Name: Wb Amazon Business Manufacturing 2025 V1 (1080p)
Uploaded: 2025-11-06T12:01:15.303Z
Duration: 45 min 46 s
Description: Wb Amazon Business Manufacturing 2025 V1 (1080p)

Transcript for "Wb Amazon Business Manufacturing 2025 V1 (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 session is entitled building procurement resilience in manufacturing supply chains. Now what exactly do we mean by that? Think of procurement functions that can anticipate disruption before it occurs using data to spot vulnerabilities, diversifying suppliers, and strengthening networks to keep production moving even when the world around them remains unpredictable. Well, it's happening now, and it's transforming how manufacturers think about procurement. As global supply chains face ongoing volatility, the big questions we face are, how can manufacturers build visibility, flexibility, and strength into their procurement operations without sacrificing cost efficiency or continuity, and how can they turn uncertainty into opportunity? In today's session, we'll explore how to identify vulnerabilities, diversify and strengthen supply networks, leverage technology for visibility, and build strategic resilience. Now we've got lots to cover and not huge amount of time, on our hands. So let's get straight into it. Joining me today, we've got some real industry experts in the form of Ashley Norton, head of supply chain at NTT DATA UK and Ireland, and Martin Korna, executive director of supply chain management at Aston Martin Lagonda. Thanks so much to you both for, joining us today. Now I just want each of you just to spend maybe thirty seconds or so just, introducing yourselves, telling our audience a little bit about you. Ash, if you can, start us off, please. Yeah. Thank you, Tom. Yeah. So so my name is Ashley. I have over twenty five years of of industry and consulting experience largely in supply chain operations and procurement. I work with leading manufacturers in The UK, across multiple different industries, and I currently lead the the NTT supply chain advisory practice for UK focusing on technology but process orientated transformations for for clients. So, so yeah. That's a bit about me. Fantastic. Martin? Yeah. So I I'm thirty years in now. Twenty five years ago of that thirty years, I fell into automotive. My whole career has been in procurement and supply chain. First half, really pure procurement. Second half, let's say, the business side of supply chain. And, in my last two roles, if I count them both, I was the global head of supply chain management for Volvo Cars. That was the full operations, sourcing strategy, end to end cost planning side. And now I'd ask to Martin. I've done it doing the same. I've got the full supply chain management remit. But just to be clear, supply chain and procurement are separate functions. So that could be something we develop further in this discussion, I think. Absolutely. Without a doubt. Fantastic. Now I wanna get straight into our our questions, if that's okay, guys. Actually, I'll I'll come back to you, with the first one, and, it strikes me actually, no. I read it again. It's something we could probably spend all day answering. But how, from your perspective, would you say that procurement teams working in the manufacturing sector can improve visibility given the vulnerabilities that we we face, today. Yeah. So so procurement have got a massive role to play in in driving and creating that resiliency, that transparency. And as Martin, I think, was just alluding to, I think the delineation between procurement and supply chain is actually there's a lot more ambiguity between those functions now. So I think supply chain resilience can come from either supply chain or procurement as an organization. But having the the drive and having the vision to look at what outcomes actually drives value to the business is critical. So I think as a first port of call, when procurement are starting to look for sources of supply and to start to penetrate the market and how they want to engage, they can start to think much more proactively about the things which will drive real outcomes, differentiated outcomes, which historically have not been important, like ESG sustainability, and many, many of the different, drivers and use cases. Mhmm. Martin, your thoughts on that? Yeah. I I a very similar answer. I mean, I was gonna be provocative and say procurement can't do that in the purest sense of the world, in the purest sense of what procurement functions used to do. And I think it does link to what Ash has just said about that. Where does the delineation start? Because what I think has become patently clear is that that full end to end value chain setup is the bit that will allow companies to derisk their supply chains. So you're sourcing footprints, your lead times, factoring in things like ESG requirements, also thinking mostly like what tied up capital will you have, what chances there of some form of geopolitical risk or environmental concern based on the end to end supply chain. And also, again, with the hat on that I wear now and what I'm increasingly passionate about is actually short, medium, and long term planning, forecasting, capacity management, and then stability in planning around features and complexity is so important in the car industry. But I think that's why, I've become a passionate believer that when you say procurement or supply chain, actually, we need to think the whole three sixty picture of that operating business model. And one way or another, whether you call it supply chain or procurement, that end to end view of all the levers and factors need to be taken into account when you