#95: Dr. Marcell Vollmer Partner and Director at Boston Consulting Group

Dr. Marcell Vollmer Partner and Director at BCG works as an advisor to executives on the full range of digital transformation and new business models in procurement, supply chain, and operations globally.

Marcell has also previously help positions of Chief Innovation Officer for Celonis, as well as worked for many years with SAP, most notably as Chief Digital Officer and COO of SAP Ariba.

Discover more details here.

Some of the highlights of the episode:

• Key elements to successful career transitions: DHL to SAP to start up world to BCG
• Implementing risk monitoring tools
• Companies adopting sustainability pledges 
• What keeps CPOs and Chief Supply Chain Officers awake at night
• Procurement as a talent pool

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello everybody. And welcome to the leaders in supply chain podcast. I am your host.[inaudible] managing director of ELCA global, and it's my pleasure to welcome Marcel dr. Marcel Falmer today with us, uh, who is partner and director at BCG Boston consulting group. He works as an advisor to executives all over the world for the full range of digital transformation and new business models in procurement supply chain and operations. He used to also be in his previous positions, chief innovation officer for Solanas as well as worked for many years in SAP in his last role is most notably being chief digital officer, as well as chief operations officer for SAP Ariba, Marcel, pleasure to have you with us today and thanks for joining us

Speaker 2: 0:44

Right on, man. Thanks for having me. Hello everyone. And looking forward to having a great conversation and also probably some questions what we get from the audience listening. Awesome.

Speaker 1: 0:54

Absolutely. And so as we begin Marcel, nebulous, let's start with telling us a little bit about yourself. I know that, I mean, you've had an incredible career from many perspectives. You started in DHL, then you went to the consulting world. Then you went to SAP for many years alone is now you're with BCG. Maybe tell us a little bit about, about that.

Speaker 2: 1:13

Absolutely. And most of my career, you already perfectly summarized and mention it, but to keep it very short, I was 15 years at age Ella, a little bit longer. So express supply chain business, working on the integration into Dodger post-weld med. And then I joined SAP and most, really an amazing journey starting from centralizing back office functions, setting up shop services first for the European region later on, on a global scale. And I moved on also driving some of the post-merger integrations business, attract Sybase. I was integration lead. And after the new set of sicko CEO office, I was asked by my boss at this time as a group CFO of SAP Barnabas and joining and becoming the chief procurement officer. And that's basically 2011 where I really tapped into procurement. And I have to say, what's not really my career plan, but I got totally excited about Pokemon is such an amazing function. So there is no better function in a company I could envision getting full overview. So this was all the different parts of the business, understanding it, and also generating impact this, the larger scopes of stakeholders you are interacting entire with all employees, for whatever they need for their daily life. When they order something very basic. And I kept a log working strategically with lines of businesses, and then you have a very rich ecosystem. It was more than 15 one, 5,000 suppliers you are reaching out. So the CPO is really impacting with a lot of stakeholders to finding strategies and transforming also the organization, making it fit for a few times. This was my core task. This is the reason why I got promoted as chief procurement officer to restructure as a procurement function, set up a global management system, implement an end to end post to pay process focused onto stakeholder needs, and primarily also select the right it systems. And I got lucky that at my time as CPO, I was the business owner for sauce to pay P2P SAP, decided to acquire Ariba Fieldglass and concur. So all the market leaders in the cloud for, for source to pay, focusing on good services, template, a management, so kind of a booking enter reimbursement process, just what's really exciting. That's just why I stayed more than four years before I finally joined Aviva as a chief operating office, uh, going into one of the acquisitions, helping to integrate it first with the class and also helping customers to become successful in really defining Zen digital transformation strategies by doing basically pretty much similar approach, really. So I'd post this organization and the it systems, and this is what I did and shifted to office or before and after SAP trying to start ups alone, amazing company for process mining, process analytics. And now today I'm here and BCG is really an amazing company and that's really a place also where I feel very comfortable, very much home because I can use all my different experiences, what I could gain. And I'm very thankful also for all the career opportunities, what I got and that I can now bring all of that together in a strategy is a leading strategy consulting organization. And I'm have to say as a staff, I started August 1st. So I'm now seven weeks in, in my new job. It's really amazing.

Speaker 1: 4:35

And I want to a little bit double click and ask you because a lot of our audience, and obviously we do executive search and a lot of our candidates ask us. So how do you ensure when you make a career transition and especially if you're changing domains, right? So you've more DHL. Then you went consulting, then you went to SAP, then there's, there's quite a bit of shift now back to consulting, right? What are some of the key elements that you think make such transitions successful in, in your experience?

