured $8.2 million in funding to grow their platform. It's exciting to have their CEO, Tai Alegbe, as our guest on the show this month to talk about how their product can help to provide insights into some of Procurement's key challenges in today's environment.

At its heart, the platform seeks to provide proactive visibility of risks and the opportunities to develop relationships with suppliers to pre-empt any supply chain disruptions or potentially brand-damaging scandals.

Data and market intelligence is key to facilitating this. Internal data (and its quality) is a foundation for success, but there is also a huge amount of external intelligence to be tapped into that can augment and bolster a third party risk strategy.

With sanctions on Russia as a result of the invasion of Ukraine, as well as supply chain disruptions resulting from impact of the war on Ukrainian manufacturing businesses, buyers need to know whether their supply chains are impacted.

The tricky part of this is often identifying real ownership and control of certain companies. Specifically:

• Who the individuals are who control the business and wield the most influence, and whether they have political ties.
• A view of where companies are exposed based on their relationship to sanctioned entities

Tai walks us through Contingent's "Insights" tool and how it differentiates itself from other products on the market.

We then dig into how Procurement can support the relief efforts in Ukraine and help companies who are positively responding to the crisis.

Moving on from this, we touch on near-shoring and whether or not it's an effective strategy to combat rising logistics costs, strict lockdowns in China and wider geopolitical instability.

How can Procurement proactively prepare for risks that may be around the corner? While we can't predict everything, having a strong risk management framework is key to be able to establish how resilient your supply chain is.

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We're on a mission to make the procurement community more engaged and our profession better understood.

Our events and content are way more exciting and fun than the traditional conferences hosted by established industry bodies.

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Welcome to our very first ProctoCast of 2022!

We decided to do something a little bit different this time and record a live episode, which we streamed to the Proctopus LinkedIn Page. Then we took the recording and edited it into a podcast, which is what you're listening to here.

With the start of the new year often being a time to reflect, and perhaps do a bit of window shopping in terms of what jobs are out there, we thought it would be a great opportunity to sit down and discuss recruitment trends in 2022.

Joining James and Dave on the podcast are UK-based specialist procurement recruiters Martin Smith of Talent Drive and Julie Edwards of ProcureOne.

We kick off my asking Martin and Julie to dispel some popular myths about recruiters.

It's also interesting to hear how the market is shifting from what was a very employer-driven market back in 2020 to what is now very much a candidate-driven market.

We explore the challenges in finding the right talent when it comes to more entry-level or mid-senior positions, whereas for the more senior roles there tends to be a trend for previously freelance contractors to be considering moved back into permanent positions.

It's also interesting to hear Martin and Julie's thoughts about what employers are looking for as skills, and how flexible they tend to be when it comes to experience and the transferability of certain skill sets.

Then, we move on to talk about emerging trends, such as the increased demand for digitally savvy procurement professionals and the need for employers to clearly state their values on relevant issues such as sustainability and diversity.

We continue with Dave and James also sharing some on-the-ground experience and also explore how candidates can explore picking up necessary skills outside of the workplace, such as by taking part in networking groups like Proctopus, listening to podcasts or attending conferences.

Finally, we look at whether the contractor market will boom in future, as companies start to move towards a more contingent workforce to take advantage of more flexible working arrangements. Also, whether the shortage of talent will help to facilitate those who require a work permit to get the opportunity to be considered for roles which otherwise would have easily been filled natively.

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We're on a mission to make the procurement community more engaged and our profession better understood.

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We're back and this month we have a three-way conversation. Dave Jones joins regular host James as a co-host, and the guest on this month's show is Advisor and Consultant Dr. Thierry Fausten.

Our conversation is all about the human interaction in B2B relationships

Keeping Procurement Human: Why People are Critical to B2B Collaboration

It's a very popular discussion point at the moment, given all of the talk about whether robots are about to come and take our jobs.

Relax, they're not.

Thierry, Dave and I review how the human will still be needed to interpret the data that some of the technology out there will be able to provide us, and then to be able to take the data and decision and go ahead to implement the projects.