set up the value chain to build resilience as well as go for cost efficiency, cash efficiency, etcetera. Mhmm. I I think what I think what's what's key in my mind is is the alignment in terms of the organizational awareness of what the the strategy is and what you're trying to deliver and how you're going to deliver that because won't go into details. But but I've got experience, you know, within the last couple of years where a large organization had differing views of of what was important for them. So on one hand, you've got procurement, which are negotiating cost down the suppliers and the sourcing in the different geographies and then getting those efficiencies because that's how they're measured. But, actually, what they're they're doing as a default is pushing up the carbon cost and, actually, the driving and increase in logistics and operational costs. So, actually, you need to step back and talk about our total landed cost, you know, rather than individual objectives. And this is where the value chain angle comes into play, and that's how you need to step back and look at it from a bigger picture. Hardly agree. And and what I would say, Tom, to build on what Ashley said is I think this is, particularly in the automotive industry, and I'm sure it goes for most manufacturing organizations. I think this is an evolution that's happening, isn't it, Ash, that there's more and more recognition of that end to end or total cost of acquisition aspect and the strategy being aligned as to what the most important business driver is and and really taking that balanced scorecard view when when the sourcing's done. Absolutely. Fantastic. Now I suppose if we if we stay focused on on those vulnerabilities, and and, Martin, I'll start with you on this one. There's maybe some, maybe obvious ones that that come into the this the discussion here. But from If we look at the kind of the digital tools that our procurement teams are maybe increasingly, harnessing, I suppose, to to uncover those hidden blind spots, you know, maybe what are you maybe, Martin, if you could tell us a bit about what you guys at Aston Martin are harnessing to, to uncover those blind spots. I mean, Ash knows this well because we we have discussed this recently, but, I think, Aston, like a lot of the automotive OEMs, and and let's go the very broad brush storyline is the semiconductor crisis particularly has exemplified it. And actually, we have a hit this week with Nexperia, very topical. But I think there was a realization that the traditional one dimensional relationship between the automotive industry and its first tier suppliers, there's our demand, deliver on time in full at that price, thank you very much. That's out of the window and that sort of, let's call it supply chain illumination of understanding how the second, third or tier end supply base of supply chain maps out and the various, let's call it, risk points along that supply chain is really crucial. Not only should we understand how that flows through to what we require from our suppliers, is also, working out how we derisk that in more in partnership with our first tier suppliers as well. So there there are definitely a lot of digital tools on the market. I would say some OEMs in the automotive space are more advanced than others, but what we have realized is the traditional, let's call it, mainframe MRP systems are out the window, and we do need to invest in more. Let's call it scientific digital solutions that not only focus on demand, but will also trigger alerts through the supply chain and the tier ends when those things occur, whether that be some form of disruption in a country where the raw material comes from or a flooding or the Suez Canal is closed, whatever it may be. Those sort of tools will give you the real time alerts that then forecast the impact on your own production and create some sort of action of contingency or containment action. Absolutely. Ash, your thoughts? Yeah. There's there's lots of good solutions out in the market, and I honestly believe that a well integrated average solution will always outperform a non integrated best in class solution because it's how the business choose to act act on those those risks, those curated insights, which actually delivers the value. The data is vitally important. The curation, the insight enables you to make decisions, but how you act on on those those insights is really what drives the value. And that's what I think businesses in many different sectors often, fail to understand or or they miss. Data the abundance of data is a problem. So understanding what you acquire as an organization from a data perspective and the connectivity and the mapping into the actual data ecosystem is where it all lies. It's almost a sweetie shop of data. It's the pick and mix. So if we talk we flip back onto this subject of value chain or procurement or supply chain, quite often, the right solution can enable you to solve problems or use cases across the organization. So, you you know, use cases that procurement may have might be about cost and inflationary risk or supply chain might be concerned with delivery disruption through weather conditions in certain geographies, reports. There's a whole host of different, use cases and needs in the same way ESG will have its own data requirements. But but through that central orchestration, you can start to unlock value across the ecosystem, the enterprise. And it it's how you build that into your fabric because it just doesn't exist out of the box. It can only be built by each organization because everyone's got a different appetite for risk. Everybody has an appetite for when does something