Speaker 2: 5:00

I think from what I experienced by my, by myself, and I'm not sure if I can really give this as an advantage wise tool to everyone, I think staying a giant consistently learning and also being opened for new opportunities, coming up, raising their hand and saying, Hey, wow, I would like to help to try for example, an integration. So this is what brought me into, into the project by integrating DHL and torture past, then moving on and going for new field by supporting SAP, defining a global strategy on shared services, starting with regional focus and then expanding it. This was really also very much by great opportunities and also some agility by saying, Hey, I'm flexible. I want to want to step up. I want to do something different, being open also to relocate as, as when I moved on as CEO, for example, I also moved from Europe to the United States to Atlanta, Georgia. That's where I live more than two and a half years. And I have to say it just really also driven to be very fair on having a little bit luck and survive point in time, being at some place in an organization, but also driven by the agility I mentioned. And of course it's hard work, getting new skills, learning consistently learn, but also bringing all of them together so that what I experienced by myself. And if you want to derive one advice out of it, I would say the agility and willingness to new opportunities might be something which works out very well in thinking about also how you can open new horizons and develop yourself.

Speaker 1: 6:44

Um, and on the topic, uh, coming a little bit on the topic of procurement and focusing on some of the challenges that you see right now in, in your role as advisor, when you deal with CEOs or chief procurement officers, what do they tell you that their main problems and challenges are today?

Speaker 2: 7:00

So currently I think we have probably never seen it on such a global scale, how important procurement and supply chain management is. I want, I would say is that on a CEO agenda, procurement and supply chain is number one or two. There's a reason for that is we have seen what can happen is an entire area in China, which is very critical because the global production[inaudible] the area around is shutting down and really closing due to a pandemic. And that's a first pandemic. What we all see at least the people in life after Spanish rule, what we have seen as the beginning of the last century. So this is really something where we see, wow, it is very critical to focus on procurement and to intros that you are half a resilient supply chain. I think it is not entirely news and a supply chain disruption can happen in procurement human people are used to working with events. So this happens on a daily basis. We got a little bit into that and, um, I got promoted as chief procurement officer back in 2011. Some of you might remember that, uh, this was the time that the year started basically the Fukushima catastrophic event in Japan. A lot of companies and CPO was, I was at a camp conference couple of days after it happened, said, Hey, fortunately, very unfortunate event, catastrophe, everyone felt sorry about it. But fortunately a lot were saying, we don't have suppliers. We have not doing a lot of business with air in Japan, a couple of weeks or months later, I met as the same people and they learned, wow, I wasn't aware about the, about the tier two tier three suppliers in my procurement process. And they were impacted by that region. And probably next catastrophic event happened just a couple of months later with the flat and Thailand. Um, and I think this was another learning for book human. Wow. As the majority of the global hardware, um, how this production is driven out of Thailand due to the flat, it is more than two cert, um, due to the flat so hard, this production cap heavily impacted by that. And with that, I think we, we in procurement, we had certain events. We had already to react much pile to the reason pandemic, what we have seen, nevertheless, on such a global scale. It is an unprecedented event and it's definitely something also where being procurement need to put our heads together and work half day and night. I think it was a tough time, or it's a tough time for procurement and supply chain leads by now thinking about how to best mitigate in the current times of the crisis to ensure such as supply chain production is coming, whatever your company does.

Speaker 1: 9:53

And there is, there is also a common comment from diarrhea. I'll put it on the screen. And also it's, it's a reality with procurement, right? Risk management and not just cost reduction. And a lot of times it's, it's got to do with the fact that, well, uh, historically the role of procurement is get me the right price or get me the best price or there wasn't a limiting belief, I guess, to a certain extent. So how do you kind of mitigate that? Of course you still need to have a cost in, in, in balance, but at the same time, this resilience usually costs more. If you have several sources where you get your, when your materials, it will cost you more than if you have one source, which we've just learned that what happened, that can be extremely risky. So what are some of the things that they, uh, procurement leaders and supply chain leaders need to be thinking about to veterans?

