[00:00:00] Mike Ogle: Welcome to the supply chain careers podcast. The only podcast for job seekers, professionals, and students who are focused on career enhancing conversations and insights across all aspects of the supply chain discipline. This podcast is made possible by SCM talent group, the industry leading supply chain executive search firm.
[00:00:28] Mike Ogle: Visit SCM talent group at scmtalent. com. In this episode of the supply chain careers podcast, we talk with Walter Abreu, a supply chain professional with an extensive background in global procurement of food, most recently with Del Monte. Walter shares his supply chain career path, starting with a combination of finance, purchasing, and supply chain.
[00:00:51] Mike Ogle: Listen as Walter talks about the hard and soft skills that have led to his personal success, including learning the value of preparation to be successful in negotiation. Walter also points out how to think through a balanced spectrum of purchasing considerations. including a secure supply chain versus costs.
[00:01:09] Mike Ogle: He also provides his thoughts about what people need to know about packaging, plus how to think more broadly about sustainability. Walter closes with his advice about how to get started and advance in a procurement career.
Welcome back to the Supply Chain Careers podcast. I am your host, Rodney Apple.
We’re very excited to welcome Walter Abreu to the program today. Walter, thanks for joining us.
[00:01:36] Walter Abreu: Thanks
for having me.
[00:01:37] Walter Abreu: It’s a pleasure to be here.
We’re excited to dive in today. We’ve got an extensive background and global procurement in that food space. We know that can be challenging from a procurement and supply chain perspective, just with the short shelf life of the products that you deal with, trying to get them onto the customer shelf to their house before they spoil.
And so we’ll get into some of those intricacies. But before we get into that, we’d love just to give our audience a quick introduction, how you got started in your career and What led you down this path and position you to the role you’re in now as the global procurement director for Delvani?
[00:02:15] Walter Abreu: Yeah, sure.
[00:02:16] Walter Abreu: It’s interesting listening to someone else. And typically when we get into conversations about procurement. I heard someone ask the question, look, did you find procurement or, uh, or procurement found you, right? Then it’s, uh, and I’ve been asking these questions to people around. And before the podcast, I was thinking about this question and myself, right?
[00:02:37] Walter Abreu: Eventually I think that procurement found me. I started 20, almost 30 years ago and really not in procurement. That was back then in Brazil. Along with the college, I needed something to do and to make some money on it. And typically at that point, banking was really a door opening for whatever area you want to explore, right?
[00:03:00] Walter Abreu: As an intern. So I happened to start in the, let’s say in the financial arm of supply chain, which is international trade transactions, wire transferring, letter of credit, and all those kinds of things. That led me to understand that I needed to improve. And communication in English. And so I decided to spend some time in Canada, learning English.
[00:03:25] Walter Abreu: When I came back, I got a job offering a company in the lumber industry, actually as a large corporation in Brazil. And it was in the procurement area. It was much more related to the transaction piece of it. And then back then it was. A lot about transactions, orders, and those kinds of things. But I, I can’t appreciate at a time how interesting was the dynamics and the context with suppliers and the challenges back then, I guess today, the challenges are, I’m not sure if they’re bigger, but they’re different than what we used to have had some time ago and that.
[00:04:03] Walter Abreu: Took me to some different paths. So I started learning and going into courses and understanding a little bit more about negotiation and about the different things, the hard skills that you need for that position. Eventually I decided to move from the city that I was to another one. And that’s when the opportunity at Del Monte was offered to me.
[00:04:25] Walter Abreu: And that was really in the international trade business. It was much more related to importing export.
Sure.
[00:04:32] Walter Abreu: It’s something that sooner or later, you’re going to be exposed to suppliers, suppliers discussion as the company grown. Um, they said, look, why don’t you also take over the procurement, at least the regional or the local procurement activities here and let’s see how it goes.
