BUYERS ARE SELLERS TOO. Daniel Lueck believes that buyers also have to sell to suppliers to be a partner with their company, especially when adopting a new software solution. Dan is a Strategic Sourcing Manager at Provisur Technologies with 35 years of supply chain experience on his belt. He will be joining Sarah and will be sharing his experience on how to get suppliers to adopt new supply chain software and many more! So tune in and get to know more of Dan here in What The Duck!? Show Highlights: Introducing Daniel Lueck How Dan winded up in the supply chain Supplier Relationship Management = Everything Supplier experience and supplier adoption of new software The important data and metrics to look for Dan's best supplier adoption success story Quotes: Dan - What he loves about the supply chain: “Distribution has its limitations, you don't have as much interaction with the people on the floor, what you're bringing to the table. I enjoy watching things being built, I enjoy seeing the end product, and where that goes out in the market.” Dan - Why supplier relationship management is everything: “It's a two-way street. I learned about their business, what it takes to run it, what the cost drivers are capacity restraints, and things that they're struggling with, and I in turn, relay my expectations and what we need on our side to make our company successful.” Dan - The company’s buyers are the salespersons: “I always told my buyers, you're actually more of a salesperson. The more that you can entice them and they want to be a supplier to your company, what do they have to look forward to new products, new opportunities on there and that's what you're you're selling.” Connect with Dan and learn more about his work: About Dan About Provisur Technologies Inc Provisur.com Connect with Sarah and find out more about what the duck she’s up to: About Sarah Sarah’s Tweets About SourceDay SourceDay Website Had fun with the podcast? Leave us a like, share our content, and subscribe! See you soon on the next episode of What The Duck?!
BUYERS ARE SELLERS TOO.
Daniel Lueck believes that buyers also have to sell to suppliers to be a partner with their company, especially when adopting a new software solution. Dan is a Strategic Sourcing Manager at Provisur Technologies with 35 years of supply chain experience on his belt. He will be joining Sarah and will be sharing his experience on how to get suppliers to adopt new supply chain software and many more! So tune in and get to know more of Dan here in What The Duck!?
Show Highlights:
Quotes:
Dan - What he loves about the supply chain:
“Distribution has its limitations, you don't have as much interaction with the people on the floor, what you're bringing to the table. I enjoy watching things being built, I enjoy seeing the end product, and where that goes out in the market.”
Dan - Why supplier relationship management is everything:
“It's a two-way street. I learned about their business, what it takes to run it, what the cost drivers are capacity restraints, and things that they're struggling with, and I in turn, relay my expectations and what we need on our side to make our company successful.”
Dan - The company’s buyers are the salespersons:
“I always told my buyers, you're actually more of a salesperson. The more that you can entice them and they want to be a supplier to your company, what do they have to look forward to new products, new opportunities on there and that's what you're you're selling.”
Connect with Dan and learn more about his work:
Connect with Sarah and find out more about what the duck she’s up to:
Had fun with the podcast? Leave us a like, share our content, and subscribe! See you soon on the next episode of What The Duck?!
Welcome to What the Duck?!
