Name: Wb Amazon Sourcing (1080p)
Uploaded: 2025-11-18T08:40:13.503Z
Duration: 34 min 29 s
Description: Wb Amazon Sourcing (1080p)

Transcript for "Wb Amazon Sourcing (1080p)": Hello, everyone, and welcome to our webinar in partnership with Amazon Business. My name is Tom Chapman, and I am the editor in chief of Manufacturing Digital, Supply Chain Digital, and Procurement Magazine. Today's webinar is part of an ongoing series with Amazon Business where we explore the big issues keeping manufacturing, procurement, and supply chain leaders up at night. Make sure you visit the webinar section on the Manufacturing Digital website for more insight, expertise, and success stories. I'd also just like to mention our procurement and supply chain live event series, which promises to be bigger and better than ever in 2026. Today's session, as we as we move on to to today's proceedings, is called reducing the complexity of strategic sourcing in manufacturing. Now as many of you will know, strategic sourcing has become a cornerstone of long term value creation in manufacturing, but it's also one of the most complex areas to manage. With thousands of component suppliers, strict compliance requirements, and fragmented data across systems, sourcing decisions can sometimes slow down progress instead of driving it forward. So in today's session, we'll explore how procurement leaders can simplify and modernize their sourcing frameworks, make faster data led decisions, and, of course, build stronger, more resilient supplier relationships. Whether your focus is on supplier evaluation, category management, or digital transformation in sourcing, Today's discussion will be packed with practical insights you can straight take straight back to your teams. Now there's a lot to cover today and not that much time to do it in, so let's dive right into it. Joining me today is Graham Scott, chief procurement officer at Jabil, who brings a wealth of experience leading procurement transformation across global manufacturing operations. Graham, it's great to have you with us again. I think last time I saw you was, one of our procurement and supply chain live events. If you could just start off, by just by introducing yourself for for our audience and and your role at Jabil. Yeah. Thanks, Tom. Yeah. You're right. I think last time I had a a tuxedo on. Very, very smart. A bit more casual today. So glad glad to be on. Yeah. So my name is Graeme Scott, as you said. I'm chief procurement officer at Jabil. Been with the company for twenty two years, primarily focused on our electronic side of the business, but I've recently been given some additional responsibility as I've moved into the CPO role where effectively we I'd be covering the entire procurement portfolio. So that would include all of our mechanical suppliers, all of our indirect suppliers, and also more on the the compliance side of things as well. Currently based in in Florida, obviously, not a Floridian accent. I'm originally from Scotland. Started with Jabil in Scotland, moved to Florida, spent five years in Singapore, and now back in in headquarters here in Saint Petersburg. Glad to be on. Fantastic. So, yeah. So it seems like, Graham, you've been around the block to to various locations, and a big congratulations, of course, on on that new role. Like you say, it brings more responsibility, but, it's very exciting times, I'm sure. I just wanna plunge into straight into our discussion if if you're happy, Graham. You know, I wanna talk initially about simplifying supplier selection, really, and what is clearly a very complex, some might say volatile manufacturing environment. How then from your perspective can procurement teams streamline supplier qualification and onboarding when managing as you you, I'm sure, are an expert in, we're managing thousands of electrical and electronic components. Yeah. I think it I mean, if we look at the entire supply base that that we're managing within procurement here at Chabot, you know, we're looking at close to 36,000 suppliers. Every time we open a new facility, every time we you know, build for a new customer or even a new product for a customer, you know, we're just getting more and more suppliers added to that 36,000. And, you know, what we do is we we try and digitize as much as we can that process of of onboarding suppliers. And, you know, it gives us a great digital background on each of those suppliers and allows us to standardize things across the entire procurement network. So, you know, as we think about how suppliers move from being onboarded and perhaps to the endpoint where we are sunsetting them and moving them out of the portfolio, we do as much as we can in that side of things as as digitally as we can. The management of suppliers, we try and digitize as much as we can. We think about the performance of suppliers, you know, also digitized. And, you know, I think that that thread of digital data really helps to drive innovation, you know, within the organization. You know, it helps us define our strategies a hell of a lot better than than we would be if we were working on spreadsheets and PowerPoints, etcetera. So, you know, the more you can digitize, I