[00:04:49] Walter Abreu: And I think that at that point I realized, Hey, this is probably for me, especially if I’m able to expand, not only be a regional or let’s say a local purchasing manager, but then maybe expand that. And it eventually. The way the company is structured, there is a global procurement area, and there was an opportunity that applied for, they accepted me, I moved to the United States, and here I am, after 13 years, it’s been an interesting path, and currently as a Director of Global Procurement, overseeing different locations, different cultures, and different divisions.
[00:05:28] Walter Abreu: It’s been a lot of fun, challenging, but exciting, for sure.
I am sure it has been. That’s a fast paced industry and, and, uh, an exciting one too, where you can grow any, anything in the food beverage space. We all have to eat. So that’s not going away. And as the population grows, these businesses grow and we’ll appreciate the introduction.
You just touched a minute ago, talking about building out some of your, Soft skills and your hard skills. And I think procurement is such a fascinating area and you touched on communication. It’s so important negotiation, things like that. But from your perspective, and maybe let’s focus on some of the soft skills first.
What would you say if you had to pick out the top three, four, five, what are the most critical to be successful and to build that foundational baseline that’s going to qualify you for being in these procurement roles and especially some of the leadership roles?
[00:06:20] Walter Abreu: Yeah, so one thing that I tell people is that those soft skills and even the hard for sure, but the soft skills, they change, right?
[00:06:29] Walter Abreu: If you look back again, 20 years ago, probably you would say some of the key ones that you would need and things change as the time passes. Right? I would say curiosity is something that it’s a must in this area. If you want to be in procurement, but you just settle for what people or the first person you meet tells you.
[00:06:48] Walter Abreu: Absolutely. You’re not in the right track, right? You have to have a very good understanding, go after, be curious, ask people, read it and really try to get as much as perspectives as, as, as you can in that specific topic, being a technical piece in the procurement area. There’s a lot, especially when it comes to food and beverage companies.
[00:07:10] Walter Abreu: And depending on the area or category that you manage or even the area itself, there’s a lot to learn about that. And, uh, you will never. Be good at what you do in procurement if you really do not know about things and the way of knowing more and more is just be asking questions, just do not be shy of doing that.
[00:07:30] Walter Abreu: The second thing, really not necessarily in that order, I think just care about. That’s, that’s something that goes, it’s, it sounds okay. That goes without saying, I think you look around. This is not only in procurement or supply chain in a big picture, but in companies you look around, you just see people doing things because they had to do, and not because they really care about that.
[00:07:54] Walter Abreu: So find that within the supply chain space, and if it’s procurement, it’s procurement is what you would like to do, care about it, just do it for a purpose. Understand what you do. And understand what the objectives are, understand and align with the company’s objectives, and just care about what you’re doing.
[00:08:15] Walter Abreu: Otherwise, this won’t work. And again, this is not only about supply chain procurement, whatever area you pick, make sure you care about what you’re doing. Amen. Third thing is you have to be a good communicator. You, you have to be someone that is a willing communicator, a good storyteller, which is something we’ve heard more and more in the last years.
[00:08:37] Walter Abreu: And that piece, probably if you would go back 20 years ago and depending, especially in big corporations, you, and with centralized procurement function, you would have someone just saying, look, You do it as I say, and that’s it right as the function and corporations of all this much more convincing operations and stakeholders and talking to people and a good storyteller goes a long way if you can relate other experiences and show the value.
[00:09:12] Walter Abreu: And being a good communicator in that front, it pays off, it pays off. I think that this is very important.
Absolutely. And communication is a broad term. You mentioned convincing, AKA influencing, right? This is not a command and control. You can’t just go, you can certainly give a lot of directives to the suppliers.
Right. But then the stakeholder side, there’s a lot of influencing. Yeah, so all forms of communication, written, verbal, influencing, leading change up to the top, the board, C suite down to the shop floor sometimes is, is important. So that’s good. We’re in alignment there as, as, as I expected to be. And then the hard skills, right?
I’d love to hear your touch. I’ve got some perspective and I want to hear yours.