Speaker 2: 10:40

So absolutely so cost and, um, getting, getting, uh, so best pies is absolutely key in procurement. No doubt about, but I think when you look at a PI's you need also to consider and factor in certain components of the pies, including the risk mitigation is sole sourcing strategy. A single supplier strategy might be very risky if you are totally independent on one region on one supplier, and this can, can easily cause disruption in your supply chain. So therefore a lot of companies are now thinking about, and when you look also in emerging technologies, just have the trends, what we see right now, automation or bots, a lot gets more and more automated. So therefore the two main reasons, and one of the great success stories of globalization is certainly also benefiting from the labor arbitrage on countries, developing and going, thinking, bringing in hundreds of million people into the middle class. I think it's more than 400 million only in China. What we could see stepping up and going, becoming middle class, which is amazing seeing all the other countries in that area, as well as in a lot of other agents in the world, as similar thing is happening now, which is definitely, definitely great to see, but you need also to be clear about the overall risk appetite, what you have in the company you need to define and really see. So as the labor arbitrage, there's probably also benefits in your manufacturing process, what you get in fives, but there's also a sustainability footprint to CO2 footprint. What you're shipping, everything, extracting all materials, and I've seen cases, all materials are getting extracted Australia and Africa. It gets shipped to another place, probably Latin America and also Malika in terms of final production. So spare parts are getting assembled in China and China. It gets sent back to your tune. Also, Malika wherever basically is that's also very cost intensive process as a lot of logistics in it, of course at the end, it is about a price, but it's also about service. Is it possible? And that's what I see in this conference guide now from CPOs chief supply chain officers, but also CFOs and CEOs are getting more and more interested in that topic. Can we have a closer proximity of our production is that really needed? And we need to ship it all over because the CO2 footprint and sustainability is getting more and more important. Not necessarily only by the companies. It's also getting more important by the consumer. They want to know and understand we have two main products and that's really something also where we need to sync. Yes. So price is really important, but we need also to see what are the total costs, what we have and what is the risk. And this is currently where I see that a lot of companies are looking into all the value drivers of the procurement organizations as they are looking in the end A-plus, um, courses, organizations of people's, uh, capabilities, collaborations of performance, what they have, and also on the technical infrastructure in really making it happen and ensuring that the insights in the data, a lot of companies simply don't know, and suppliers and losing half tier, two suppliers in certain areas. And therefore this is currently what keeps a lot of CPOs and chief supply chain office awake at night.

Speaker 1: 14:06

And I wanted to ask him maybe to discuss some case studies or example. I had a conversation yesterday with the chief procurement officer and we were discussing the FMCG industry. And there's, there's a couple of big considerations right there. You have the sustainability effect. I mean, deforestation, labor, I mean, you don't want to be obviously misusing, uh, and there's been all sorts of, you know, discussions in terms of who is even working in your supply chain and not make sure you don't have teenagers or, I mean, there's been all sorts of horror story, right? So I wanted to ask you if you have some, this visibility or traceability of where does it come from a procurement perspective and knowing where suppliers are executive to your point of having that transparency, did you, do you have some case studies of companies that did well and what did they do and maybe what was some of the challenges you observed in this process? Cause it's not an easy process to implement and to get this visibility.

Speaker 2: 14:56

I couldn't agree more because it is very complex, really overseeing an end to end supply chain with a lot of global players. I just transferred a little bit of a picture about Alma, Tila, Yale extraction, logistics, shipping it somewhere, starting with some production line manufacturing post as probably sending it somewhere else to the final assembly. And then for distribution, probably to wholesalers and angel retailers, depending on what the products are. So you see, there are a lot of parties involved in different steps. What is key? And what I definitely see is that you need, first of all, get a really access to all the data available in the systems. It sounds easy, but pricing[inaudible] master data, the full transparency about to supply us is all the time. The challenge due to the magnitude of changes, what you have, and also a lot of different systems involved basically lead to a challenge on the data quality. So that's definitely one element. What companies and you ask about an example. We have comes out with one company. I got lucky to jump early on, uh, on a project just after I started and at BCG, um, that the supplier, this commodity tool definitely helps by extracting by data and really showing what am I critical top suppliers? And I'm not talking about hundreds, probably start with 20, 8,100. Not in that case. Stop was 20. And then it moved up to the size of 100, not really monitor and get all the data. What are critical is probably in that area. Am I dependent? So for investment forecast, we have seen that companies really struggling some by having different temperatures and restaurant conditions. We see now that entire areas of challenge buys as a fire in California right now. So Napa Valley is impacted by that. So you'll see, you need to ask the data and you need to ensure really. So then you can monitor. So if you are dependent on suppliers in that area, you better at a no. And from a standard early so that you have a fair chance to react. And there are lots of examples out there. I was very impressed about strategy, which was a little bit back in the past, where, for example, I love Nutella by the way I have to out myself, coffee and chocolate ICS power. I love it. But we have seen that Nutella change the mixture of the product. You chose. The reasons that there was a very hot summer, the weather conditions changed and the largest producer of hazelnuts sets one quiet element of sweet, lots of chocolate clean. What Nutella is, is in Turkey, basically in Turkey was at a time where also the political situation was quite challenging. Basically a political situation. There was a need to react to really invest in basically taking over some of the farmers to secure a supply chain. And that's really where you see there's a lot happening and companies need to react. So therefore implementing the risk monitoring tools is something what helps to make your supply chain more resilient to allow you to define the right risk mitigation strategies for whatever your businesses in and companies doing this successfully might even go in a time of a crisis. All basically can overcome current better sensor events. We see an overall decline in the global economy. The GDP will be below what it was last year. I think there is no doubt about, so therefore hopefully it will be more reshaped recovery than a U shape with the longer time. But I think it's still too early to predict. Uh, data is key and monitoring is key. And it's also keys that you drive and benefit from also digital transformation mutation. Ologies what you can implement for book human and supply chain to really be able to react on. I always think what's happening.