a podcast with real experts talking
about real issues in direct spend supply
chain
and now here's your host
SourceDay's very own supply chain maven
Sarah Scudder
thanks for joining me for the What the
Duck?! Another Supply Chain Podcast
brought to you by SourceDay I'm your
host Sarah Scudder and this is the
podcast for people working in the direct
materials part of supply chain
today I'm going to be joined by Dan Lueck
and we're going to discuss how to get
suppliers to adopt a new supply chain
software
if you work for a company that is
struggling to get your suppliers to
adopt a new system then this episode is
for you
I'm @SarahScudder on LinkedIn and
@SScudder on Twitter
if you are new to the show make sure to
follow this podcast so you don't miss
any of our direct spend supply chain
content
today I'm excited to be joined by Dan
Lueck. Dan is the strategic sourcing
manager at Provisur technologies
Provisuer manufactures food processing
equipment
Dan oversees supplier capacity
planning
and is responsible for key performance
indicators for fill rates on-time
deliveries cost savings
quality and inventory turns Dan is known
for his ability to get strong supplier
adoption and usage when his supply chain
team implements new software
welcome to the show Dan
thank you
so how did you wind up in supply chain
well my first job was in distribution
and I always like to negotiate I like
the relationship
working with suppliers and what they
bring to the table
and
getting more into supply chain when I
move from distribution to manufacturing
I decided that it was
time to get some certifications and kind
of understand
the whole realm of manufacturing so I
went and got certified at Apex American
Production Inventory Control Society and
also receive my CPM
certified
purchasing management degree
and
you know have been working with
suppliers for now over 35 years
why were you drawn specifically to
manufacturing
well distribution has its limitations
you don't have as much interaction
with the
you know the people on the floor
what you're what you're bringing
to the table I enjoy watching things
being built I enjoy seeing the end
product
and you know where that goes out in the
market I've been in telecommunications
other electronics and finally at
Provisur where we make food
processing equipment
so to me that's exciting being able to
walk out on the floor
and
you know all the things that you're
bringing in and the things that you're
doing
and
how it makes a difference with your
company
what does supplier relationship
management mean to you
Sarah means everything
that's that's very important to have a
good relationship with your suppliers
it's a two-way street
I learn about their
business
and what it takes to run it what the
cost drivers are
capacity restraints
things that they're struggling with
and I in turn
you know relay my expectations
and what we need on our side to make our
company successful so
bringing those things together
and both of us
learning about each other's you know
process
what what we do
that that's key to success
so in prepping for this interview Dan
you said something to me that really
stood out
why do you believe that a supplier
should be a buyer's most important
stakeholder
well
I always tell my buyers you're actually
more of a salesperson
the more
that you
can entice them and they want to be a
supplier to your company you know what
do they have to look forward to new
products
new opportunities on their end
that's that's what you're
you're selling
so the more that they want to be a part
of your business
the more
they are going to put forward
and try to be that key
partner
when selecting a new software which I
know your your team has done many times
throughout your 35-year career
why should what should you prioritize
to help ensure you get good supplier
adoption and I want to highlight this
because I think this is something that
is often missed
when companies are going out and
assessing and looking at software
they're looking often at the end user
experience but not the experience of the
supplier
well
our our adoption has been on all three
sides
planning, buying
and and the suppliers
I probably started talking about this to
our
key
you know 25 suppliers
six months before we were ready to roll
out
I got them
keyed into
what this was going to do
as far as our communication
we struggle with all the emails back and
forth back and forth and and trying to
have one location
where all
of the information was housed
suppliers can can go into it buyers
planners and we all have one place and
not
you know many many emails
I remember talking to
the buyers and asked them
I know you struggle with all the emails
what percentage
is
probably expediting and
back and forth with suppliers
and they probably said about 75%
so
any way that we can
you know group that information together
and put it all in one spot
and
you know preparing them out of time that
that's keys to success I also asked some
of them
if they've ever been on a different
called a portal system
communication like that
and many of them have
and when I asked them which ones
I had a few people that said SourceDay
and that's the best one they've been on
and when you were looking at
this
software solution option to help your
suppliers minimize the amount of emails
and manual work
that they were doing
what was your strategy how did you go
about that selection process
well
it was actually you know presented to me
back in 2018 where the sales rep
wanted to come in and
you know show me his his product
they actually sat down with my
counterpart on materials management
and we did a swot analysis there and
showing them what we do well what we
need to do better
and
and then they took a look at our whole
dynamic
and took our situation
and showed us how it would fit into
SourceDay
so that they listened to us they
also had a
you know we had them all in a meeting
afterwards we had the buyers and
planners
when they later on presented the product
to go through it and show them all the
steps and
you know what to expect going forward
get all their questions out front
what does good supplier adoption mean to
you
and the reason I ask you this is when I
was prepping for our interview some of
your peers describe you as
the the supplier whisperer or somebody
who just excels at
getting suppliers to adopt and and using
a new system which is something that's
very very challenging for a lot of
people
yeah one of the things that
you know I've heard before is
partnership and respect
and
both of us growing and getting better
so
you know some of the things that I've
adopted back in 2015 were score cards
actually back to
in the mid 1995
and to 2000 doing scorecards
more on a manual you know process then I
put that in place at Provisur about 2015
where
you know the first thing we looked at
was how do we track our on time
then the next one was quality
and a lot of the other metrics were more
subjective
you know how well do they interact with
engineers communicate back to you
acknowledgements and so on
what I liked about SourceDay is that
my goal is to take those things that
were done on other programs
and
the live version
that we can do where everyone can see it
the buyer can see it the supplier can
see exactly where they're scoring
we have quarterly reviews with our
suppliers
we set the expectations
and then at the
end of the year first of the year
we have a formal year in review where
we go through their scorecard
it shouldn't be a surprise on how
they're doing and what we expect
and what our goals are and that's when
we set the goals for the next year if we
wanted
go from 95 on time
and maybe the next year it's 96 we're
shooting for 98.