[00:09:55] Walter Abreu: Yeah, it’s, it’s funny. So when I tell people what I do, and if I ask this question, Hey, what do you think that I have to have? Let’s see. People are going to come to me and say, nine of 10 are going to say negotiation. You have to be good at it.
[00:10:12] Walter Abreu: Okay. So negotiation is really something that it’s, you can read it about it. You can try to learn, you go to courses and it’s, obviously it’s something that you have to have the ability to negotiate. But, uh, negotiation is a broad term. I think that you have to understand, to plan. I had to understand the steps to understand market, to understand all the components and the dynamics to be a good negotiator.
[00:10:42] Walter Abreu: It’s interesting. You, you talk to people that, uh, are really known as good negotiators. And as the more you talk to them, you say, okay, they, they do check all the boxes before they get in front of a supplier or, and again, negotiation goals, different ways, right? It can be a supplier. It can be. C suite can be someone that you need to convince in the operations level about that.
[00:11:05] Walter Abreu: It’s all about negotiation and the way you approach it, the way you plan it, the way you structure your negotiation. That’s a hard skill that I would say it’s key, right? Data analysis is something that if data is not for you, you’re under wrong business. Uh, if you don’t make educated decisions and by educated decisions means you can look at data, understand the data and know what to do with that data.
[00:11:30] Walter Abreu: Then it gets complicated and market analysis is specifically on the procurement side of things is super important. So understand what to put it simple, understand what’s going on out there and in here. So understand what, uh, what your needs are first. And then go and see what is out there for you, understand the dynamics, understand cost components of what, of what you’re looking for.
[00:11:57] Walter Abreu: And when I say understand, just go deep into it, that you’re going to be a good negotiator. If you have all the ability to put together all this information about market, about your internal needs. And if you’re a good communicator, that this is a, is a key piece that, that I think definitely it’s important to be successful in the procurement.
Those are fantastic and a hundred percent agree. Right. And so we’ve taught, we’ve covered. Some of the key hard skills and soft skills, that’s like where we like to start when we start getting into the foundation of the careers. What’s it going to take to be successful? Segwaying into, think about objectives.
What’s the core role and objective of procurement professionals? And I think the answer is probably going to vary by role, but in general, and I think a lot of people make the common mistake of it’s, you’re buying stuff. Hey, I’m going to spend the company’s money. So procurement is a broader umbrella, right?
And the purchasing aspect is that buying element, cutting purchase orders, et cetera, spending the company’s money with the suppliers, right? But could you maybe keeping this in layman terms? So for our audience that may be looking to get into this field, so they understand it, but maybe take us through that definition of.
What are the core elements? What are the common goals and objectives? Obviously not just spending the money. It’s not just saving the money. It’s a lot more to it than that.
[00:13:17] Walter Abreu: Absolutely. And you you’re completely right. People look at you and they said, okay, that’s where people spend money. And that’s it. And it’s quite easy to do it.
[00:13:27] Walter Abreu: If you just contact someone, they’re going to send you a proposal. You could, in order you’re done with that before you do it. And, and I would say that probably this is the very. Last piece of the puzzle when it comes to the whole spectrum, I think I like to say that secure supply, whatever it is, it’s your very first subject secure supply.
[00:13:49] Walter Abreu: And then you can say, Oh, but it had, it has to go along with at the very best cost. Not the lowest cost. And then there’s a lot of conversations about that. Uh, you, you should go with the cheapest option. It gets complicated when we start those kinds of discussions, but there’s not such a very good proposal or cost that you go with if it’s not going to be there for you when you need it.
[00:14:16] Walter Abreu: So when I say secure supply, you. First and foremost, you look at what the company’s corporations needs are, and you make sure that when you go about procuring things or serving certain things, you select. What’s going to give you comfort and say, okay, we are good here. Whether it’s a single service or multiple services to you, there’s a lot to talk about that, but securing supply either in service or either in raw materials, equipment.
