Smarter Sourcing

Smarter Sourcing
  • 5.0 (5)
  • Technology
  • Updated Biweekly

The Smarter Sourcing podcast is dedicated to helping sourcing, procurement, and finance leaders elevate their influence and get their seat at the table. Each episode features conversations with innovative leaders, sharing best practices, lessons learned, and actionable insights you can apply immediately. Whether you’re focused on procurement strategies, supply chain optimization, or aligning financial goals with operational excellence, this podcast will leave you with actionable insights that you can immediately put to work.

  1. 1d ago

    EP 63 - Bayer's Melissa Saw On Speaking The Stakeholder’s Language In Marketing Procurement

    Marketing procurement earns its seat when it speaks the stakeholder's language. Melissa Saw, Consumer Health Marketing & Sales Procurement North America Lead at Bayer, came to procurement from a career in sales and marketing, and that background shapes how she partners with internal teams and agencies. Speaking with John at ProcureCon East, Melissa shares why trust with stakeholders has to be earned over time, why she asks agencies where AI fits in the value chain, and how Bayer’s Dynamic Shared Ownership model reshaped her team around 90-day priorities.  Topics discussed: - Speaking the stakeholder's language as a former marketer - Earning a seat at the table through early, small results - Asking agencies where AI fits in the value chain - Treating the marketing budget as the stakeholder's budget - Running procurement on 90-day priorities and retrospectives - Dispatching RFP work across global peers under DSO - Hiring for attitude over procurement pedigree - Balancing in-house talent with offshore and outsourced models Get in touch with Melissa Saw:   LinkedIn  Get in touch with your host, John Pavia:  LinkedIn  Listen to more episodes:  Listen on Smarter Sourcing Listen on Apple Listen on Spotify Watch on YouTube

    EP 63 - Bayer's Melissa Saw On Speaking The Stakeholder’s Language In Marketing Procurement

  2. Oct 6

    EP 62 - Parkland Hospital's Pamela Bryant on Consolidating Purchased Services Volume and Deciding What Goes Out to Bid

    Does every purchased service need to go out to bid? At Parkland Hospital, Pamela Bryant, SVP, Supply Chain Management and an incoming Bellwether League Hall of Fame inductee, uses evaluation committees on certain services to ask whether what's in place today is good enough with some tweaks. She also inherited a thousand-bed hospital designed to run just in time, with shadow supply chains creating overstock. Pamela tells Eric why every project order runs through a parent distribution center, why AI hasn't cut her staff yet, and what 800 clinics at Hanger taught her about skipping the big bang. Topics discussed: - Asking whether a purchased service needs a bid or tweaks - Finding the shadow supply chains that create overstock - Why a thousand-bed hospital can't run just in time - Running every project order through one distribution center - Winning OR inventory on the third attempt - Saying yes to new scope, then setting the timeline - Why AI hasn't cut Parkland's supply chain staff yet - Staggering an 800-clinic rollout instead of one big bang Get in touch with Pamela Bryant :   LinkedIn  Get in touch with your host, John Pavia:  LinkedIn  Get in touch with your host, Eric:  LinkedIn Listen to more episodes:  Listen on Smarter Sourcing Listen on Apple Listen on Spotify Watch on YouTube

    EP 62 - Parkland Hospital's Pamela Bryant on Consolidating Purchased Services Volume and Deciding What Goes Out to Bid

  3. Sep 22

    EP 61 - Herbalife's Douglas Krieger On Why Keeping The Seat At The Table Is The Real Work

    Douglas Krieger, Sr. Director Global Strategic Sourcing at Herbalife, sees procurement's seat at the table differently than most. Getting it is the easy part. Keeping it requires showing up with value that goes beyond running the next RFP, and his team is investing in sales training over sourcing courses to make sure that happens. Douglas walks John through running a global center of excellence, how he pushes decision-making down to build strategic thinkers, and why law school logic reshaped his approach to every negotiation. Topics discussed: - AI-powered statement of work review against policy and precedents - Shifting sourcing from reactive execution to proactive vendor monitoring - Center of excellence vs. regional category management structures - Choosing sales training over sourcing training for team development - Applying legal reasoning frameworks to sourcing negotiations - Reinvesting time saved by AI into strategic relationship building - Back-office system transformation from on-premise to cloud Get in touch with Douglas Krieger:   LinkedIn  Get in touch with your host, John Pavia:  LinkedIn  Listen to more episodes:  Listen on Smarter Sourcing Listen on Apple Listen on Spotify Watch on YouTube