go to a sales and operations planning review or or an executive sort. It's how you choose to use the data and act upon it which really drives the outcome. Absolutely. You've you've both, of course, unsurprisingly, mentioned data. Martin, I just wanna come back to you and just, hone in on that just just slightly more in real time data. You know, just how crucial probably goes without saying in a way, but just how crucial has has that become when it comes to to to risk mitigation? Yeah. It's becoming more crucial, and I think, again, it's all levels of maturity. I think we've relied on in the past our logistics providers usually to alert, and I'm saying our, this is the industry. If you go back in the last five, ten years, you were still at a point where if your logistics provider turned over the first tier supplier and what was going to be loaded on a truck wasn't there in full, that would usually trigger the response. I think what we're getting better at is probably relationship management. But I think that next phase of implementing a tool that is embedded in the working system of the company, both from a system and a people and process perspective, that's that's the development phase we're on because we do want those real time alerts. And at the moment, we're relying on relationships, word-of-mouth, but the triggers then depend on people getting the right word-of-mouth warning from people. And if it doesn't happen, we find out when the problem has already occurred. And I think that's why we are looking to invest in some of these risk management systems. But I think Ash's advice is very good. It's not about the whiz bang system. It's actually the change management implementation and embedding it into something that creates action. Because without that, we we can't do anything anyway. So, you know, being being very open, we're still relying on our partners, either our supply partners from an operational perspective or our logistics partners to trigger alerts, but we're well down the line in considering an embedded system that gives us all a variety of alerts, whether it's financial risk, geopolitical weather, you name it. So I can't say we have it today, but we do plan to have it tomorrow. Absolutely. Ash, is that something you're seeing, those those plans to to integrate those types of solutions that really offer that that real time those real time updates? Yeah. There's a lot more interest, certainly within the last twelve to eighteen months. I think post COVID, I think the number one subject that everyone became an expert on overnight was resilience, and most people spoke about resilience almost to the point where, you know, it was, you know, me too, me too. And there was a lack of advice about how you actually achieve that resilience. People talk about the need for second tier, third tier, end tier visibility, but there's few people actually talk about how you actually get there and how you actually make it work. So there's a lot of of work that's been done by solution providers. The technology's improved. The intelligence within those platform has vastly improved. So we're at a point now where I think it's getting interesting for lots of organization to explore this further. The truth is most organizations in all industries are still really early on in this journey. You know? Martin and Aston Martin are are not really that far behind if at all, if the truth be known. You know? There are organizations which have invested in NTA visibility, but it's been very, very narrow. So if you take semiconductors as an example, the industry, not just automotive, but other industries were forced to understand what their complete supply chain looked like because they were forced to. They had to. But if you then talk about, well, what about the other 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 suppliers, that level of intelligence has not been scaled because you can only scale to that number of suppliers with the use of technology. You might be able to do the top 50, the top 100, the top 100 maybe, but then you stop because you just can't validate that number of suppliers without levels within the actual network. So you you run out of investment or to people all all the time, so you have to use technology. And I think we're at a point now where there's more trust. That depth of understanding around certain categories or commodities now needs to be broadened, but only with the use of technology can can organizations get there. And then it's a question of, do you trust it? Is it a priority? And then how do you use those insights to actually start to drive the outcomes that you you want to be. I wanna move the the conversation on now just just a little bit, I suppose, to, obviously, all all interlinked, but on to sort of supply diversification, sourcing diversification, whatever we wanna we wanna call it. You know, from from a from a match manufacturer's perspective, you know, when we are looking to to mitigate risk, I'll use that I'll use that phrase again. You know, what strategies can can manufacturers implement? You know, what what's what's the starting point for for a a maybe not a struggling manufacturer, but a manufacturer who's really looking to to diversify? Where does that journey begin, Martin? I don't know if you could provide some insight on that. Yeah. I can try. I mean, going back going back to that point about the COVID situation, I think that trend, the other buzz phrase was going from just in time to just in case. And of course, the car industry is a very complex global supply chain footprint at very high cost. And generally, I think for decades, because the tooling costs are so big an investment