[00:14:47] Walter Abreu: That’s the very first thing, the way you go about it changes. And that’s probably our audience. You will know about that. You go in different categories, you go to service about, it’s a little bit different the way you do it. But I think that secure supply is your primary objective when it’s you’re in procurement.
[00:15:03] Walter Abreu: And then obviously you’re going to look for costs and the way this is going to impact and not only from the perspective of what you’re procuring there, it’s, it’s bigger than that, right? You have to understand. Okay, maybe we’re going to spend a little bit more here, but as a result, we’re going to have our sales team being, or position our sales team to, to be in a situation where they can have better opportunities for the customer.
[00:15:33] Walter Abreu: So it’s a broad field of the function. It’s not only doing, checking your box and say, look, I was able to secure. It’s very good cost, but you’re not contributing or interacting. If you were sales team, that is. With whatever you got, you’re, you’re not enabling them to be in a better position. So think of that as a, as a big picture rather than just the procurement piece of it.
[00:15:57] Walter Abreu: I think that I’ll say it’s probably the top objectives across different industries and areas. Particularly in my case, one of the things that I put as an objective, and this is a continuous one, is how we can make this better, right? And how on the processes, on the negotiation piece, on the supplier relationship management, how we can put this all together year after year, and maybe Determine what your vision is and where you want to be in five years and just establish a band to get there and take the actions that you have to take to get to the fifth year, uh, where you want it to be.
[00:16:41] Walter Abreu: I just, what do you want to adjust, but make sure you follow that back. Right. I think that continuous improvement, it’s something that it’s, it doesn’t sound as like objective when you put like that and you just convince people. That’s the mindset you have your team behind it. I think it goes a long way.
Sure. That’s fantastic. Walter and as you’re talking, we touched on the purchasing, the cutting POs. It’s more of that tactical side. And for our audience, when you start, you’re probably going to be working at that level. You’re soaking things in like a sponge and you’re doing a lot of the coordination and administrative duties.
But what you just spoke to 5 year plan. The strategic element, and I see a lot of companies, especially they come to us for talent, they may have a shop that’s set up with folks that don’t have any kind of lens to go through on the strategic side. It’s just, oh, here’s an order. I’ve got to fill it, but where’s the quickest person or the cheapest person like the cheapest vendor and you don’t always want to do that.
So I think that we’re talking about adding maximum value, making sure the suppliers are meeting your quality objectives and the service. Can they do it on time? What’s the lead time? Are they shipping it in full? Things like that, the fill rate, those are the kind of KPIs, right? That they’re going to want to adhere to.
Are they staying within. Cost and, and then you got the risk management side, all the things going on in the world. And I’m sure you talk about climate is changing in areas and I’m sure particularly in your business, fruit, vegetables, that’s something that you have to be paying attention to. Anything you want to highlight there when you think about metrics, KPIs that procurement professionals are commonly monitoring and trying to track boards and hit their goals.
[00:18:22] Walter Abreu: Yeah, you, you, you hit the basic ones. And, and I, I feel that those are really basic. And, and, and I keep telling suppliers about that. I said, look, we are long past the time that we. You supply, I pay you and that’s it, right? We, what we want to have is someone bringing value to that. So really checking score cards on when it comes to deliver on deliveries on time.
[00:18:51] Walter Abreu: And so obviously you monitor that, but that’s, we pass that. If I, if you rely and you have a good commercial partner, it’s someone that’s a given. You’re going to be in the, is it going to be perfect? It won’t. We understand we’re still looking at those numbers, but we have to drive innovation, drive growth through our supply base.
[00:19:16] Walter Abreu: You have to look at suppliers and say, look, you are the experts in the area. Right. So how we can add to that. It’s funny. And we, I’ve heard a lot about that. You approach suppliers and big companies. And it’s not that many that as suppliers, they look at it and say, no, I, I do understand what you want, but when it comes to execution, it’s really not those many that will be open to that and then understand the concept again, if it’s you just transaction.
