370: Getting a Grip on Your Long Tail Spend w/ Tom Cicale and Sameer Sharma

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Despite the fact that the need to manage tail spend is hardly a new idea in procurement, it continues to be one of the greatest challenges we face. Tail spend is messy, risky, hard to analyze, and - if you take the wrong approach - very costly to address.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Merck was faced with a huge, global tail spend management problem, but they refused to let it fester or get the best of them. Starting with a U.S.-based pilot in their life science division, they partnered with WNS Denali to get a grip on their tail spend without alienating the business or breaking the bank.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Tom Cicale is the VP of Procurement for Merck KGaA, where he is responsible for global plant services consisting of MRO, CAPEX/OPEX, site services, utilities and logistics, and Sameer Sharma is a client engagement leader in WNS Denali’s delivery organization. They have worked together to design and implement a truly unique tail spend management program.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In this podcast, which is based on an AOP Live session that one attendee described as “the most impactful webinar I have ever been on in my entire career,” Tom and Sameer candidly answer questions such as:</span></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">How do you measure the impact and success of your tail spend program in such a way that procurement showed positive ROI and secured finance’s validation for your numbers?</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Did Merck’s global footprint (and complex technology landscape) present a problem in the wider program rollout and, if so, how did you overcome it?</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">If you had to do something differently, what would it be?</span></li> </ul>