Digitally Savvy Resorts World Sentosa scooped the top honours at the CIPS 2022 Awards

In the 2022 CIPS Asia Excellence in Procurement Awards, Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) displayed its aptitude, created immense value using digital tools, understood its end-users in-depth and worked as an organization that strived for continuous improvement. The judges were impressed, naming them the ‘Overall Winner’ and the organization which made ‘Best Use of Digital Technology’!

In an increasingly digital-first world, spurred on by new and upcoming needs and technology during the height of the pandemic, it Is vital that organizations take ownership to digitize in an efficient manner. It is no longer sufficient just to put digitalization on the agenda, viewing the matter without an organized approach. In their article, Gartner also states the top 10 priorities for new Procurement leaders including ‘Procurement vision and strategy’, ‘Procurement technology’ and ‘Digital disruption & business transformation’, illustrating the urgent need for strategic innovations and technology in this industry.

RWS excelled in this respect, showing clear and well-thought-out strategies in its digital transformation. They also did a fantastic job in other aspects of procurement, allowing them to nab the Overall Winner accolade. We spoke to them to hear their thoughts and for more elaboration into their procurement strategies that worked so well for them!

1. How does winning as the overall winner at the CIPS Asia Excellence in Procurement Awards impact the team at RWS?

Winning the award is a tremendous honour and recognition for what the team has done, especially considering the major disruptions brought about by Covid-19. This award also spurs us to continue to push the frontiers, such as in the areas of transformation, procurement excellence and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG). These are important areas that I see fellow practitioners embarking on too. My team and I look forward to learning from other organisations to further these worthy causes for our own organisations and the procurement community.

2. Operational efficiencies are not only about cost cutting, in what ways did you create value using digital tools?

I see digital tools as a gateway to the future. The abilities, options and solutions made available are boundless. In a constantly evolving world with changing demands, the value of digital solutions is two-fold. Firstly, they improve the speed, efficiency and user experience in making purchases. Digital tools create value by making more options available such as providing seamless buying channels and more convenient methods of payment, as well as expediting three-way reconciliation and supplier performance review. Secondly, digital tools can strengthen the Procurement team’s intrinsic value creation. To conceptualise, devise and realise these solutions for the organisation is the transformed value of the procurement profession.

3. As the winner of ‘Best Use of Digital Technology’ – judges recognised you for your use of data analysis to improve decision-making, and operations and create efficiency savings. Can you tell us about your approach, what changes you made to existing processes and the improvements you saw as a result?

Our team reached out to end-users to understand their needs and how we can help them to be more operationally efficient. For example, visibility was one of the main challenges highlighted by end-users. Our team assisted in enabling customised reports according to users’ requirements and taught users how to customise their dashboards according to what they deem important to view. Business leaders can tailor their own KPIs snapshot view to review their team’s performance. Through this, users are not only able to access self-service reports with data, but they also have improved visibility of their daily operations. This helps them to identify potential risks, take corrective actions quickly, and ultimately make better business decisions.

4. Improving customer experience is a chief concern for most organisations as they digitalize. In what ways have you utilised digital tools to enhance CX and UX?

To constantly keep up with the pace of innovations, increasing agility, mobility and intuitive use of the system is the most crucial aspect of enhancing user experience. We continuously work on improving existing processes and look for untapped opportunities to further leverage digital solutions. We managed to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the existing digital system by performing analysis of operational data, coupled with surveys, interviews, feedback forms and working group discussions with both internal and external stakeholders. Some of the improvements we have implemented include:

• 8 processes have been automated using Robotic Process Automation (RPA), reducing approximately 77 hours of manual work per month.
• 17 system enhancements have been deployed to further enhance system capabilities.
• 90% of procurement forms are digitised with full traceability, saving the need for manual routing for approval.
• The training materials in our learning community portal feature training videos in addition to bite-sized training slides to create a better learning experience.

5. You mentioned your biggest challenge during your digitalisation project was to stabilize the processes, achieve value realization and increase the adoption rate from both internal users and suppliers. How did you go about overcoming these challenges?

We actively address the challenges by classifying them into 3 main pillars – “Operational efficiencies”, “Data-driven services” and “Customer experience”. In each pillar, an assigned team member works closely with stakeholders to address their concerns and feedback. Our team then comes together and brainstorms solutions in each area. This is to ensure there are no conflicting resolutions across all areas and that all grounds are being considered. Solutions are then rolled out in phases to ensure buy-in. Examples are:

• Operational efficiencies: We simplified/refined processes to best fit operational needs and overcome gaps highlighted by the various stakeholders.
• Data-driven services: We leverage data processing via Power BI and converted data into self-service KPI reports for easy access and sharing of information.
• Customer experience: We revamped e-learning to make them more interactive, conducted webinars to promote two-way engagement, and created step-by-step video guides for knowledge retention.

One of the main goals of our entire procurement department is to add value to both internal users and suppliers.

6. How did you work with your suppliers to enhance relationships and onboard them onto the new digital platform?

RWS believes in fostering a collaborative relationship with our suppliers and that communication is a key element in effective business partnerships. We kept suppliers informed and updated at each phase of the digital transformation roll-out. Webinars were conducted to train the suppliers in the use of the digital platform and to answer any queries they had. These webinars were recorded and made available for all suppliers on our RWS Procurement website. Bite-sized step-by-step training videos were also made to further engage suppliers. Procurement team members were equipped with the know-how as well to assist their respective suppliers on the onboarding journey. These initiatives also increased productivity for the Helpdesk Team as suppliers can self-help without needing to reach out to the Helpdesk Team to resolve queries or issues.

7. What innovative technologies have you introduced in the past 1-2 years and what new technologies are you looking into and feeling most excited about?

I view innovative technologies for an organisation from two angles. One is technologies which are procurement domain-centric and impact the buying community within the organisation. The second is technologies that support business processes and growth where we work closely with business units. In the past 1-2 years, innovations within procurement largely centred around operation efficiencies and monitoring. The way forward is to shift the focus to helping the buying community (users and suppliers). Some examples include the E-Vendor onboarding system, B2B e-commerce buy channels and so on. On the second angle, innovative technologies lie heavily in the area of ESG, and some examples include tidal technology, solar implementation, hydrogen energy conversion, EV options and so on.

8. What advice do you have for organisations looking to join the CIPS Asia Excellence in Procurement Awards in 2023?

To join the CIPS Asia Excellence Procurement Awards is to contribute and receive a healthy exchange of ideas, programmes and the latest trends amongst the most active procurement practitioners in the region. This helped to broaden the team’s perspectives and we gain valuable experience and knowledge. These collective exchanges help to advance the profession and help us to do more for our respective organisations. As a result, the community and society gain the most. So don’t hesitate to be part of this movement. Everyone is a winner.

In 2023, Procurement must strive to reach beyond baseline expectations and performance. The world is changing rapidly, and Procurement must evolve accordingly, with considerations such as ESG and strategic digital transformation. As we have seen in this interview, RWS has done an excellent job in this sense. Kudos to them and we hope to see more innovations from them in the future!