[00:19:45] Walter Abreu: We have a bunch of people that we can go to. What we want is just really bringing someone here that is going to look outside of the box and say, Hey, you guys are doing things this way. Why do you don’t that way? We have some experience with other customers, or we have some experience or maybe just bring that value and.
[00:20:05] Walter Abreu: Being in procurement is one of the things that, uh, you were supposed to do is, okay, you found that opportunity and through your supply base, get that value and sell it in turn, just move that up the chain and say, look, guys, this is why we want to deal with this supplier because they Are contributing to our role here and the way, and, and, and this is going to have an impact on overall business.
[00:20:31] Walter Abreu: Right. So, uh, I think that’s very important. There are a lot of things that, that we, uh, I, I personally look at suppliers and again, they go, it varies on categories and industries, but, uh, we had to talk about sustainability. That’s for sure. One of the things that in the, in the Protestant food and beverage.
[00:20:53] Walter Abreu: Plastics, there’s a lot of circular economy. There’s a lot to, to talk about that. It’s as lonely, it’s lower than I think it should be,
but
[00:21:03] Walter Abreu: it’s little by little, it’s catching up with other parts of what you look at suppliers, right? And then this is something that we, we were looking at. Right now, it’s definitely very important.
Absolutely. And I know you’ve got a lot of recent experience on the packaging side, and we’ve worked with a plethora of packaging companies and you see those that are continuing to cut trees down and on the other side, you got those that are going into your recycling centers, recycling, the circular economy you talked about.
And if I’m in a big corporation, I’ve got sustainability targets and goals, and then you have a purpose around it too, right? Not just a PR, but you realize the value that you can achieve for, you know, The greater good of the planet and our natural resources go in with that supplier. That’s got the recycling.
Maybe it’s a little bit more expensive, but it’s going to create more long term impact. So you got to factor that in. We need more of that, right?
[00:21:54] Walter Abreu: We do. And this is one of them. And I think we’re going to get to discuss a little bit of the challenges here. It’s very interesting being in procurement. It’s again, not being only.
[00:22:03] Walter Abreu: In an aisle and in procurement, you have to understand what’s going on in sales and what your customers want and your customers want. So if you sell to retailers and and there’s a lot of pressure to look at your packaging. And again, just talking specifically about packaging here, but look at your packaging.
[00:22:21] Walter Abreu: We, the footprint here, we, we, we have to find a way. To do it better and with less impact to the environment, how we do that. So when you present and there are ways to go, right? Right now, it’s going to cost a little bit more when you present that to your customers. That’s when the fun starts because your sales team is going to say, Oh, but we need some cost neutral solutions here.
[00:22:48] Walter Abreu: And guess what? We work our magic here, but not all the time, right? We try to contribute with different things. But that’s very interesting. And we’ve been in procurement and sometimes you’re going to be exposed to talk to customers and explain why there is a plus, and then really they want to pursue and we will support that, but there’s something that we have to recognize when it comes to costing of that.
[00:23:10] Walter Abreu: So, yeah, that’s a very important piece of the discussion here. Absolutely.
[00:23:17] Mike Ogle: During this short break, we recognize that this podcast is made possible by SCM Talent Group, the industry leading supply chain executive search firm. Visit scmtalentgroup. com. At SCM talent.com.
Since we’re on challenges, we talk about sustainability, what are some of the other key challenges that you run into in the procurement world? And we know there’s a bunch from a pandemic to reeling our way from that. There’s still impacts that we’re dealing with, but I would love to hear your perspective, Walter.
[00:23:49] Walter Abreu: Yeah. So let’s you, you touched on the pandemic and my, in my view, again, this is. I’m not saying obviously, it was an awful period of time again. We all the consequences that it has had because of that time. But if you look purely at the supply chain industry and function. It was a good thing. If you think about it, corporations start looking at you and say, Hey, ah, now I know what you do or different.
