Rich Sains

The Procurement Conversation Podcast Host | Elevating Procurement | Procurement Leader | 10x Procurement |

My focus is on transforming IT and procurement functions for top enterprises, leveraging over a decade of consulting experience to deliver real, impactful change. The Procurement Conversation podcast, which I host, furthers this mission by sharing insights with a global audience, fostering a community where expertise and trends in procurement are at the forefront.

Our team's approach priorities strategic activities and benchmarks success, ensuring our impact resonates across the businesses we serve. Through Acada's software and advisory services, including transformation and process re-engineering, we are elevating the procurement function to new heights, creating value for stakeholders and suppliers alike.

Founder

We help procurement leaders to solve many of the challenges they face in today's complex environment and manage their teams more effectively and objectively.

Sheldon Mydat

Built by Practitioners Suppeco is an AI driven supplier relationship management platform for small teams, and enterprise. 

Executive Summary

Procurement and Supply Chain Leader with 20+ years operating in highly regulated environments, specialising in procurement transformation, operating model change, and post-contract value delivery.
 
3 x successful founder and named a 2023 IDC Innovator, with a track record of delivering EBITDA impact by modernising supplier ecosystems, controlling value leakage, and stabilising complex delivery environments.

Value Proposition 

Turnaround. Complex Transformation. Structural Change. Post-contract value leakage control through supplier ecosystem modernisation

Engaging with clients to promote best in class customer-supplier relationships.

Clients include:
public-sector, logistics, financial services, communications, defence, SI consultancy, and some of today’s most recognised names.

Founder and CEO

I used to think great collaboration was something you built once and then got to keep.

Find the right people. Do good work together. Bank the trust. Move forward.

I was wrong.

A few years ago I watched a high-performing team - one that had delivered together through genuinely hard circumstances - quietly fall apart. 

Not through any single dramatic event. Just through neglect. 

Assumptions that went unchecked. Feedback that stopped flowing. A leader who got busy and stopped showing up in the ways that mattered.

The work still got done. But something underneath had gone.

It made me think about collaboration differently. Not as a milestone you reach, but as an asset you carry on your books.

And like any asset, it amortises.

Left unmanaged, its value declines - steadily, quietly, and often invisibly until it’s too late. 

The goodwill erodes. The shorthand fades. People stop being generous with each other in the small moments that actually hold teams together.

But here’s what makes collaboration unlike most assets on a balance sheet:

It doesn’t have to depreciate. Managed well, it can appreciate.

The teams I’ve seen grow stronger over time share a few things. They treat conflict as information, not a threat. 

They distribute credit visibly and consistently. They stay honest with each other when the pressure is highest - which is precisely when most teams go quiet. 

They don’t assume the asset is safe just because it was valuable yesterday.

The rate at which collaboration ages isn’t fixed. It’s a function of how well you manage it.

And there are impairment events too - moments that don’t just accelerate the decline but write down the asset’s value suddenly and hard. 

A betrayal. A leader who disappears in a crisis. Someone who takes the credit and leaves the blame. 

These aren’t gradual. They’re write-downs that take years to recover from, if ever.

So the question I now ask of any team I work with - or lead - isn’t just “are we performing?”

It’s: what’s happening to the underlying asset?

Are we building something that compounds? Or are we running down goodwill we built a long time ago and calling it momentum?

The work will tell you one story. The asset will tell you another.

Pay attention to both.

CEO at Suppeco (IDC Named Innovator) Revolutionising SRM | Procurement and Supply Chain Leader | Supplier Relationship Evangelist & Speaker.

No alternative text description for this image

I just had an argument with our own SuppEQ AI today.

And I lost. My own procurement humble pie tasted good! 

I was reviewing KPI compliance for a supplier in Suppeco (yes, we use our own platform). I kept pushing back, insisting the KPIs had been scored in the relevant sub-category.

EQ kept saying they hadn’t!

And round it went a few times!

We were both looking at the same data - but through different lenses.
I was asking: “Are there KPIs?”

EQ was asking: “Are there KPIs that evidence the contractual obligations in scope?”

The KPIs that existed were governance KPIs - OLA receipt, SOP adherence.
In my view - valid. scored. present.

But they weren’t the performance KPIs the contract actually required - OTIF, defect rates, CAPA closure.

EQ was right. 

It was operating in context. I was asking the wrong question.

The lesson: precision matters.
In supplier management. In contract compliance.
 
EQ dug its heels in and stopped me from getting the right answers to the wrong questions.

Lessons here: 
“Are we compliant?” gives comfort.
"Are we compliant against this specific obligation?” gives answers.

Curious about contract versus operations value protection Check out SuppEQ yourself in the comments.

A contract gets signed. Savings hit the dashboard. Leadership is happy.

Six months later, margin is down. 

Doesn’t show up in scorecards.
Nobody knows why.

This is Dynamic Margin Erosion - and it’s happening in more organisations than want to admit it. 

Not through bad deals. Through what happens after the deal. 

