CPOstrategy’s cover story this month features a fascinating discussion with Rick Sisk, Director of Procurement at Gen4 Dental, who explains how he’s revolutionising procurement for the dental industry, and why doctor-led care is so important…
Gen4Dental: Changing the procurement landscape for dentistry
Gen4 Dental is an organisation that strives to be a true partner to dental practices. It is a truly dentist-first DSO, promoting excellence at every level and working to improve by at least one percent every day. Through mergers and acquisitions, the organisation is also growing at an incredible rate, and this expansion and ambition requires a sturdy procurement department to support it. Enter: Rick Sisk, Director of Procurement at Gen4.
Prior to Sisk joining Gen4 Dental, the procurement landscape certainly wasn’t what it is today. The organisation has grown so quickly in its short lifetime; Sisk says that Gen4 has expanded so rapidly in a way that had the potential to cause problems. “When I came in, there was no real purchasing platform. I called my industry friends and said ‘hey, I need help’. We needed to start at ground zero. I had all these ideas and I was told that procurement was mine to shape. I was really excited about that…”
RBI Procurement: Success through technology, innovation and community building
We speak to Edzard Janssen and several of his team members at Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) to see how the procurement function is enhancing value creation, mitigating risk and dealing with increasing regulatory requirements…
Now, more than ever, procurement leaders are having to harness innovation as they seek to prosper in highly uncertain times. Successful procurement teams are fostering emerging technologies and strategically aligned operating models and processes as they strive to unlock value across their enterprises. The procurement function at the Austria-based Raiffeisen Bank International AG (RBI) is such an entity, dedicated to delivering value through a future-orientated approach, at scale.
Edzard Janssen, Head of Group Procurement, Outsourcing & Real Estate Management at RBI, joined the Austrian bank in 2011, where he was tasked with building a state-of-the-art value-creating function. The latest strategy of RBI Procurement focuses on four strategic areas as guidance for all initiatives: value-centric procurement, state-of-the-art capabilities, mastering the data journey and safeguarding the bank.
1. Value-centric procurement: Focusing on value, not on price, and what truly brings value to the bank.
2. State-of-the-art capabilities: The procurement systems, the total procurement infrastructure landscape and the capabilities of staff.
3. Mastering the data journey: Harvesting and utilising the huge pools of data across the bank.
4. Safeguarding the bank: Covering regulatory compliance, IT and cybersecurity as well as operational and business risk.
Value-centric procurement
The ability to deliver value-centric procurement is of course directly related to strategic sourcing and Janssen and his team have made great strides in recent years, establishing an innovative category management approach at the bank. “There are two parts that cover the source-to-pay process,” Janssen tells us from his Vienna office.
“One is the sourcing part of the process mainly fueled by the capabilities of our people and strategy formulation – the right way of approaching the market is pretty much driven by the quality of the people running the process. And then you have the second part of the process: procure-to-pay. So, doing the call-offs and executing the contracts. All that is powered by the quality of systems and efficiency of processes.”
Tipico Services: A single source of truth
We speak to Kiran Menghnani, Director, Tipico Services Ltd (part of the iGaming and Sports Betting brand Tipico Group) to see how he and his team have transformed procurement at the company…
Kiran Menghnani, Director Tipico Services Ltd – part of the online iGaming and Sports Betting brand Tipico Group – almost stumbled into procurement by accident. As the Malta Head-Officed enterprise Tipico Group started to experience rapid growth midway through the 2010s, combined with complicated regulatory developments, the maturity of the Group realised the tangible need for a dedicated procurement function.
And in 2016, Gibraltar-based Kiran, who had already been with the company since 2011 building internal processes and structures, was asked to look into creating a future-ready procurement hub that could deliver a more strategic and agile business-facing function.
Tipico had a somewhat disjointed procurement approach to purchasing, prior to its transformation, a situation that resulted in a lack of transparency and an antiquated siloed approach. It was clear to Kiran whilst settling into his new assignment, that as the company continued to grow at pace, that this casual approach to procurement needed to change.
“We were still a young but rapidly growing company. We needed to work fast to get the tasks done while finding our way when dealing with our suppliers. Now the responsibility was on me to better understand the pain points being faced. And so I went about asking the basic questions challenging any purchasing requests. Has the contract been reviewed internally? Is there any data processing by the supplier? Has the price been benched with the market? How can I access past/existing contracts?”
“I soon started to realise that I wasn’t getting the answers to comfort me as Director, and that this humble piece of paper called a contract needed more attention, so I needed to protect both myself and the company as regulatory requirements had evolved. And that’s how this journey really started: someone questioning as to what we were doing and accepting that there were obvious gaps and opportunities.”
Richmond’s Department of Procurement Services (DPS): Leadership, relationships and the power of technology
We speak to Rene Almaraz, Director, Department of Procurement Services, City of Richmond, Virginia to see how public procurement is transforming at the city…
The values of the City of Richmond’s Department of Procurement Services (DPS) are set out on the opening page of its first ever annual report: teamwork, integrity, innovation, customer focus and leadership. The report is the work of the department’s relatively new director, Rene Almaraz, and his staff, and highlights the team’s achievements – in fiscal year 2023 – and priorities for the future, and also the guiding principles that influence how and why decisions are made.
Almaraz says: “Our goal is to build an organisation that’s more nimble, that provides faster and higher quality service, and supports the customer to the highest degree possible, which includes explaining to them why and when they should follow a specific process. This, in turn leads to how we can get it done better the next time.”
It will be two years in January since Almaraz took on the role, with clear goals for creating a more agile department that delivers for internal customers and the people of Richmond…
This brings us to two of the points on the DPS list of values: teamwork and leadership. This means within the department itself, but also with external partners, suppliers and customers. The DPS team has grown by around 40% to 28 staff since Almaraz took the reins, as he explains. “We’ve needed to grow. Before I got here, coming out of the pandemic, there wasn’t a lot of stability in terms of headcount. It’s now stabilised and we’ve built a good team here, a really focused team. Plus, I’ve received a lot of support from my leadership and my peer departments to continue improving.”
The team has grown, but can be considered relatively small when you consider the scope of work they’re responsible for, which is why collaboration is so important for Almaraz and, above all else, trust and communication within the team. He explains: “I’m a huge believer in trust – my staff has to trust me, that I’m doing the right thing. I need to know when to communicate and what to communicate, but they’ve got to trust me and then I must trust them.”
This mutual trust allows everyone to feel inspired and to grow, he says, and develop the skills needed to conduct complex procurement projects. Part of this means asking for help when it’s needed and, crucially, learning from mistakes. Almaraz adds: “Be honest with me: if you need some support, let me know. This is a project I’m giving you so you can grow and so I can grow. We’re going to lead and put this department on the map, through our expertise and professionalism. That’s our objective here.”