[00:24:18] Walter Abreu: That’s right. Okay. So we, who does that? We’re going to run out or we have issues with vessels not getting in containers or not moving from one side of the war to the, so as of a sudden people that were not into that start saying, look, but who knows about that, and then. Comes supply chain and comes procurement and comes risk analysis and mitigation.
[00:24:39] Walter Abreu: And then this whole thing, that’s that, that exactly that eventually when DeVito start finding out that, oh. So this is addressed by the supply chain piece and the procurement function. And that’s what they do. In that sense, I think that pandemic, again, it was an awful time. It was very challenging for those in the function, for those that were ready, not expecting pandemic, it’s no, nobody was expecting that.
[00:25:07] Walter Abreu: But if you had then something about supplier management, the relationship management. Overall risk assessment on your supply chain. Probably you got to the pandemic and you’re least exposed than a lot of other people around there being connected to what can impact you. That’s what if you’re in supply chain, you should be doing since the day one of your career, and then especially during a pandemic.
[00:25:37] Walter Abreu: So gel politics is something to add to that is something that the word is not the same as it was 30 or 50 years ago. So you wouldn’t be looking at opportunities across the globe and then comes the time that you say, okay, everything that I need is in Asia. So I’m going to start importing everything. And the logistics were working fine, no wars, no nothing, and as of a sudden, more and more you have problems around the world that are pushing you to near shore again.
[00:26:08] Walter Abreu: And those are the kind of things that you have to be connected. That’s for sure is something that, that it’s a challenge. I say, so those are more external factors, right? I touched on that a little bit before, but I think it’s important as a challenge. In the procurement space is okay again, what kind of value you bring internally to your stakeholders and how you convince them and how you make them buy into your ideas and go with you to deliver a better result.
[00:26:40] Walter Abreu: That’s if you have people in operations and again, internal stakeholders that have been. Dealing with procurement and purchasing on a way, and as a facility, you say, no, let’s partner on that. Let’s this is the change that you want when you see change. We’re going to have a problem here because as we all know, changes are challenging for those that are really want to make sure that product is shipped out all the door.
[00:27:08] Walter Abreu: So when you deal with that, I find my, I found myself in certain situations that was much more difficult to convince internally. And to me it was very clear that it was to the company’s benefit. Then in situations that, okay, we are about to have a disruption in our supply chain. We eventually could find ways to mitigate that, but, but to me it’s very challenged to do that Now once.
[00:27:32] Walter Abreu: You show your value and you show that you get things right, you plan ahead, then things start moving smoothly as it goes. But that’s for sure one of the things that I think is challenging in the procurement space.
That’s right. That’s right. I just thought of one, and I hear about this a lot, where they’re building out a More of the strategic category management, sourcing, mature type of structure.
And you, let’s go build that. And then you’ll hear about all the rogue. I’ll call it, I’ll use the word rogue is probably a good term to describe the people that we’ve been doing it our way. This is how I’ve got my own. Network of people, my buddy system. I’m just going to keep using those suppliers. And yeah, we got a great relationship.
They don’t, so you have to go in and the new guy and put on a pyramid hat and you’ve got to sell, I can help you. Exactly. Yeah. We hear about that challenge a lot.
[00:28:26] Walter Abreu: The selling piece here, it’s again, it’s, and I think we miss. A lot in terms of connecting sales, put your sales team in front of your procurement team and just ask the questions to this paper and say, okay, what strategy do you have when you’re going to sell our product there?
[00:28:43] Walter Abreu: So you as procurement, you’re going to look at someone selling our product. And if you’re buying what you guys are doing, what the approach just communicate. And you learn about from a lot from that communication. I, I think that it’s, it’s very challenging when people, and again, I, I’m not, uh, I, I understand preferences.
[00:29:02] Walter Abreu: I understand that if you’re in operations and running an operation and your objective, it’s really not, you, you have to make sure that you manufacture your pack and it’s out of the door when it’s supposed to be. But, and this is working smoothly, but if you come and are able to show to people that it can work even better.
[00:29:25] Walter Abreu: And if you have the ability to showcase that and people buy into it. You’re in a good path to progress in your career.