for most of our parts suppliers and in in in fact, the cost of the vehicle so much. Generally, the car industry has gone single source for core commodities to supply, let's say, global footprint of factories. I'm talking more the bigger OEMs now. And I think the intellectual somersaults that my sector has been going through in the last few years is, okay. Well, dual tooling and dual sourcing or multi tooling and multi sourcing is very expensive. But if we want to make sure we protect our assets and are able to produce cars, how do we do that analysis of which commodities to consider diversifying and localizing supply. There was a lot of talk going about semiconductors of how do we create a European semiconductor industry, and even the EU was talking about investing in that. But I think there's, if I bring it back to Aston, we're a very different beast in the context of we have very low volume, very high value cars. So the value to us of maintaining production is much more significant than that of, I don't make it for the brand, let's say, a very high volume brand. So I I think there is we we loop back towards this total cost of acquisition. And, actually, if we think more about the end to end value chain, costs, capital, and also align it with, well, if we've got local supply for critical commodities, the piece price might be higher. But once you trade off the logistics costs, less tied up capital, less safety stock, a lower lead time to specify a configured car to a customer, and then, let's say, offsetting the need to maybe discount the car because you built the car on a long lead time and it doesn't necessarily have a customer when you spec it. When you start to take these things in the rounds, it does allow you to start thinking differently about sourcing diversification and near shoring key key commodities. So we're currently right in the heart of having some of these discussions on some of our core commodities where, actually, we could increase increase the piece price by double digit percentage points, and it's still end to end a lower cost than taking the low cost solution with a long lead time supplier, let's say, on a higher risk supply chain. So that's the way I think we're starting to think differently about sourcing on the basis of, if we can't rely on low cost, reliable global supply footprints, How do we take a more holistic view to the end to end cost and business risk by maybe paying more to nearshore and diversify the supply base? Great stuff. Actually, is that is that sort of ringing bells with you? Is that all familiar stuff, what Martin's been saying there in terms of what you're seeing? Yeah. I mean, from experience, also, you know, fairly recently working in, you know, automotive industry in lower volume, higher value vehicles than than Martins. And I won't I won't say here, but, have the same problem because the investment in tooling makes it extremely difficult or prohibitive to to actually dual source. You you just can't. And it's also about the specialism of the components that go on to certain, you know, end products, you know, like Aston Martin's. That that makes it difficult just to resource. Different industries do have different opportunities where it's easier because of the lack of complexity and technical difficulty to make things, where you can start to to look at resourcing or dual sourcing. But but they tend to be more mid to strategic decisions, which is where Martin's alluding to in terms of the strategy around sourcing and localization of supply. But if we have kind of move back onto those risks and threats that emerge quite quickly, if we're lucky enough to hear about them quite quickly, you you just can't react with resourcing, particularly in the manufacturing, automotive, defense, aerospace, discrete manufacturing environment. You you just can't. So the the most beneficial thing you can do is is get the the information and the alert or notification of that risk as early as possible. That's actually the biggest value in driving resilience in the short term. If you think if you're, for example, you're sourcing, you know, components from Asia, you've likely got about six to seven weeks, maybe eight weeks of stock by the on the warehouse shelf and on the water, on the boat. So you've got about two months worth of stock in transit for you to make a decision on how you should protect your business. So the early you can get a risk notification, let's say you get that two weeks earlier than you would have got it because you've now got technology using NLP. You're scraping the Internet in 100 different languages, and you're picking up that text in some Mandarin kind of article, which is giving you that alert. Right? You might gain two or three weeks of reaction time on top of the seven or eight weeks worth of inventory you've got around you in some way. That can make a difference in terms of what your decision will be in terms of protecting the business. So so it's the speed. It's the insight. It's seeing it almost immediately, but that really does make a difference. Great stuff. And and just following on from that, Martin, are there any other sort of that that all important another all important word that's come up so much over the past couple of years, flexibility? Are there any other Mhmm. Strategies you maybe recommend to to build flexibility into those supply networks? Yeah. I think I think one on a slightly different tangent, but it was mentioned earlier. I think if you link it to the sales and operations planning process and demand sensing so, really, the more intelligent your demand forecasting and demand sensing is linked to what Ashish just said, then you get the