Procurement teams running 100+ energy and water assets across 14 countries argue that cost savings alone miss the point. A single week of supply disruption can wipe out a year's savings, so procurement should be measured on cash flow, operational reliability, and business continuity instead.
Imagine if you are just talking about the savings, which is not the high-level priority for the leadership. Rather, we talk about the cash flow and working capital, and then we talk about the business continuity via the operational reliability. So if we are not securing the operations via the right source of suppliers in a rightful manner, the kind of disruptions we have and the penalties linked as well as the brand protection. So the savings we do it in a whole year, the penalties of like just one week of disruptions will nullify everything. I believe all of you must be knowing about the geopolitical tension happening in the Middle East, and we are operating in 14+ countries across the Middle East and the nearby countries, and then 100+ assets. So imagine the kind of pressure we are operating into, and then the kind of business continuity we are trying to maintain so that there is no disruption, especially for the energy and water, which is more of like essential to operate for all the countries. We don't talk about the savings, we talk about the working capital improvement. We try to channelize our efforts in enhancing our contracting and spend strategies to improve our working capital. Then we try to do it especially on the reliability perspective, what kind of critical suppliers we have, what are our critical supply chains we have, sources, countries. And that's what we started doing long back. So this is where I believe would matter rather than just the savings. And that's how you connect to the top line, you connect to the business strategies and the business, let's say, outcomes.
So I guess all of us have agreed that the true measure of procurement is not what we get from, say, what it saves. But what is more important is that it's how much does it profit the business, how much does it protect the business, how much cash it unlocks, and how does it mitigate the risks and enable the growth at the same time.
