Episode show notes
“You have to be relevant, and to be relevant you need to understand where the business is trying to get to.”
Creating transformation in procurement that actually makes a tangible impression on a business takes more than offering refined processes and cost-saving. But what exactly are the key ingredients to a successful procurement function?
Enter Nick Jenkinson, whose unique CV spans 7 companies in 7 different industries, providing him with a perspective on strengths & weaknesses in each area, and the experience to combine the best aspects from each.
Nick joins Martin Smith on Talent Talks this week to discuss the building blocks that puts procurement on the map in any organisation, the chasm currently observed in the mid-range of procurement’s talent pool, and the All Blacks’ ethos that’ll improve the mindset of any CPO…
This episode of Talent Talks covers:
- The key ingredients of a successful procurement function
- Nick’s perspective on procurement transformation
- Setting a successful strategy
- The current procurement talent pool, and how businesses can react to it
- Hiring a diverse range of personalities and skill sets
This episode of Talent Talks is sponsored by 4C Associates – a leading European procurement and supply chain consultancy, who work collaboratively with forward-thinking clients to deliver real business value across a wide range of transformation and cost optimisation service offerings. Visit https://www.4cassociates.com/ for more information.
Episode highlights
“I have very little interest in simply running a procurement function that goes in, runs some processes and then goes home. You have to be relevant, and to be relevant you need to understand where the business is trying to get to.” – 5:15 – Nick Jenkinson
“People work with people – that’s the world we live in. If you are going to drive change and influence the business, I can have that conversation in the boardroom but I can’t have the conversation with all of our employees across the whole organisation. So that’s where you need to, in the nicest possible way, divide and conquer in terms of how you get a very empowered leadership team.” – 7:40 – Nick Jenkinson
“The All Blacks’ ethos of ‘leaving the shirt in a better position than you found it’ is critical for me. We all go to work to earn a salary to pay for our lifestyle, etc. However, from a from an interest and enrichment perspective, I want to be doing something where I can leave it and have people genuinely agree that we are in a far better place than when I came into the organisation.” – 14:55 – Nick Jenkinson
“People are often trained to show you great automation, but the reality is that it was just an automation of a bad process – so it’s still a bad process.” – 23:10 – Nick Jenkinson
“My wife was not interested in having a pool table while having two children sleeping on a mattress on the floor; It’s the same in the business. Nobody’s interested in the pool table if, in day to day life, they’ve got frustrations coming out of their ears because you’re not actually delivering the basics.” – 30:20 – Nick Jenkinson
“There’s no point in having an organisation where everyone wants to be CPO, or you get the very good, up-and-coming individuals who think they should be CPO already, but don’t actually have the experience to be able to do it. So I think we’ve recognised that mid-level is actually quite a challenge.” – 32:50 – Nick Jenkinson
“I think it’s an easy opt-out for CEOs to be able to blame a lack of performance on talent, but I think more importantly we should look in the mirror and look at how we’re enabling that talent.” – 35:05 – Nick Jenkinson
“It’s something that’s very much in my mind at the moment about how we get balance in the team as well. It’s not just about getting great talent, because you can’t just have five shouters – it just doesn’t work in reality. ” – 44:30 – Nick Jenkinson
Links & References
- Nick Jenkinson, CPO at Santander UK
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-jenkinson-24a43a9/
- Martin Smith, Founder & Director of Talent Drive
https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinsmith2009/