Speaker 1: 19:09

Um, and I know on the topic of sustainability, I know that you're, you're a big advocate for that. And new you're also seeing companies like to also to your point that you want to minimize your footprint, your carbon footprint. But we also seeing some of the large FMCG as well as I think Microsoft made a pledge. Most shipping meant pledge Unilever. We have Nestle that they said by 20, 30, or much quite aggressive targets, which is good to be seen. And I hope that more and more will follow, right? So then there's definitely a need for, even if you're not obviously one of the big brands and you're just a tier one, tier two, tier three, but all of a sudden your contribution adds up to their contribution. So do you see this playing a significant role in the future? Do you see more companies also adapting to this kind of sustainability pledges? Or do you think that COVID-19 kind of put it on the back burner and you know, it was okay. Let's make sure that we don't go past first and foremost and, and then worry about sustainability later.

Speaker 2: 20:06

No, I think there is now definitely is a time to focus on sustainability and you are perfectly right. I think it's a given. We only have one planet that we have access to and therefore a lot of companies are joining even BCG. I was very impressed about[inaudible] what happened and much less as the CEO of BCG was announcing that September 1st that we SPCD plan to age Nancy or climate impact by by 2030. And this is a great example also. And you will probably, when you go to all the companies, you will probably not really come very soon at the strategy consultancy by looking at the overall impact, but you see it, the topic is so important that all industries are really focusing on that height now. And I think we really need to see it is not only for the, for the planet. It is also that as a people are really taking, taken care of the sustainability aspects. So corporate social responsibility, no one wants to buy products with trying to labor in it as another example. Therefore, I think it is very important that we see it in a broader context and focus really on the right elements of sustainability and all the social responsibility. What we have, you can argue if it's a UN STGs, what we want, we have 17 different goals defined by the United nations. So this might be, it might be, um, one, um, one KPI system, uh, to look at, uh, basically all the companies are now really, uh, spending more time and investing also. Yeah. And then sustainability Kelemen is really at the heart of where the decisions are taken because buying and deciding for suppliers with more sustainable product makes a lift. It might have a price tech definitely received those with fair trade coffee, fair trade tea is more, more expensive, but basically that's also where you need to balance a little bit about what is really the risk. What I take if consumers asking me for it. And I have a chance to make more revenue because consumers see me as Constable company focusing on sustainability objectives, or then I get a better price, but probably I get a negative past, or my products might not be asked by the consumers. That's a trade off. What do you need? What you need to decide as a company. And also how much are you willing to invest to go for the one side or the other? And that's what we see right now. Also humid organizations are very much looking into that, coming up with new KPI systems, assessing the entire supply base, to finding also to who it's for engaging a supplier code of conduct, but also then the KPIs they want to have now that suppliers are really having everything, what it takes to make it transparent. You get new technologies where you even can ensure that it is not possible to change information in the process from the raw material to the final product. Look at blockchain, for example, and like most saying distributed ledger technology, which is the technology behind blockchain, which is more known for, for Bitcoin, but only procurement side. It is also very important that you have end to end transparency about us, apply, train every single step, and that you can also factor in and build in sustainability objectives for your own company

Speaker 1: 23:36

And on the topic of skills. Cause we, we also, you're at the point where there's so much, you know, digital transformation in procurement, in supply chain, we're much across the board that has been accelerated with COVID-19. But what do you see as, as maybe the lacking, you know, w where the industry needs more of this type of skills and where do you see the gaps also coming up in the next three to five years? Because this is a question we get a lot, you know, how, what should I prepare myself as a, you know, for the future workforce to make sure I stay relevant?