Yep. And to get some of those quick wins, establish credibility, trust, and then it hopefully snowballs in the right direction. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to highlight that. Cause I just going back to some searches we’ve worked on.
I hear about that a lot. So yeah, this person is going to be challenging to win over. So yeah, we’ve covered stakeholders, that engagement, soft skills. That’s always important. We’ve covered challenges, but I want to talk about what you find most enjoyable Walter, because I think as our audience may be looking to maybe move into this procurement, it is a.
Growing, it’s really exciting place to be, uh, when you think about the broad supply chain career paths, what do you enjoy most? What keeps you getting up in the morning? And, and obviously you’ve been with one company for quite some time too. So there’s that, which we don’t see as often these days. Yeah.
From your perspective.
[00:30:21] Walter Abreu: Yeah. So I think that, and that’s a good, could take, if you look at my career, it’s not easy to find someone that has been that long with a company. Obviously it has to do with the company, number one, but it has to do a lot with the function, with the role. It’s very dynamic. You do not have one day, the same day twice, or it’s, and things have changed in a way.
[00:30:44] Walter Abreu: And it’s interesting how you explain that to people. One day you’re addressing one issue with one specific region. And the other day you’re searching something that you’ve never seen before when it comes to, to your school and you’re still challenged to get something done in that front and well executed.
[00:31:05] Walter Abreu: I think that the dynamics on there is what gets me excited on and keeps me up, uh, on doing and delivering in the high level for all those years. It’s really about the role and how different things are every day. One thing that particularly I love it is that you, you are in procurement. You, there’s not such a thing that, okay, I’m in North America, North America is going to be, you will find opportunities, the world is, you realize that as you go, right?
[00:31:36] Walter Abreu: You, the more you understand what you’re dealing with, you’re going to say, but hold on, why here and not. And China or and, uh, Chile or in Kenya or in why not? Why? And then let’s start exploring those and out of 10 or 9 out or 8 out of 10. Maybe it’s going to be an end. If you hate to, you’re going to be proud of yourself to have found those opportunities.
[00:32:01] Walter Abreu: And plus the idea to be in communication with different cultures. And people that just have a completely different understanding of what the word is from you, to me, it’s super exciting. I talk to people every day from different places. It’s funny how people perceive you as well. So I’m from Brazil. One of the common questions that I get, I say, how soccer?
[00:32:26] Walter Abreu: Oh, we love your country. And I go back to those people and whatever I know about their country and their culture. Obviously you have to be a little bit careful to what you say, but, but that’s part of the learning curve. And that’s why you make connections and build relationships and you have a very solid supply base.
[00:32:45] Walter Abreu: So that’s the two pieces that I think are very important and exciting to me. It gave me when this role and, and, and in the industry for those, and the Monty actually for this many years.
Absolutely. And you, a lot of these roles, as you mentioned, are global in scope, uh, whether it’s global suppliers or your customers are global or both.
When you, when you think about the career paths, uh, I know supply chain is a myriad and I use that word myriad a lot. It’s one of our most common questions from folks that are budding professionals, especially coming out of college, you teach a lot of the theoretical stuff, right? But then you’re like, Oh, my gosh, there’s probably a hundred plus jobs that, which one do I choose?
So if you’re choosing procurement, like maybe talk about some of the traditional areas where you may start. And then part two would just love to hear any general advice you may have for folks that are looking to embark upon a career like yours.
[00:33:42] Walter Abreu: So as far as career goes, I think that’s, and again, even if you look at procurement alone, you’re probably going to be looking at something assisting a buyer or really a junior buyer level, whatever the terminologies today are all over the place, right?
[00:33:56] Walter Abreu: You’re going to see the role with different definitions, but in the end of the day, that’s what you do. You’re probably going to still be depending on the maturity level of the company that you’re looking for. You’re still going to be A lot into transactions and just executing things and not thinking strategically.
