Title

Driving continuous business transformation: Strategies for successful IT and Procurement collaboration

Section
Blog
Summary

Coming on the heels of a cybersecurity incident and a company acquisition, clinical trials management organisation Clario embarked on a procurement transformation. The goal was to create operational efficiencies as well as the best possible experience for their customers.

Jay Ferro, EVP, Chief Information, Technology, & Product Officer, at Clario, and Mert Erkan, Vice President at Efficio, discuss how IT, Product Management, and Procurement can work together to drive successful business transformations. 

This is a shortened version of the conversation, with some sections removed for brevity or edited for clarity. You can listen to the full Spotlight on Procurement podcast episode here.

  • Simon Lipscomb: You've been through a big transformation in the organisation recently, and procurement has played a part in that transformation. I'd love to start with that.

    Jay Ferro: I think most high performing companies are in a state of perpetual transformation or continued improvement or continued growth. When I joined in 2020, we were a company called ERP. At the time, we – quite frankly – were not doing well on the cybersecurity front. We had some issues in 2020 that shook customer confidence in our ability to protect our customers and our patients, and our sponsors deserved better. At the same time, we were acquiring a company called Bio Clinica, one of the largest players in the medical imaging space, and bringing these two storied organisations together. We had to manage all the things that come along with that: merging technologies, contracts, and all of these disparate things that are happening in these two large organisations.

    I learned a long time ago that, whether I own it or not, a strong partnership with sourcing and procurement is absolutely necessary to get the efficiencies and the economies of scale that you want out of a transformation. 

  • Lipscomb: Were you charged with looking at associated business efficiencies, cost reduction efficiencies? And how did you start to do that?

    Ferro: I think the first thing with any kind of transformation is to get a good sense of where you are. Forget about where you're going just for a second. Then, begin to prioritise those opportunities, whether it's duplicative Microsoft contracts or duplicative Oracle contracts; look at multiple instances of Salesforce. You're looking for those synergy opportunities. Certainly, there are always economies of scale that you're trying to take advantage of with a merger.

    I'm responsible for running the combined organisation after all those economies are realised – so making sure that we're doing it in a mindful way and that we're putting in processes that are repeatable and continually improving. Making sure that partnership is rock solid and we have a line of sight to where our cost levers are. That's why building that relationship with internal procurement and then leveraging partners like Efficio is so important.

  • Lipscomb: How did your work with Efficio come about and how was that experience for you?

    Ferro: One of our private equity owners introduced me to Efficio not long after I started, and right away I just knew that I had a strong partner. Once I got to know Mert [Erkan] and the team and saw the quality of the people, I knew I had a pretty powerful weapon in my corner. You look for wins quickly when you're thrown into a situation and assess, where are my trouble spots?

  • Lipscomb: What have been the components of success?

    Mert Erkan: I think what is critical and has been fascinating to see is that commercialisation journey. The technology, product, and procurement team has truly become a single team – because in a tech-enabled business you have to immediately respond to some of these things which have a customer impact at the end. That's been a continuous focus from Jay and his team. You've got to make sure that speed, quality, and capability, either internally or externally with your partners, are in place. 

    What have been the different components for success in your view?

    Ferro: You touched on it. When I walked in, Product was very federated, R&D or Technology was very federated. What I mean by that is you had business line executives that really had their own R&D, their own product. It just caused friction, and it really forced separation in both our product offerings. Having a unified Product and R&D organisation, as well as a unified technology group, has paid huge dividends. 
    It has allowed us to be more responsive to our customers. They deserve your people's best. And one of the ways you provide that is by continually getting better and not waiting for them to always come and tell you what they need. Anticipating needs. Embedding yourselves in what they do each and every day. Delighting them could be the way you take a phone call. Could be the technology. 

  • Lipscomb: How should or how could procurement professionals be going about engaging better with CIOs and the tech community? 

    Ferro: Both the CIO and the procurement person are trying to make the organisation very successful. Extend the olive branch and maybe reach across the aisle. And if a CIO or director of IT is listening, do the same and realise that you both have the same goal to see your organisation succeed. Find common shared success criteria that you can both partner on and knock those walls down. It sounds so simple, but I have been in many organisations that don't do it.