Delivery gaps. Weak visibility. Natural attrition. Variations that go unmanaged. Underperformance that goes unchallenged.

The ink dries. The leaking starts.
Scan the QR for a closer look. 👇

Suppeco on Dynamic Margin Erosion 

Hi LinkedIn Network 👋

Just a quickie! If you’re a Procurement, Operations, or Supply Chain Pro, I highly recommend you follow SRM Today — an independent industry data feed focused on supplier relationships, strategy, and geo-supply dynamics.

Built for decision-makers who want signal, not noise.

Worth a follow: https://lnkd.in/eQjCBa4Y

——————————

If it’s useful, you can also subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/ekUEMBui

One year ago today I was hit by a car while cycling.

My injuries were pretty serious: multiple breaks to my thoracic spine and lumbar spine, a broken pelvis, elbow and thumb. Recovery has been long and complicated, and the truth is I’ll never be quite the same again.

But trauma teaches you things you don’t learn any other way!

It teaches patience when progress is slow.

It teaches perspective about what really matters.

And it teaches resilience - because some days the only option is simply to keep going - to just be! 

I’m not fully out of the woods. There’s more surgery ahead. 

But one year on I’m still here, still moving forward, and deeply grateful for the people who helped me get this far (especially my amazing wife - my full time carer for part of the journey).

If you’re going through something similar - whether physical or otherwise - just know that recovery is rarely straightforward. Some days are ok, some days feel absolutely sh!!ty. 

Persistence is the common thread. You may not feel it at the time, but it will carry you forward. 

Keep going.

Businesses don't lose money in negotiations.
 
They lose it in execution. Quietly. Incrementally. Invisibly.
 
Up to 33% of negotiated contract value gone - post-signature. 

Dynamic Margin Erosion. And most businesses never see it coming.
 
The dashboards look fine. The board reports look fine. Everything looks fine.
 
Until it doesn't.
 
I've seen it happen. A business that by all accounts was performing - six months later publishing a negative position. 
 
Silently losing millions. 
 
Twelve months later in administration. Jobs gone. People blindsided.
 
The root cause wasn't fraud. It wasn't mismanagement in the obvious sense.
 
So what went wrong?
 
Two realities. Managed in two completely separate places.
 
▪️ The contract reality: what was agreed, promised, committed to.
▪️ The operational reality: what was actually happening.
 
But the truth is - only one of them is actually real!

We all know what happens to the contract.

"It goes in the drawer." We've all said it.
 
But here's what that actually means:
 
Contracts are static. Delivery is dynamic. 

And the gap between them? Unmanaged - and often measured in millions.
 
Think about it like flying a plane.
 
Your pre-flight checks were perfect. Every box ticked before take-off. 
 
But at 30,000ft you're making calculations using the right data - to the wrong questions.
 
Not the wrong data. The wrong questions.

Does that land differently? It should. Because getting the right answers to the wrong questions isn't just inefficient - it's catastrophic.

Contract reality is the ground check. The pre-flight. The clearance.

Operational reality is what keeps the plane in the air.

But manage them separately and you won't see the crisis coming - until it's too late to pull up.
 
Contracts tell you what should happen. Operations tell you what did. 
 
When nobody’s measuring the difference - value leaks. 
 
Margins erode. And by the time anyone notices, the gap is a chasm.
 
We built SuppEQ inside Suppeco to solve exactly this. To take contracts out of the drawer and continuously correlate them with live operations - so the gap becomes visible, manageable, and fixable along the way - before it hits your P&L.   
 
Because getting the right answers to the wrong questions isn't just inefficient.
 
It's how businesses sink without ever understanding why.
 
If any of this sounds remotely familiar, this is worth a conversation.

Someone asked me: is SRM Today written by AI?

Honest answer: about 70% AI, with human editorial oversight, practitioner contributions, and final say on everything that goes out.

An interesting question - but also a telling one.

We're in an industry where AI comes up in nearly every procurement conversation. And yet somehow the expectation is that publishing would be immune?

Of course we use AI. So does almost everyone else - the difference is most won't say so.

Will that stop you reading? That's genuinely your call.

What I can tell you is this: we're fast becoming the rule, not the exception. The publications that pretend otherwise are the ones you should be questioning.

So follow SRM Today. Comment. Push back. Tell us what we're missing.

And if you've got something to say about this industry - let's talk. Our contributor community is growing, and there's always room for a sharp perspective.

SRM Today is an independent industry data feed focused on supplier relationships, strategy, and geo-supply dynamics.

Built for decision-makers who want signal, not noise.

Worth a follow: https://lnkd.in/eQjCBa4Y

——————————

If it’s useful, you can also subscribe here: https://lnkd.in/ekUEMBui

#SRMToday

taplio

The Battle

Rich Sains

Sheldon Mydat

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreSheldon Mydat's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Rich Sains

Sheldon Mydat

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Sheldon Mydat's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreSheldon Mydat's LinkedIn Performance