right level of I like to call it inventory on purpose rather than safety stock. So you're able to react to the fluctuations in your demand from the consumer with the right sensitivity on inventory so that you can, let's say, fluctuate with that demand. And it's not about just having lots of inventory of everything. It's about having the right inventory for the right features. So for someone like Gaston, compared to a mass market brand, one of the big diversifying factors is the trim in the car. The consumer can take it is does actually convert into millions of end item configuration options because you can basically get a whole variety of trim colors in one car with different stitching threads on different colors. You can be very creative with how you spec the interior of your car. So the reality is, you know, fasteners and various things, standard parts, we can manage in another way. But what we need to make sure is those elements which are generating value to the customer or to our profitability, where the right inventory in place at the right time. But then we've got to get better at forecasting and smarter at forecasting. So I think that sales and operations planning process and demand forecasting accuracy is so crucial because that allows us on the supply chain and procurement side of the business to set the right supplier contracts with the right flexibility, the right level of inventory on purpose. And it does smooth out that value chain and allow the risk to be managed accordingly as well. Ash, anything you'd add there at all on the on the line of, flexibility? I think Martin's really covered it, nicely. And, I don't mean there's a lot more to add. It's flexibility is is expensive, but it's required, particularly in the the luxury car industry that that Martin, is leading. So so yeah. Mhmm. Absolutely. I wanna dive that a little bit deeper if we can into, you know, of course, we have, spoken about it in various different facets, supplier relationships. You know, what really takes something from a partnership into a a real relationship? Martin, what for you really defines a strategic supplier relationship? Yeah. I guess there is a textbook answer. But I do sometimes wonder about this because, ultimately, there is a commercial relationship involved that can break down very easily at a point of stress even in what you would say is the most friendly supplier relationship, perspective. So, I mean, ultimately, it works where the needs of both parties or the power, if you wanna call it that, distribution between both sides is equally balanced. And I think that's rarer than we think, if I'm gonna be very honest. I think so that's why I don't like to give the textbook answer. And I would say, when I worked for the high volume companies or big powerful OEMs, most of the power weight was with the OEM, and we could really push the first tier supplier to give us what we wanted at the right price with quite strong penalizing clauses for failure. And I think at Aston, it's much more nuanced, and and I think Ash has seen this in his past career in in some of his roles where actually, Aston is in a very strange situation. We either have very bespoke suppliers doing very technical solutions with carbon fiber or something like that where it's a very small supplier. There's a very symbiotic relationship between the two parties in the sense of the the reliance on Aston's business and vice versa, but the quality's got to be right. So in those sort of situations, yeah, both parties are in a similar situation, whereas Aston Martin dealing with Bosch, it's very different. Bosch ultimately is so much bigger, and we are you know, our volume is tiny in the context of their business. So a supplier partnership for me usually comes from a supplier where the the let's say, the risk of failure is equal on both parties, so the success of both parties is sort of equal. And then there's a there's a relationship in technical capability, quality solutions, cost, and let's say the long term future of both parties are intertwined. And and if that balance isn't there, ultimately, there's a commercial relationship with a power distribution that's uneven. And I think with the variety of crises that have been in the supply chain in recent years, the reality is most of the flare points, it flips one way or the other with a power broker, and usually there's a commercial or supply outcome that's unsatisfactory for either party. And I'm sorry I'm not giving a better answer there, but I think this is more of a a realistic answer from what we've seen in the last four or five years particularly. No. It's a it's a great answer. We we we prefer realism, I I think, in this, in this case. Ash, what what are you sort of seeing on the ground? You know, how we how how would you actually sort of define a, you know, a successful supplier relationship, I wonder? Well, I think it's it's really important to to kind of discuss the supplier and a partnership. You you mentioned relationship, and I think most of us would talk about partnerships in quite a loose sense. But, actually, actually, what we mean is probably a decent supplier we call a partner, where what we really need to start to work towards is true partnership in a sense that there's a recognition by both parties that there's a dependency, and it's that dependency that really matters. So let let's just take the unfortunate cyber incident that JLR recently suffered. Okay? The massive concern was for the supply chain security, not only from people's livelihoods and, you know, all of those things that are are well known. But, actually, if you think about it, a lot of those supplies is about continuity of