we've been very close to that
and
with the things that have changed with
the pandemic and and the supply chain I
think we're down to
probably around 94 now
so we got to get that back up it's
difficult
but
they know that that's what we expect
that's what they know we need
and
I was talking to a supplier the other
day
and
they said
you know we really appreciate what
you've done to make us a better company
and that means a lot you know we're both
trying to make each other better
at what we do
why is getting suppliers to adopt a new
software solution so difficult
well you you've got
we have some suppliers that have been
with us 20, 30, 40 years
we have some that
have moved along with time and embrace
change and like to see
things more efficient better way of
doing things and we have some that
you know like everyone they're used
to their old ways
this
I don't want to learn it this takes
too long
but we work through those
most of them want to make a difference
they want to do a good job
and
your company does an excellent job of
onboarding
answering their questions
the things that I liked was the
the videos that you
have available to them to look at the
step-by-step
process that they can look up and see
how to do things they've got the live
chat
and then they've got an email support
it's all there at their fingertips and
your training people are very good where
if they want a special
Zoom conference to go over their
particular problems they've been more
than happy to jump in and do that
so
you know trying to take away the excuses
it it may not have been the best time to
start out an ad SourceDay because of
this supply chain issue things going out
from six weeks to six months and so
on and further
so a lot of people
struggle and they're always firefighting
but we want to get away from
firefighting
and go forward and be proactive
and
and the way to do that is
you know through
you know software companies like
yourself anything where we can
you know minimize
the time we spend doing it
so you
successfully rolled out RPO
collaboration software and one of the
reasons it's been so successful is your
ability to get supplier adoption
even getting suppliers complimenting and
thanking you for rolling out our
software
we have buyers that are listening to
this
that are
really really struggling potentially
with rolling out some sort of new supply
chain software
because they're not able to get their
suppliers to adopt and they're getting
pushback
can you walk me through the steps that a
buyer shouldn't take
from start to finish as they're going
through this process of trying to train
on board
and get suppliers to use a new system
well it it benefits everyone not just
on our side but also their side
so
PO acknowledgements for one one
thing we never had a way of tracking if
they got the peel
did they accept it did they look at the
dates the
descriptions the pricing everything that
should be involved in that
so what we would do is once a week
we would send out an open order report
to them they would have to manually go
through that
and and look at it making sure that
there wasn't a glitch that they didn't
miss a PO
that you know
we all matched together that we were on
the same page that if they show they
shipped it complete that it was off of
there
if they show that they
you know shipped half of it and we
didn't see that
you don't go through the discrepancies
but you know showing them how
we can do it
and they can be
on this portal
anytime they want they they get all the
open orders they all go to them
automatically and we can see
when they acknowledge and when they look
at it
and they can send us back
any kind of you know changes no I can't
meet that date
that price is different and we can
get those resolved right away
we don't you know waste time with emails
going back and forth and then having to
go into our system to change them
if we
accept the date
we accept it and it changes it
and it
and it automatically changes our system
every 15 minutes same thing with the
pricing it goes over to the buyer
if he accepts it
it will change the PO
and get changed in our system
and if they don't then they can make the
comments back and so on but we have
all that interaction
right there and we see
you know what their responses have been
where before you would have to dig
through emails
and
just kind of showing on
in reality that
yes you have to learn something new it's
not difficult it's very intuitive
like I said people
you know praised
you know how easy SourceDay was
and and like it I had another one
that he's like he's our rock star and he
you know he loves it he's like I would
never go back
so you know using that
to
tell the other people who don't want to
adapt it
what's keeping you back asking the
questions
resolve their their issues one by one
how do you overcome or how did you
overcome objections at the very
beginning
before suppliers had a chance to
actually use the software
that said you know we're not going to
use this no way
we're not we have no interest in using a
new system
that
that's a good question because I really
haven't you know had anybody that says
no we won't do it
yes there are some that have five and
six different portals that they work
with
there are some where
maybe this is the first one
but
it it is an easy thing to do you know
there there's got to be a legitimate
reason why they say no and I'm not sure
what
what that legitimate reason could be