Speaker 2: 24:05

Absolutely. The future of work is it's a hot topic. We see now we have five to six generations in the play right now, also generations, what we have. So the latest one is generation alpha now joining and becoming more relevant as consumers or everyone born after 2005, but also the regenerations before generation X. Why is that? What we, what we see including the millennials are definitely key also, and because they have different expectations on, on the work. And therefore, I think when you're looking at back office functions, what Pokemon is and belongs to, you should also think about how to best attack and retained heavens. And one element is doing something, what excites people, and you might say procurement, how Kansas excited, again, a purchase big acquisition. I need to look for suppliers. And basically I send out a purchase order negotiation in between times. And finally the goods get delivered. The goods received, and the system invoice comes in, gets paid. So in a very simplified way, having something like that is much more exciting gen ed justice. So these are full. That is you can make an impact. You can definitely also take decisions about, Hey, line of business. We have some purchasing position has coming called. Have you thought about that? You also probably can come up with an innovation. So you do something different that you focus on sustainability targets. And I give you a great example. I think everyone knows what this is. We are all using using smartphones, but whatever model you want to want to use. So Google glass is a beautiful example for supply innovation. When Tim Tim cook, CEO of Apple was the chief supply chain, officer procurement was reporting to him. He teamed up with Corning as a glass manufacturer to develop an entirely new glass. So as you can see from my gray hair, so I'm a little bit older. I remember the time and I got my first mobile at 90 92. It was an Ericsson with, yeah, very tiny display for the millennial generation alpha. You would not believe that this was possible. And there was a time before smartphones. Yes, it existed. And as a tiny plastic display basically got all these sketches on it. After a certain period of time, you would not have even envisioned that you could have picked up on it because the display was really not good enough it's as time and look at the leapfrog, what happened there was Blackberry in between already with a good, good display. And I laughed my Blackberry keyboard on it, but basically the next step was two seven. When you see Steve jobs was on stage, was showing everyone has a new iPhone, um, with all the capabilities that an entire industry can basically create it. And one key element out of it is an innovation at the event together with suppliers, they are many examples of coffee taps for examples, and as pestle machines and another one where you see it, you see a lot of these innovations happening in automotive to go for an entire industry. Now on the battery technology what's what's happening. So therefore this is also part also, I try also to excite people that, wow, you can really do something different and you can create impact and business. The reason why I suggest everyone look at procurement and don't think about it. And you start as a, as a trainee in procurement or a category buyer, and then you make it up to the CTO. Think about it, getting a certain time, creating some impact, understanding and accompany, take your opportunity to learn, to look also around what are the different areas, what might excite you. And I think we should no longer talk about just 10, 15 years in one function and make it up. We have to talk about, Hey, join procurement tools for years. And I think procurement could be a brilliant talent pool for people getting a great education, understanding the company, and then probably they move on. So I might stay my, might go deeper into certain areas and want to want to continue to be professional by our category EDA in the, in the future. But that's mainly where put cumin has a lot to offer. And I can't really say more that human is really a function to consider. And procurement might be more exciting and interesting sounds when you simply look on the process side, which is only one core element, which will be driven in the future, highly automated, by the way. So think about procurement as a career opportunity.

Speaker 1: 28:44

Well, you, you definitely convinced me. And I think, I think the function is more people like yourself to be able to storytell or, or sell it properly. I think it's not even maybe sell it as a negative connotation to most people, but it it's, it's almost about how do you present the, you know, why is it important? I think that, and it's not only for procurement, I think in supply chain in general, you're going to manufacturing or shipping or transportation, this type of vital industries and vital functions that have just been historically not presented well enough for people to, and for maybe generation alpha. I didn't even know that this generation alpha, thanks for sharing that with me. Or was that a why to understand this? You know, obviously this is, this is the crux. I mean, everything that moves and makes and reaches us and, and you know, this supply chain in it, this procurement in it is just that we, we don't, or it hasn't been presented on the right way up till now. And there's more people like yourself that are presenting in the right way and getting people excited about it, which is a must that being said, I want to, I want to bring up this question, which, which came from Andrea, which is a very good question, because you spoke about visibility and data analytics and monitoring risks and her question. And I I'm, I'm assuming she comes from an FMCG perspective is around them. The, the available tools that you know of that could minimize the impact of sudden changes because this can happen a lot. And, and, and then if you have a tool that's very specialized. I think there's the, there's the meaning behind her question. All of a sudden you throw it out of the window and you bring in a new tool. So is there something that can be done around this?

