Procurement in the post-Covid world with Anu Srinivasan at Bupa

The COVID-19 pandemic brought to light the gaps and vulnerabilities of healthcare supply chains across the world. The disruption to supply chain was due to not only the supply shortage but also the increased demand for products and services. After a year of grappling with the crisis, procurement leaders have come up with strategies to increase supply chain resiliency and mitigate interruptions.

It is heartening to see how procurement has evolved to becoming more connected with its ecosystem of suppliers, customers and stakeholders, diversifying the supply base, employing digital solution etc. We managed to catch up with Anu Srinivasan, Head of Procurement at Bupa to talk about the lessons learnt and some recommendations to deal with a crisis

What do you see as the main opportunities for procurement in the post-Covid world?

Supplier innovation: We need to collaborate with our partners to deliver Business KPIs and outcomes. Some questions to ask are; What are our partners doing differently with others in the market? Is the partnership agile and can adapt quickly to business transformation?

Re-building supply chain and supply chain certainty: This is no surprise; being one of the main issues most procurement organisations faced last year. Understanding and modeling demand can help with redesigning, having transparency and certainty over the supply chain.

Compliance, Risk and Issues Management: Risk appetite is different for industries and organisations. Clinical, regulatory and compliance requirements mean that we expand our partners scope, ask to de-risk, and ensure services /product supply while managing external influences.

What are some gaps in procurement being addressed and transformed due to Covid-19?

Cost and supply certainty: We have seen unprecedented fragility in supply chain. Businesses had been complacent but are now looking at tailor made approaches with partners that can innovate and provide certainty of supply.

Importance of local manufacturing in supply chain: Heavy dependency on outsourced supply and manufacturing impacted us from a supply, cost and delivery perspective. Global businesses had not explored the option to leverage their scale and geographical reach through untapped areas of potential.

Is AI important for procurement processes? What does a digital offering look like?

I would like to look at it as what do we need to do to give us in depth knowledge of the business operating costs, data and insights from the bottom line and revenue.

Procurement cost to businesses is another important criteria to consider. Lean, efficient, tailored and responsive to business call, all means we keep costs to serve low. What’s important for partnerships is to deliver revenue growth, customer growth or retention for example.

This arms us with the data and capability to discuss bottom line – direct and indirect, and revenue opportunities with the executives.

A solid data strategy; a simple and smart reporting and analytics UI, combined with clean data that is quickly accessible, are foundations for decisions on systems or AI or digital solutions.

Now that most of the leaders are working from home, what are some of the ways you are improving stakeholder engagement?

Engagement has been the most challenging aspect of working remotely. Virtual screens make engagement hard to ascertain – how do we know what we are saying is ‘relevant’ and thought provoking with camera’s turned off? So we are focusing more on speaking the business language, aligning our priorities to Business KPIs, keep the momentum going for initiatives with ongoing insights and communications, and staying accountable.

In response to the pandemic, do you have key achievements in your procurement department that you’re proud of? Can you name 2 to 3 please?

We have been able to meet the demands and deliver to various critical business clinical requirements such as PPE, gloves and masks. We are proud of enabling technology and providing critical support networks for our employees, residents and customers with the deliberate and continued effort by the entire team to stay motivated and double our targets.

What’s one thing you’re trying to learn more about right now related to procurement?

Firstly, operational demand management and modeling is helping me understand the business more in depth as well as the challenges and cost of service to our customers. Secondly, business use cases or value chain, gives me a strategic view of partners along the value chain, the interdependence and opportunity to create a supply model that, is dedicated to a use case. We see the supply chain through the lens of a customers’ value chain.

What will you be sharing at ProcureCon Asia and why is this a must not miss event for you?

The Bupa brand is built from how stakeholders experience us. Therefore, I am passionate about investing in the critical human skills needed for leaders today, a team’s capability and talent. I would like the experience to be consistently characterised by efficiency, relevance and outcome focused. Therefore I will be sharing on develop the right soft skills across your entire of your team and being brave and bold to deliver the change required ProcureCon Asia covers a broad range of topics and has a great line up of keynote speakers. The agenda topics addresses priorities, challenges and issues of today. Being able to hear from a wide range of leaders from various industries across regions means procurement leaders know they are not alone in their journey. We’re sure to get insights on new ways of working with a shared community of knowledge to tap into.