because it's it benefits both sides
and and we need to be able to
communicate
if if if they're going to supply to us
and they're
a partner
and
you know we we need to have that
relationship where
you know we both agree on what their
expectations are
you know if if I want acknowledgements
24 to 48 hours
then that's what our company needs
if we need them to update
you know
date requests within 24 hours then
that's what we need
if you know I want to measure
our on-time delivery
and that's a key goal for us
then it's a key goal for them
one of the other things that's been
important to your success is the data
and metrics piece
what supplier adoption metric should a
buyer truck
well like I said the first thing that I
always started out with was on time
you know that's that's you know
key you've got to have good dates
especially these days
I don't want to see any kind of lights
on on the report and I can see that when
I go to the
SourceDay dashboard
the next to me is is quality
it's got to come in if it gets rejected
and I could take time to send it back
I measure all kinds of quality I measure
the quality of
the POs and
my buyers are responsible for 100
accuracy
and and so is the supplier
the packing slip's got to be 100%
accurate
the invoice has got to be accurate and
we have to have that three-way match
in order to get paid
so obviously their incentive
is to get it right the first time
after that
responsiveness which now I can have a an
exact measurement through SourceDay so
the responsiveness to the
acknowledgements and also to their
updates
to me that's very important
the next one that working on with
SourceDay
is we will be measuring their purchase
price variance
another key indicator
obviously people roll standards
typically once a year
and there are changes especially
in this day and age
where we used to be able to negotiate
and get our
costs to be held for a minimum of a
year
sometimes two
nowadays with the you know the
changes you know how do we measure
how they've been able to do
since the January first roll on
standards
and what are the pricing at now you know
and how have we been able to
you know minimize that increase or
try to do cost avoidance and
and get those
you know orders to be accepted
further out than what they want it to be
so those are some of the the key things
that we want to make sure we measure
what about from a supplier perspective
what data or metrics are important for
them have you seen or heard any asks
that really stood out to you the metrics
that they're
prioritizing
they would obviously
you know like to do
more contracts blankets
vendor managed inventory
auto replenish
and and by doing that what we try to do
is I mentioned that we need to get
into their facilities and understand
their business
so
if a buyer or buyer planner is giving
them all these small orders
you know continually that becomes a lot
more work better to negotiate it and put
things up front allowing them
to plan their system and be more uh
effective
and and efficient the way they run
so
you know you have to know their side
and they need to know your side in order
to work out
your programs and ways of filling that
you know supply chain and having a
pipeline that makes sense
we do that we do that a lot
what's your favorite supplier adoption
success story
we have a metal fabricator
who is our top one I've actually got two
one as a distributor but the first one a
metal fabricator they actually used and
really adopted and and dug into
you know the training of SourceDay and
they now export the information into
their
I'll call it their ERP system
and
now when I go through their facilities
and they've got
these you know schedules on each part of
their process
to to make something
they can take our information put it in
there and if we mark
hot on a SourceDay item
it shows up now as hot
on their boards right in front of their
workstations
so that that was very good and that's
the one that said
you you've made us a better supplier
so you know that's that's what it's all
about and the other one was the
distributor
who
we set up
a customer safety stock program
and
you know that has been very efficient as
a pull system coming out of theirs and
managing that but he loves to be able to
communicate right through that system
and and get the updates done and
they I get a lot of suppliers that
that look at those metrics and don't
question
you know I know that that was received
you know on Monday and your results show
you didn't put it in until Wednesday
and they don't want to get dinged they
don't the more they see that scorecard
the more they want to do
the right thing and get better
if people want to check you out where do
you want to send them
they can find me on on LinkedIn
I am there
and any questions they have they can
you know
ask to to join
and I'll be glad to answer their
questions
thanks for discussing how to get
suppliers to adopt
new supply chain software with us today
Dan and in particular sharing your
experience using our
PO collaboration software and how you've
been so successful in getting supplier
adoption
if you've missed anything you can check
out the show notes if you are new to the
show make sure to follow this podcast so
you don't miss any of our direct fun
supply chain content
I'm @SarahScudder on LinkedIn and
@SScudder on Twitter this brings us to yet
another episode of What the Duck?! Another
Supply Chain Podcast I'm your host Sarah
Scudder and we'll be back next week