think, the the the better the, the opportunity for you to improve as you move forward. Mhmm. Absolutely. So digitization, you know, we can't not then move the conversation on by talking about maybe more slightly more specific digital procurement platforms. What role then are digital procurement platforms playing these days in improving transparency, compliance, and, of course, performance tracking across that global supplier base? Yeah. I mean, I think there's a there's obviously a big push from reactive to more predictive, you know, data and and, obviously, the insights that come from that. And one of the things that we really focused on at at Jabil is building out what we call our procurement intelligence platform. So every supplier that we have on the direct side, you know, we have the data, the support, so all the decision making for each of those suppliers. You know, it started off as, you you know, pretty much like a search function where you could search on a part, a part or a supplier, and we would get a 360 degree view of that part or supplier, you know, given these insights that we have gathered internally and also externally. And then, you know, really helping the commodity managers drive the conversations with the suppliers. When we're having conversations with customers about suppliers, we have that 360 degree view as well. And, you know, it's definitely an evolution. We've evolved over the last couple of years. We've started to bring in more applications into the platform to really help drive a lot of the the work that the team do within commodity management. We think about the negotiations as a good example. Negotiations have typically been managed through a pretty manual process on the the electronic side and and also in the mechanical side, where we're basically pulling spreadsheets, we're looking at the demand at that specific point in time. The information and the pricing that we get is valid at the time that we create those Excel spreadsheets. But we've now moved to an application based negotiation, which has really given us, you know, insights that are real time. So any fluctuations in demand are captured within that negotiation. We're talking about what we see at that point in time. Any pricing fluctuations, we would also see, back within the application, and it's driving ultimately a better result during those negotiations. And then from there, you know, what do you need to do next? You have to source those components post negotiation. And, again, we're trying to really drive, a more systemic way of sourcing, than perhaps we had done in the past. So as well as having 36,000 suppliers, we manage hundreds of thousands of part numbers, and every single one of those part numbers has to be sourced to a supplier. And, you know, that is a long process. And if I go back to days when I was a commodity manager, I would spend two weeks sitting in front of a laptop basically sourcing part by part by part. And, you know, we've now given the the commodity management team the opportunity to source their parts within, you know, a day or two. So really helped to to scale, the team, you know, as far as what they can do with the limited number of folks that we have And, you know, really driven a more effective and efficient, sourcing sourcing strategy as well. So, you know, digitizing becomes really, really important, especially when you're dealing with some of the the complexity that we are when you think of the suppliers, the part numbers, the markets, and the customers that that that we're facing. You know, it's extremely complex. Absolutely. 36. I I think if I overthink 36,000 too much, it'll probably give me a bit of a headache. So I'm gonna I'm gonna move on from that, but it's, yeah, certainly sounds like a a a tool a tool order, but, of course, we have the more and more digital platforms these days to be able to to cope with that that number of suppliers. If we talk then supplier collaboration and and supplier performance as well, I think we should add into that, how from your perspective would you say today's procurement leaders can foster stronger partnerships? It's probably a lot easier said than done with with key suppliers to improve innovation, quality, and, of course, it to ensure reliability. Yeah. I mean, I I think, first and foremost, you have to be serious about it. I am fortunate to have worked for some CPOs and chief supply chain officers that are extremely focused on the development of supplier relationships, and it's something that I also hold, you know, kinda dear to myself. You know, we we we're very cognizant of the fact that of where we sit within the ecosystem. You know, we sit between component manufacturers slash distributors and obviously building for for OEMs and some of the biggest brands in the world. You know, so without those relationships, you know, we can find ourselves in a pretty precarious position where, you know, perhaps we are not valued by some of those suppliers. So we wanna show that that we value those relationships, highly. And so so what Jabil has done, which I think is a little unique and perhaps a differentiator in in the market that we play in, is we created a supplier relationship