Q&A with GEP's Darren Lynch

Over the past two decades, GEP has helped hundreds of companies operate more competitively and more profitably. We combine deep vertical market expertise, gained from 20 years of complex global engagements, with broad industry experience and deep digital fluency. We don't just make recommendations and walk way — we have the resources, the talent, the expertise, and the software to fully realize and achieve the targets we set out.

ALM Intelligence: What challenges are your clients currently facing in this space, and how have these challenges evolved over time?

Lynch: Natural disaster, climate change and political instability are creating awareness and desire for quicker reactions, more agility, and a stronger focus on risk assessment and management within procurement and supply chain functions.

Procurement teams are also encountering increased complexity in customer and supplier networks. This is challenging them to adapt to emerging business models and forge closer collaborative relationships with suppliers. Intense market competition is spiking M&A and private equity activity. At the same time the pressure to achieve P&L savings and results demonstrable to "the Street" has not let up.

Within their organizations, our clients are challenged by capability and capacity shortages, especially in somewhat specialized areas such as M&A and post-merger integration. Category expertise is another challenge. Perhaps more significantly, many enterprise procurement organizations are struggling to both understand and achieve the transformative opportunities digital technology now offers them. So we're helping many of them assimilate these emerging technologies — such as artificial intelligence and blockchain — and understand their potential impacts on work process and TCO models.

Finally, while it's been talked about for years, a shift in expectations from the C-suite is now a reality. It's not enough anymore for enterprise procurement organizations to operate and measure their success in the tactical realm—i.e., merely in terms of savings and cost avoidance. Procurement teams must now align their thinking and their goals with those of the business as a whole. They must think in terms of business value and help increase business value.

ALM Intelligence: How has the rapid growth of digitalization impacted your services to clients?

Lynch: GEP is recognized widely as the industry's digital transformation leader. At this very moment, we are helping a score of clients leverage any number of the massive opportunities digital technologies can deliver. We've developed a cloud-native, unified source-to-pay software platform, SMART by GEP, that incorporates next-gen value creation levers — including robotics, AI and IoT — across the full source-to-pay lifecycle.

Procurement benchmarks are actively being recalibrated to incorporate the impacts, current and potential, of these innovations. We're embedding them into all our core processes, methodologies and tools. From spend analysis to competitive tendering to contracting to supplier management to risk management, every aspect of procurement is being impacted by digitalization and automation.

It's an exhilarating time, but at the same time there are some severe pitfalls that should and can be avoided. This plays very much to our strengths at GEP. We understand the complete picture. We have expertise in every aspect of the procurement value chain. We are state-of-the-art.

ALM Intelligence: Tell us about the SMART by GEP software platform.

Lynch: SMART by GEP is a cloud-native, source-to-pay procurement software platform. It is comprehensive and complete, delivering state-of-the-art functionality in a unified platform that includes spend analysis, sourcing, contract and supplier management, purchase-to-pay, savings tracking and project management.

Users love its attractive, intuitive design—it requires little or no training—so adoption rates are among the highest in any B2B software category. Despite being packed with innovative features and functionality—for instance, it's the first procurement platform native to mobile and touch technologies—it is easy-to-use, easy-to-deploy and begins delivering value very quickly. And it integrates smoothly and easily with any ERP, accounting or back-end system.

But in a larger and keener sense, SMART by GEP is actually a transformation engine. By continually incorporating advanced technologies, such as a AI, and emerging technologies, such as blockchain, the platform continually provides the catalyst, driver and ready means for transformative change.

ALM Intelligence: What's next for procurement consulting, in your opinion?

Lynch: A deep understanding of digital technology, its transformative impact, and how this can best be leveraged to help enterprise organizations both (a) deliver on their commitments, and (b) evolve to meet changing roles and expectations, is fundamental to consulting work today.

With the mandate shifting from cost reduction to value creation, we think that tech fluency is the key to delivering real, true and lasting value to global procurement organizations. A lot of them are feeling like they've entered uncharted territory, and let's face it, they have in some senses. And our mission must be to help them succeed here.

Technology will compress the size of global procurement teams and operations. These teams will be asked to manage new ecosystems and new commercial partner delivery models. With greater reliance on third-party services, the demand for procurement consultants will increase. Good news, perhaps…but we need to make sure that we have the right mindset to guide our clients through their dramatic changes.

Our focus also needs to be on driving value beyond savings and cost control. The insights we provide need to be more in-depth. Client relationships need to be outcome-oriented, with the emphasis on driving benefits throughout the procurement organization and the larger enterprise. We need to be able to facilitate better decision-making based on data and real-time analytics. And critically, we need to be able to deliver robust capabilities and experience in transformation, bolstered by the support we bring in technology and data analysis. The future belongs to the procurement organizations that harness change holistically — and to the service providers that build on strong foundations of strategic insight and innovation.