    EP 61 - Herbalife's Douglas Krieger On Why Keeping The Seat At The Table Is The Real Work

  4. Sep 8

    EP 60 - Novant Health's Mark Welch On Preparing His Supply Chain Team To Operate At $20 Billion Scale

    Mark Welch has led Novant Health's supply chain for 21 years, helping scale the system to $12 billion in revenue. Working without a dedicated medical director in supply chain, he built a model where sourcing managers facilitate clinical conversations directly with physicians across orthopedics and heart and vascular. Mark tells Eric how his distribution center runs its own price index, why he trains his team to think like a $20 billion operation, and how an AI chatbot called Aubrey generates variation analysis in minutes. Topics discussed: - Sustaining supply chain leadership over two decades of growth - Building physician engagement without a dedicated medical director - Turning the CSC into an opportunity center - Three team members went on to become CSCOs elsewhere - Embedding sourcing managers directly within pharmacy and IT - Creating a QSOC with distribution-level price index accountability - Launching no PO, no purchase for indirect spend data capture - Using an AI chatbot to run sourcing variation scenarios Get in touch with Mark Welch:   LinkedIn  Get in touch with your host, Eric:  LinkedIn Listen to more episodes:  Listen on Smarter Sourcing Listen on Apple Listen on Spotify Watch on YouTube

    EP 60 - Novant Health's Mark Welch On Preparing His Supply Chain Team To Operate At $20 Billion Scale

  5. Aug 27

    EP 59 - Ferrara's Kristen Coar On Aligning Procurement To What Your CEO Actually Wants

    Kristen Coar, Vice President of Global Procurement at Ferrara, stopped measuring savings on the direct side. Her procurement organization targets on-time delivery, supply chain flexibility, and market-beating pricing, aligned to what her CEO and CFO actually prioritize. Kristen tells John why most procurement organizations rush to digitize before their foundational data is ready, how a Navy career shaped her servant-leadership approach, and why she applies a "snake oil" filter to AI procurement vendors promising the world. Topics discussed: - Why Ferrara measures procurement value differently for direct vs. indirect - Aligning sourcing strategy to what senior stakeholders actually prioritize - Running centralized global strategy with local procurement teams - Stakeholder buy-in through pairing trust-building with top-down policy - Why digitizing before fixing master data governance wastes resources - Using energy hedging as a baseline risk management practice - Filtering AI procurement tools through a "snake oil" detector - How GLP-1 drugs are reducing demand across the sugar industry Get in touch with Kristen Coar:   LinkedIn  Get in touch with your host, John Pavia:  LinkedIn  Listen to more episodes:  Listen on Smarter Sourcing Listen on Apple Listen on Spotify Watch on YouTube

    EP 59 - Ferrara's Kristen Coar On Aligning Procurement To What Your CEO Actually Wants

  6. Aug 18

    EP 58 - Emory Healthcare's Noah Dunlap On Building A Three-Tier Supply Chain Transformation Framework

    Noah Dunlap, Chief Supply Chain Officer at Emory Healthcare, walked into a federated, fragmented supply chain and built a three-tier transformation framework: foundation, optimization, innovation. Eighteen months in, the results are backed by a strategic plan he presented during the hiring process itself. Noah breaks down his approach to data infrastructure across multiple ERPs and GPOs, why he calls GPOs "a tool in the box, not the box," and how a new capital equipment program is unlocking long-term supplier partnerships across billions in asset value. Topics discussed: - Building a foundation-optimization-innovation framework for supply chain transformation - Unifying a federated supply chain operating model across a health system - Creating agnostic data infrastructure across multiple ERPs and GPOs - Treating GPOs as a tool in the toolbox, not the entire strategy - Launching a capital medical equipment intelligence and governance program - Applying Bloom's taxonomy and teaching principles to supply chain leadership - Investing in workforce development to bridge team capabilities for the future - Establishing clinical alignment with an engaged physician community Get in touch with Noah Dunlap:   LinkedIn  Get in touch with your host, Eric:  LinkedIn Listen to more episodes:  Listen on Smarter Sourcing Listen on Apple Listen on Spotify Watch on YouTube