management team, because we were serious about supplier relationships. And, you know, that team is a team of seven directors that do nothing but focus on the relationships that we have with about a 120 of our key component suppliers. We create codeveloped account plans with those suppliers, so we sit down every 12 months. We ask those suppliers, you know, what are you looking for from Jabil? And we'll also give them some things that we are looking for from that that partnership. And, you know, we measure ourselves on it. We at the end of that twelve month period, before we set the the the objectives for the following year, we sit down and we go through those those plans and say, well, did we meet the objectives that we set, for the previous twelve months? And, you know, if not, why not? And, you know, if we didn't, are we looking to to, kind of focus in on that for the next twelve months? So, you know, really being serious about it, really driving, a differentiated conversation, I think, is a a really good place to start. You know, we we also have a phrase in Jabil that we like to treat our suppliers like their customers and, you know, there is there is a lot to that. Right? You know, we are I think we're pretty fair in how we manage the conversations with our suppliers. I'll talk perhaps a lot later on about some of the behavioral traits that that we see within, you know, really positive conversations and and, you know, I'll I'll can I'll explain that as we go along. But, you know, with those relationships and and with those SRMs in place, it it does enable differentiated conversations. It enables us to get early access to to some technologies. For example, it helps us with not necessarily tactical supplier performance, because we we manage that within our purchasing teams and also our commodity management teams, but when we think about high level strategy performance and how they are performing in the market, how they are performing in front of our customers, and how they are performing at that kind of strategic level with Jabil, then we drive that through that SRM organization as well. So it's just it's just a little different. So, you know, when we think about collaboration for us, it's extremely important. You know, we are fully serious about it. Like I mentioned at the very beginning, we're all in on it. And then, you know, as we as we move through the next few years, that that that strategy and that that view that we have on suppliers is is not gonna change. Absolutely. Just a little bolt onto that, Graham. Really interested in the in the specialist SRM team. Is that as far as you know, is that quite a unique thing to Jabil, or are you kinda seeing maybe business is elsewhere kind of implement those specialist teams? So I I think it's unique to Jabil in in the fact that the position itself is stand alone. So we don't want the SRMs being involved in tactical escalations. We try and detach them as much as we can from, you know, the ninety day sprints that, you know, being a publicly traded company, we're constantly in. Right? You know, we're we're always, you know, looking out, thinking about our fiscal end, making sure that we can support our customers' fiscal ends. And, you know, from that perspective, you know, things can get a little bit tactical and, you know, operational. And so the way I like to kinda talk about it is that our commodity managers are focused on the next twelve months and what's happening then, you know, how we're making sourcing decisions, what's our commodity strategies, but our SRMs are thinking out beyond that. What's going to happen over the course of the next five years? Where do these suppliers invest in? Where are they potentially looking to make some acquisitions? Where are they potentially looking to withdraw from certain markets because that would have an impact in our customers. So what I really am trying to do is make sure that when they call the executives within the supply base, the executive is thinking, oh, it's Graham from Jabil. He's the SRM for semiconductors. I really wanna understand what's going on in Jabil. I really wanna understand what he's looking for from me because it's normally a differentiated conversation. It's normally an intriguing conversation rather than, oh, it's Graham from Jabil. He's phoning me about parts or a cost reduction or a component shortage. So we try and kinda split the the the two teams and their responsibilities in in that manner. Fantastic. Thanks, Graham. That was really, really insightful stuff. Now the next question I was gonna ask, I kind of think back on it now, and I sort of think, well, you know, if you had the answer to this, you'd you'd solve a lot of problems. But perhaps, Graham, you can provide some insight from from your, from your position. What strategies do you feel in particular these days can can really help balance cost efficiency, of course, you know, paramount in in procurement with resilience when you're managing such a diverse global supplier base with complex products? Yeah. I'd I've been thinking about this one quite a lot, and, you know, I think consistency becomes, you know, a key component of that answer. And, you know, I