How also can we best serve our stakeholders and the way that we interact with suppliers going forward, whilst leveraging the technology that is available to ensure it gives us the productivity benefits that look so promising?

We then dive into the importance of in-person relationships and discuss whether the post-Covid "blended" model will skew more towards the virtual component when it comes to B2B interaction and collaboration.

Virtual is here to stay, but to what extent? And in which instances is it more valuable to have face-to-face meetings?

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We're on a mission to make the procurement community more engaged and our profession better understood.

Our events and content are way more exciting and fun than the traditional conferences hosted by established industry bodies.

No jargon. No acronyms!

Protcocast is a part of the Proctopus network.

We're back with a BANG after our summer break!

In this episode of ProctoCast, we dive into the subject of the importance of clean data and a logical taxonomy.

Here to talk about this is none other than The Classification Guru herself, Susan Walsh.

We dig into how to break down the barriers between the person on the front line dealing with the consequences of dirty data, and the gap between those folks and the department heads who are often oblivious or apathetic towards the need to fix the problem.

Then we cover how certain businesses that "get it" are moving ahead at lightning speed and leaving some of the laggards behind.

Finally, we discuss how procurement teams of the future may look like, as data becomes ever more central to strategy & planning. The difference between success and struggle will very soon be directly aligned to the quality of your data and what you do with it.

Susan also has a new book coming out called Between The Spreadsheets. This is a cheap, easy introduction to discover the benefits you can gain through classifying your data and having a structured taxonomy.

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We're on a mission to make the procurement community more engaged and our profession better understood.

Our events and content are way more exciting and fun than the traditional conferences hosted by established industry bodies.

No jargon. No acronyms!

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, or KTPs for short.

Never heard of them? Me neither.

That was until I had a few conversations with the guys at Claritum and discovered how they had leveraged government funding and the vast knowledge base that academia brings to the table.

I'm joined on this episode of ProctoCast by Paul Barker, CTO of marketing procurement tech platform Claritum, and John Cartlidge, senior lecturer in financial informatics and data science at the University of Bristol.

Paul and John explain how this is the classic win-win partnership and how commercial organisations can tap into the research from academic institutions to help them drive commercial projects.

Conversely, academia can bring in real life data and examples which would usually be highly confidential and difficult to get hold of.

During the episode, we explore how organisations can bid for KTPs and what potential interested parties may need to consider and be aware of before seeking funding.

The relationship Paul and John have fostered is central to the success of their particular KTP.

We dig into some of the specifics around how the partnership works, and how it has helped to both enrich Claritum's data analytics capabilities and Bristol Uni's research.

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Contact Paul by email if you'd like to learn more about Claritum's KTP.

Link to Claritum's website

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We're on a mission to make the procurement community more engaged and our profession better understood.

Our events and content are way more exciting and fun than the traditional conferences hosted by established industry bodies.

No jargon. No acronyms!

Agile - maybe you've heard of it in relation to software project management, especially in the tech and startups world.

But what is Agile, and can Agile principles be applied to procurement?

My guest today is David Kershaw of consultancy Curshaw who gives us a 101 on how Agile came into being and what its relevance is in the procurement space.

We explore Agile's values and tackle some of the challenges of applying these in the real world of excessive process and bureaucracy that is the corporate world or the public sector.

Hard to understand processes and tools, unnecessarily complicated documents, out-of-date negotiating styles, and inflexible plans that are far too prescriptive.

Two of the important concepts that David dives into when it comes to agility starts with being more open and working in multi-disciplinary teams. Something that procurement perhaps hasn't been great at in the past.

But, is Agile restricted to certain categories? And can it be brought into categories or organisations which are drowning in superfluous processes?

We dive into some of David's examples of how Agile principles have helped to reduce irrelevant or unnecessary process and have reduced the time required to get to your final destination.

Finally, how does Agile fit with the different pieces of procurement software out there?

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We're on a mission to make the procurement community more engaged and our profession better understood.

Our events and content are way more exciting and fun than the traditional conferences hosted by established industry bodies.

No jargon. No acronyms!