— Sabrina Traskos , Senior Vice President , Procurement , Dentsu Aegis Network

procurement transformation . “ We have 32 business units in the United States so we ’ re getting 32 different constituencies on board with our Source-to- Pay process ,” explains Traskos . “ For some of them , it ’ s the first time they ’ re doing a purchase order , so a solid communications plan is an absolute necessity for us . It doesn ’ t stop when we sign the contract with the supplier and get them loaded into the Source-to-Pay system . We have to make sure all of the relevant stakeholders know who our suppliers are , what the process is and what the transition plan is to switch to newly selected suppliers .”

Consensus building is integral to improving efficiency . “ We aim to give people a say in the design of the processes and choosing the vendors ,” pledges Traskos . “ After all , they ’ re the subject matter experts who know what they need best .” The next step to tackle is integrating the right technology . “ When we win a new client , we often have to get up and running very quickly . Procurement needs to support whatever they need – it could be research , technology or recruiting , for example – with very quick turnaround ,” explains Traskos . “ But this can lead to wildly different approaches across the network which could present a data integrity issue . Procurement has a

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