alluded to the point before about behavior, and and this is where, you know, I think, again, within Jabil and how we view our supplier partners, we have an approach. We have a behavioral approach that we like our procurement teams and supply chain teams to to follow. We call it our four c's behavioral strategy. So consistency is one of those things. You know, let's be consistent in our approach. Let's be consistent in our attack. Let's be consistent with the people that we're put in front of our supply partners. Communication, you know, we'll communicate clearly as transparent as we can. You know, I don't want anybody within our organization to be, you know, telling a lie that enables something else. We we have to be very, very clear in our communications, which then leads to credibility. You know, if if we're credible and we're constantly providing that that truth, that truthful answer, if we're constantly talking about, you know oh, sorry. Not talking, but actually delivering what we say we're gonna do, then our credibility increases in, you know, in in the electronics world and in particular with semiconductors, for example, you know, a lot of those suppliers are watching, you know, how you behave in negotiations and then how that translates to business awards. And, you know, after the business awards, they're expecting a purchase order. So if you can pull through the credibility of being somebody who's negotiating clearly and provides feedback that you've won that part, it then makes a sourcing decision and a sourcing award, which ultimately leads to a PO, then your credibility is only gonna increase. And when semiconductor suppliers or any supplier for that means has the decision on which customers are gonna support. They're gonna support those credible customers first. And then the fourth c, would be collaboration and and how do we effectively collaborate. And, you you know, we spoke about SRM, and what we're doing there. Our commodity management team are highly collaborative as well, you know, sharing information and data that enables the cost sorry, the suppliers to be, you know, more informed about what's happening within Jabil, give them opportunities to succeed, give them opportunities to grow. You know, I I I think those behavioral traits become a really important part of balancing those strategies that you mentioned earlier. You know, how do you balance cost competitiveness and resilience? Well, you need to pivot because markets change. You know, and if if you're displaying those behaviors and those behavioral traits, then suppliers are gonna lean in on you. They're gonna give you the support that you need as you kinda move through those kinda ebbs and flows of the market. You know? And in electronics, we we see big swings. Right? We move from buyer's markets to sellers markets every three, four years, and, you know, you can't just be the supplier champion for the the couple of years where you have a a a a supplier's market, you know, and then start beating the hammer down when you're when you're in a buyer's market. That that's not any way you operate because people have long memories, and, you know, they're waiting for their time. So, we we like that consistency in how we and how we approach the supply base. So I think that's that's one of the key things that I would consider. Great. Fantastic. Yeah. That's great advice, Graham. People certainly do certainly do have have long memories in in these situations I've learned in in recent months. I wanna talk pivot the conversation slightly to really enabling those faster, more data driven sourcing decisions. I think data driven is one of those sort of hyphenated words. It just just comes up time and time again in in recent months, as I say. How it'd be remiss not to talk in more depth about about AI, real time analytics. How are they really enhancing that ability to evaluate supplies, monitor risk, and really up that sourcing speed in what is such a a dynamic environment? Yeah. Kinda feels like we might be repeating some answers here, but, you know, when we think about I think negotiations are is a key a key element of this, you know, in moving to a more real time negotiation, having information that's that's valid today, you know, as the kind of the foundation for the negotiation, you know, really makes a massive difference. And then, you know, if we think about the how the the the data has flown into those negotiation applications, having real consistent data enables that information to flow beyond negotiation, so anti sourcing and to, you know, supplier performance management. But probably more importantly, enables AI to become part of the conversation. So, you know, if I think about what we are doing, with AI and negotiations, we are absolutely not moving all our negotiation responsibilities to an AI agent, but we are absolutely using it to augment the the knowledge and insights that we have within the commodity management team. So our commodity managers will continue to to negotiate, but it will be augmented with AI. They'll be using AI to help support their conversations. So without that data and without that consistency in data, it's really difficult to bring AI