business, which means continuity of supply, which means continuity of operations for Jaguar Land Rover. So if you actually step back from it, the criticality of the partnership can't be ignored when you think about it in that way. And there isn't enough acknowledgement in automotive, in wider in in any of the sectors that I I work with which truly values that partnership in in its purest sense because it it this is a is a supply network. It's an ecosystem where everyone is is required to do, you know, a a a task or a role or a process or an activity, which it delivers the value to the end value, which is to the client. We we all fall fall over unless unless we work in that way. And I've I've seen it for too many years where there is a very bureaucratic, a very, very strong and dictatorial way of of dealing with suppliers, and and it has to change Because there's gonna be a real pressure on uncertain industries to find efficiencies, which are not necessarily evident. And it's the only way to start to de risk some of the pressures that are going on in global industry, whether it's tariffs, whether it's Chinese luxury car tax and the threshold is being reduced. How do you mitigate all those things? The only way to start to mitigate some of those risks is to to do things differently, to do things better. And you you you won't do that on your own. You can only do that if you just like to to work with people more effectively. And the simple way to actually answer the question is is whether you've got a partnership is how much data do you share with one another. Because of all these commercial elements as IP, there's how much data do you share back and forth? That will give you the answer as to how strong the partnership it really is. Because if it's what we're given ASN okay. So what? Yeah. We give a price. Yeah. Okay. So what? It's prerequisite. Yeah. Do you share technical data? Do you share capacity information? Do you share risks proactively? Do you share quality concerns without being requested through SQA or those are the indicators which will tell you if you've got something different, which is not transactional. Mhmm. Fantastic. Data, yeah, once again coming into the conversation and and a a really good point, Ashley. One thing one final thing I just wanted to ask, which I I suppose in a way sort of underpins our our our conversation, and, Martin, I'll I'll come back to you again. What's the secret? I mean, if if there if there is a secret, you know, can you tell us, to balancing cost with long term resilience? So I guess that's sort of a a question that a lot of, procurement professionals have been facing in recent years, if if not if not in decades gone by. Yeah. It does link to the last question. Alright? And I loved Ash's answer on dependency. And I I think there's been a a nervousness to to talk about long term contracts, because there there's a nervousness on dependency ratios from a procurement perspective, and there's a nervousness on long term contracts because I think the traditional feeling is if you do that, the supply will stop being competitive. Whereas if I develop what Ash has just said, which I thought was a brilliant, answer, Actually, if that trust is there for the long term and you're sharing information and you're sharing data and you are working in a partnership, I actually believe that's the best way over a long term horizon to drive out real end to end cost from a supply chain or a commodity or a part. And I think if you're working in that context, you will have both the resilience because you've got the trust in the relationship. And over time, I think you get the best end to end cost out of it. And I and I think, genuinely, that's always been my philosophy, and I look back to my days as a buyer in the early days at Nissan or even before the car industry. A colleague who was a buyer came to me and said, I don't understand how you got good results, last year because you don't go in and bang the table with the supplier and say, give us 5% next year. Because my approach has always been one of curiosity would be, okay. Let's break this down. Let's look at how the cost of this part's broken down and what can we do together to actually take cost out over time. And when I say cost, I don't just mean price. I mean, you you know, and I I don't I'm happy for the supplier to make a fantastic margin if the end cost to to us is is is better. So I do think that relationship, dependency, trust, information sharing is in a if you've got a fantastic supplier relationship all the time, that gets the best blend of cost and resilience. But I recognize the barriers to that in the way that we we don't trust putting long term contracts in. We don't trust working with suppliers where there's too high a dependency because we fear if something goes wrong there or the trust breaks down, actually, the power goes on to the boot of the supplier. So I think there's a variety of things where there's a sweet spot somewhere, and I and we tend to have probably a very small percentage of our supply base where we have that sweet spot to get the best cost, and I deliberately use the word cost instead of price, with the relationship that gives us the platform for resilience as well over time. Great stuff. Ash, any any final thoughts there on on on striking that balance? I think there's a fundamental need for manufacturers to to revisit how they measure value. Okay? For far too long, we've had organizations and industry and experts speak about resilience, sustainability, but there's a lack of value driven metrics that organizations will generally widely use that actually demonstrates that to the c suite. So how do you measure