    EP 58 - Emory Healthcare's Noah Dunlap On Building A Three-Tier Supply Chain Transformation Framework

  7. Aug 5

    EP 57 - Cleveland Clinic's Stephen Downey On Centralizing, Standardizing, And Automating Supply Chain

    Cleveland Clinic performs 300,000 surgeries a year and processes 80,000 instrument sets. Stephen Downey manages the supply chain behind all of it through three words: centralize, standardize, automate. That means enterprise-wide procedure cards, one knee tray, and off-site sterile processing modeled on facilities in Denmark and at Walmart. Stephen also breaks down how a monthly CEO review of indirect spend changed supply chain's standing, why healthcare capital utilization lags behind hotels, and what cross-industry benchmarking looks like when you're sourcing window washing. Topics discussed: - Centralizing, standardizing, then automating supply chain - Enterprise-wide procedure card standardization across all sites - Monthly CEO review of indirect spend as governance lever - Embedded sourcing experts within clinical and IT teams - Cross-industry benchmarking beyond healthcare for services spend - Capital utilization efficiency lessons from hotels and robotics - Building automated central service centers modeled on Walmart - AHRMM leadership and national supply chain case competitions  Listen to more episodes:  Listen on Smarter Sourcing Listen on Apple Listen on Spotify Watch on YouTube

    EP 57 - Cleveland Clinic's Stephen Downey On Centralizing, Standardizing, And Automating Supply Chain

  8. Jul 14

    EP 56 - Johns Hopkins Medicine's Burton Fuller On Building The Data Foundation To Measure Every Facet Of Supply Chain Performance

    Eric O'Daffer speaks with Burton Fuller, Vice President and Chief Supply Chain Officer at Johns Hopkins Medicine. Burton's team is connecting case schedule data from the EHR to their demand planning forecast, what Eric called the "holy grail" of demand planning. With a new cloud-based WMS, a replaced point of use system, and a new ERP all coming online within 18 months, Johns Hopkins is laying the foundation for intelligent automation across its operation. Burton shares how his team is rethinking what clinical integration means on the operations side, shifting from sourcing-only engagement to reliability-focused conversations with nursing and quality partners. He also breaks down how multi-tier supplier mapping helped Johns Hopkins navigate pandemic disruptions and continues to inform inventory adjustments and contract awards today. Topics discussed: Connecting EHR case schedule data to demand planning forecasts Implementing cloud-based WMS with automated demand planning modules Shifting clinical integration from sourcing events to supply reliability Using multi-tier supplier mapping to get ahead of disruptions Building case cart services in a clean room at the consolidated service center Tackling indirect spend through finance alignment and capital planning linkage Measuring supply chain performance through real-time data monitoring Partnering with suppliers to reduce consignment costs and solve shared problems  Get in touch with Burton Fuller:   LinkedIn  Get in touch with your host, Eric:  LinkedIn Listen to more episodes:  Listen on Smarter Sourcing Listen on Apple Listen on Spotify Watch on YouTube

    EP 56 - Johns Hopkins Medicine's Burton Fuller On Building The Data Foundation To Measure Every Facet Of Supply Chain Performance
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About

The Smarter Sourcing podcast is dedicated to helping sourcing, procurement, and finance leaders elevate their influence and get their seat at the table. Each episode features conversations with innovative leaders, sharing best practices, lessons learned, and actionable insights you can apply immediately. Whether you’re focused on procurement strategies, supply chain optimization, or aligning financial goals with operational excellence, this podcast will leave you with actionable insights that you can immediately put to work.

Information

  • Creator
    Smarter Sourcing
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    63
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Smarter Sourcing
  • Show Website
    Smarter Sourcing

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