into the conversation because, you know, it's it's really conditional on the the information and data that you have. You just can't set AI on top of, you know, nonsense. It's gonna give you a nonsense answer. So, you know, having having a consistency in the data, having, AI set on top of, you know, really intelligent information is only going to enable your commodity managers or category managers or whoever the sourcing agent is to to perform better. But I I I think the key thing for us is that, you know, it's not necessarily there. AI is not there to replace our commodity managers. It's to augment what they're doing. It's to give them more of an opportunity to be to drive a successful, negotiation. Mhmm. Fantastic. Yeah. Thanks, Graham. Really, really pleased that you emphasized the the data quality, which, of course, is a real a real sort of big topic of of discussion at the moment and one that increasingly, I think, needs to be needs to be emphasized. I wondered just finally, as we kind of move, you know, rapidly really towards towards the closing stages of our our conversation, what practical steps then from your perspective? We talk about that data, but we often find, as you kind of hinted out there, it can be either low quality or or fragmented even. So in terms of unifying that data maybe between procurement, engineering, and the supply chain, how can we really unify that data to improve end to end visibility and, I suppose, strategic decision making within that? Yeah. You know, a number of years ago, Jabil made a decision to to use SAP as our ERP system. We we have we're using that single instance of SAP over over a 100 factories, and, you know, that has enabled us to be or or it's it's it's given us a great start when it comes to data management. Let's just put it that way. And, you know, from there, I think in the last, you know, several years, we've been on a path to ensure that, you know, there is some consistency in our data. Managing that data has to be, it's a full time job. Right? I mean, we've got a team of people that are managing that data. You know, I mentioned 36,000 suppliers, hundreds of thousands of part numbers. We have over a million, quotes coming into Jabil every quarter. You know? So managing all that data becomes becomes critical. And, you know, it basically, when you manage that data in a way that enables you to have one single source of the truth, then it's gonna put you in a much stronger position when we think about how do we then incorporate that data across multiple functions. Because, you know, it's one thing having data that's available to the procurement team. But if I'm speaking to other functions, well, that's operations, whether it's the supply chain team, whether it's whether it's engineering, you know, we we need to be talking the same language. We need to be looking at the same information and data. And this is where I think, you know, within our supply chain team, we've got a a really strong vision on end to end visibility and what that looks like, and we have a tool that we're gonna use for that. We call that internally b command. So having that b command platform and basically having all of our functions feed data into that and then create that consistency will enable that cross functional view of data, of information, of insights, whatever it may be. But without without working on the data management piece of it, then it's gonna be very difficult to kinda create that pyramid approach where you've got one view at the top. And and the other thing I would say is that it's one thing managing your internal data, but if you truly wanna succeed, I I believe you have to look beyond what you know yourself and what sits within inside your own four walls. And whether that's pulling information from the web, whether it's using third parties, whether it's getting data from your suppliers, you need to find a way to pull that internal internal data, that external data, that structured and unstructured data into one database that enables you to then pull from it. And again, that sounds fairly simple when you you say it like that, but that, I mean, has been a massive task force, and it's something that, you know, if if companies are out there or procurement orgs are out there looking to try and implement things like AI or introduce that command center type, approach, then it really does start with data, and it really does start with creating a consistent view and understanding of data. Because if you don't do that, you're just chasing your tails, you know, as as you move forward with your your vision and your strategy. Absolutely. Now we're very nearly the, the end of of my questions for you for you, Graham. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna sidestep slightly to to one of our presubmitted, audience questions. I'm gonna go to to this one. So given the speed of change in electronics manufacturing, how can procurement and engineering teams work more closely to ensure supply decisions support both innovation and cost efficiency? Quite a bit to pack in there, Graham. Are you able to tackle it? Yeah. You know, I I I think we're fortunate within within Jabil as well that our supply chain and supply chain slash procurement and our engineering teams work very closely together. We we share strategies, and insights. I mentioned, you know, the use of cross functional and or creating cross functional data opportunities. We we do that as well. So our engineering team use our procurement, intelligence platform to help them, as they are, you know, evaluating suppliers, you know, looking beyond the pre preferred supplier list that we push to engineering. So we will tell them, hey. If you're looking for a capacitor, here's the suppliers that we would recommend you use. Sometimes, you know, the the the product that they're looking for just isn't contained within those suppliers that that we're putting forward, so they have to go and look at alternatives. So then they're looking for, you know, where where do we have scale and leverage, with suppliers, you know, how are those suppliers performing currently within Jabil, you know, and and truly truly try to understand whether that new supplier is gonna be a a good fit for the for the product that they are they are designing. So, you know, we we work very closely with that team. We also align on key metrics, you know, with the the design and engineering team, make sure that, you know, we're we're all pulling in the same direction. You know, we have had in the past instances where, you know, we've been a we've been approving suppliers within designs or or within the engineering function that perhaps would be you know, we would consider them on the bench. Right? We've we've maybe pulled them from the game for whatever reason, and, you know, the the supplier has still found a a way to get into, you know, some of our designs. And, you know, I think over the last few years, we've done a really nice job in making sure that those instances are few and far between and that our engineering team are, you know, fully on board with the strategies that we have with the commodities we manage. And at the same time, the engineering team has done a really nice job in explaining, you know, where their focus is, you know, which supply which commodities and products are going to be critical, for them as they move forward with their designs. And, you know, and, ultimately, that will allow us to scale up a reliable and cost competitive product. Right? And, you know, if if we're not working together, then, you know, the, the the the result of the design would would lead to, you know, something that our customers aren't looking for. So, you know, having having the the combination of of, you know, really good commodity strategies and and really informed design and engineering teams just just leads to better customer satisfaction. So, ultimately, a a good thing for both us and our customers. Great stuff. Graham, I just wanna I just wanna end really with just a a final question. It's a a natural point really, and that's by kinda looking ahead as we approach towards approach the end, I I should say, of of 2025. Goodness knows where that's gone. But 2026, what's it looking like for you? Obviously, like you said, a position of of new responsibility. What does 2026 look like for you and your role and and for Jabil as a whole? Yeah. I think we're really excited by, 2026. You know, the the electronics industry, over the last two or three years has been going through a bit of a lull after a extremely crazy period where it was extremely difficult to get, you know, things like semiconductors. So, we we are optimistic that, you know, the demand is gonna start to rebound across the the entire electronic sector. We already see, many customers and markets starting to to pick back up, which is extremely positive. The one thing that we're keeping a close eye on though is, you know, ventries are extremely low, lead times are extremely short, Capacity utilization is pretty low. So so we have a concern that any kind of uptick in demand is just gonna create a bigger supply problem. So, you know, we're talking very closely with our supply partners and our customers, trying to provide that transparency to, you know, what's going on, you know, at the macro level and what's gonna drive demand, over the next few months. Because if we're if we're not informing our supply partners of what's coming, then, you know, we're all gonna end up back where we are back in '21 and '22. So nobody wants that. So, yeah, really exciting. I think we've kinda hit the bottom. We're on our way up. So, you know, '26 looks really good. Can't wait for it. Positive stuff. And, yeah, exciting times, I would say. Great. I mean, I'm afraid, Graham, that's that is all we've got time for for today. My thanks go to to all of you, of course, for watching. And, Graham, we'll we'll speak again very soon. No doubt. Hopefully, catch you at one of our forthcoming procurement and supply chain live events, possibly the US summit in, in Chicago next, next year, I'm hoping. Now the recording of, of our webinar will be available shortly. So if you so desire, you can come back and watch it all over again. You can also catch more webinars over on the Manufacturing Digital website. Just head to manufacturingdigital.com. Thanks again to you all for watching. Bye for now.