Speaker 2: 30:13

Yes, absolutely. And I'm Andrea, thanks for the question. It's really great. Looking into the tourists as well. And I think having, um, a monitoring tool in place is absolutely key. So the risk monitoring tool is only as good as the data you are feeding in. And therefore you need also to think and team up with companies specialized on that, like risk message, for example, getting really all the insights, what you have and the suppliers you are doing business with to monitor it on a consistent basis. Yes. A bunch of suppliers I would say, are focusing on the risk management. And I think overseeing that in a dashboard and the dashboard sounds always home, something high level for executives. It's not the dashboard I'm talking about on supplier list goes down to a category level, your top 20 service hours, depending on how large your category is, is absolutely key to come up with that and you should connect. So I, data streams as the right input, probably as one delivering all might be Leonard's guide. And then you could also look to find one tool here, if not probably feeding in different sources, depending on also dizzy needed information, what you want, you want a wine clued might help you here to oversee everything what's happening, financial risk, catastrophic impact climate wise. If it's dependent on weather conditions, it might also be mutational events or there's something going on on social media where you are better aware. You need to see that you feed all of that in, and basically then monitor it on a consistent basis.

Speaker 1: 31:54

Final question from me, Marcel, where do you see procurement going in the next three to five years? What's some of the major shifts that you foresee, and if you had a crystal ball and you were to take an, uh, you know, an estimated guess.

Speaker 2: 32:08

Yeah, I think it's fair. Harteau is the estimated gas. I don't have a crystal ball and it's difficult to make predictions, especially about the future. I think Marvin[inaudible] and Mark Twain were using that quote. So what I would definitely see is, and when I joined Pokemon back in 2011, I think it was already 10, 15 years out. People were saying that, push them in a set, an inflection point all the time. Basically I'm now almost 10 years in procurement. If you can translate the same time, the P2P as, as a number one process, it's even more than 15 years experience, what happens is that for years, I think we definitely see a change right now and pro-human is failing due to the COVID-19 situation at an inflection point. And we have seen that put human can step up and let the risk mitigation strategies absolutely key for the success of the company to keep production up and running and to a half a Miller psyllium supply chain. My saying that if you asked me about a prediction as a max, we five, 10 years out, I think it's really tough to make decisions so far out, but basically human will become more important. So that's definitely what I would see. Number one, number two is that as a function itself will significantly leverage disruptive technologies to really get all the visibility's the data, the insights they ask question about the risk management tools to ensure that you have at any point in time or overview or holistic picture about what's going on and where areas you look you need to look into that I would say is that procurement is definitely up for the next level and also send your attracting also new talents by thinking procurement in a different way, leveraging machine learning algorithms as basically trusted tool, which is standard to use focusing, and also including data scientists, data architect in the procurement function, having probably dedicated manager, because if you're in a critical area, you might really to be a little bit ahead of your competitors on, on, on getting the data and getting the insights. And all of that I think will lead to a procurement function in the future, highly automated. So probably less people overall might work in the fund, but the impact. And so when you're generating focus, procurement has and will evolve, focus on really on, on strategic elements. And I see with that, there's a significant element on the four key areas to supply innovation. I will, I want to account into it. I will definitely see a risk management as a key element. I would see as the sustainability, what we just discussed because it's getting more and more important. And finally is of resilient supply chain. I think these four areas will definitely lead to the success of the future of procurement function. It will be a high-income Eva, very impactful value generating function in the future level of lettering and benefiting from all the automation and technologies. That's my best guess. At least that's also tied to how companies defining the hide strategies here at BCG, and hopefully also a lot will be successful. Coming back to your question before it will be also a great place to work

Speaker 1: 35:32

Super well. Marcel, it's been a pleasure, thanks for all the sharing and, and examples and keep, uh, keep inspiring people. I want to, I want to encourage everybody to follow Marcel on LinkedIn because he's, you know, he's contributing and sharing a lot of useful information every day. You're one of the, you know, you're one of the people that I follow a lot and I learn from a lot. So keep doing that. And, uh, it's all positive heavier today.

Speaker 2: 35:56

Thanks for having me and thanks for watching highly patients, the gay population. It what's really awesome. And thanks to the audience for the question and listening in. Thank you very much.

Speaker 3: 36:06

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