the value of sustainability? Is it through sales? Is it through compliance? Is it through consumer value? Is it likewise, how do you measure resilience? Now there are some things that you can do. You can look at historically, you know, historical based events. You can make some assumptions about percentages of, you know, risk which would not occur going forward if you have to. The point is is businesses don't measure resilience and the value that can come from not having that event repeat again. They just don't do it. The event happens. Everyone talks about resilience. Everyone talks about risk. Everyone talks about but there's little that's been done. And if you look at the the the measures, the KPIs that organizations hold themselves to, so, functionally, across the enterprise, there there are the wrong measures which actually drives the organization to invest in the things that we're talking about, and that has to change. So I think that's a that's a big enabler to enable business cases to be developed more effectively, which will then fund and pay for some of the solutions that, you know, Martin's exploring, and I'm obviously working with lots of different partners. That will be the point which people say, yeah, there's a business case, and that aligns to this, this, and this. Quite difficult at the moment because it's a cost. And what people need to look at is not supply chain as a cost center, but they need to look at supply chain as being a strategic growth engine. Absolutely agree with that. To go somewhere Yeah. I agree. I think our challenge then, I would take from, I think, let's call it fighting the good fight is how do we start to influence the c suite and the boards to start thinking differently than the traditional way of running business performance? Because that's that's where we are. And I think that growth engine element, revenue generation, because an efficient supply chain that delivers a consumer demand is what will actually deliver growth rather than seeing it as a cost center. So I do like that mindset, but it businesses know anything differently about how they Yeah. Performance. I mean, I would put it to you, Martin, and and based on both of our shared experiences in in in similar environments. You know, there there's such pressure at the moment because of tariffs and and and Chinese luxury car vehicle taxes and things. It's at a point where it's gonna be difficult to sustain sales and and growth. And this is where supply chains have a really, really key role to play because we we both know that roughly just say half of the the the cost of the vehicle is in the bill of materials. Yep. And, therefore, that all comes from supply chain. It comes from procurement. It comes from how you manage the inbound flow of material. So the differentiator by finding efficiency can actually be an enabler to set at least sustaining sales or maybe helping to grow sales. And that's where I think it's gonna be different now because of the pressures that we're seeing in the industry. 100%. And I think that's that's the way we need to take it of, okay, how do we set the supply chain up to maximize revenue? How do we support using the car industry option generation with to increase the margin on the vehicle. So if we're selling less cars, is how do we do it better? And how do we generate more revenue and set the supply chain up to be something that is a revenue generating support rather than just a a drain on the bottom line of the income statement? Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. Absolutely. Great stuff. Thanks, guys. Now we are almost out of time. We do just have, just about have time for for one of our, presubmitted, audience questions. And I guess probably a nice way to end would just be a kind of a a parting piece of advice as as we look ahead. So one of our questions is, what advice would you give to procurement professionals working in manufacturing as we head into 2026? Ash, if there's one thing you had to pick out as we as we head into the new year. Okay. So I would absolutely suggest organizations need to consider the use of technology. We've not talked about AI yet, which is is quite quite mad in in this day and age, but but there's a lot of great technology out there. So choosing the right technology that has access to the right data ecosystem is massively important. So how does a data ecosystem and the availability of data map to the business needs that you have, but also get some support about how you use the technology and how you integrate it into the business, which ensures you actually deliver the value that you want. So they're the two key things. Approach technology wisely, assess it against your needs, the use cases that you've got across the enterprise and function by function, and then get some support even if it's just small to to understand how you can actually assure that that value delivery is is created. Martin, over to you. I think I'll just repeat what I've said through the throughout this, webinar really is don't just think price, think end to end total cost of acquisition, and think business connection for the whole value chain because that's where we become value drivers and not just cost and price managers. Absolutely. Fantastic. Ash, Martin, thank you so much. I'm afraid that is now all we've got all we've got time for today. Thanks again to both Ashley and Martin for for joining us today Yeah. And, of course, to all of you who've, tuned in and joined us, today. Now the recording of this webinar will be available shortly, so you can come back and watch it again if you so please. But for now, thanks again to you all for watching. Have a very good one.