[00:34:13] Walter Abreu: But eventually, and don’t get me wrong, people, sometimes we talk about that. And people look at it and okay, it’s no value to that. Well, guess what? There is value. Someone has to do that and well done. You can be very strategic as a function, but someone needs to execute Cascade down to a perfect execution in the day.
[00:34:34] Walter Abreu: So if you’re thinking about a career. Most likely, this is the place to start. Just tell people, look, just common sense, right? Do not think that you’re going to stay in that role and you need to stay in that role for 10 years or even for five for that sake, just keep connected on what’s the next step, learn as much as you can and being in assisting and cutting orders and expediting orders and in the logistic part of things.
[00:35:04] Walter Abreu: But then what’s the next step? What can you do? You’re going to be a buyer, you’re going to be a manager or a category management, or we get into category management, and then from there, start going up and get you a director level and oversee a full Category or whole function. And then from there, you can start thinking about being a senior director or VP or CPO, and it depends a little bit on how it goes in each company.
[00:35:31] Walter Abreu: But one, one thing that I say is that just don’t get comfortable. It’s about, and we touched on that. Don’t continuous improvement in your career and for your role. It goes a long way. It’s gonna, and try to be, try to look at different things. Uh, do not stay on the same either category on, on the same path, the more diverse you go, the more options you’re going to have, not in procurement.
[00:35:57] Walter Abreu: Again, procurement is one of the pieces in the whole supply chain thing, right? Maybe you open up a little bit and say, okay, there’s some other things that are all well connected with procurement that I like better. Make sure you talk to people, learn, offer. To do something up about that specific area. And as you go, you’re going to progress.
[00:36:16] Walter Abreu: But but I think that in general, responding to your question, that’s going to be right basic. You’re going to your entry positions. You’re going to be in the junior buyer level or expediting orders. And then from there, you’re just going to go in. It’s going to be, it’s going to be fun here when you get those to this category level management and from there on.
It is exciting. It’s and it continues to evolve. We’re seeing AI come into procurement and it’s, it’s fascinating to see where this is going to go in years to come. So Walter, I appreciate you sharing your perspectives on the career paths. We’d love to hear general career advice you may have for those that are Looking to get into procurement, perhaps coming from college, or even maybe transferring from another function into procurement.
[00:37:05] Walter Abreu: Yeah, so there’s not a one answer if it’s all right for that, I say, and, uh, as you go in your career, you’re going to realize that so better tell people that are starting networking goes a long way. Uh, and when I say networking is obviously you’re going to make friends, you’re going to meet colleagues, you’re going to meet people.
[00:37:28] Walter Abreu: Just keep up with those contacts. You’re going to need them in the future. And really it’s not about dating or not. It’s just for the sake of knowing people and learning from them. They’re going to learn from you. It’s a very nice exchange and don’t do that only with those people that you like the most.
[00:37:46] Walter Abreu: You’re going to be in situations that you had to perform. And, uh, part of your group is people that you really do not click. And those are the most challenged pieces, uh, or moments that you have. And if you’re able to deliver with people and being professional and still able to deliver in that environment, again, that’s a very good thing.
[00:38:10] Walter Abreu: We’ll talk a lot about you when it comes. Other opportunities. You just have to adapt. You have to understand people. This is a people business, which one is not right. It is, everything is about people, but being a good communicator, very professional and a network builder is going to help you a lot as you go.
[00:38:30] Walter Abreu: And prepare yourself again. You cannot just stop and think that everything, you’ll probably. We’ll know more as you go in some specific categories or services or markets, but there’s a lot of that, especially today with the technology and everything that is available. Podcasts and, and different things that you can touch on.
[00:38:53] Walter Abreu: There’s a lot to, to learn from. And, and I’ll, I guess those are the two main advices that I’ll give to
them. I think that’s a excellent advice. And then follow up question is we talked about continuous improvement within the profession. You want to get better, learn more. On the learning side though, is any resources that you may point folks to?
Obviously we’ve got associations that are geared towards procurement. I’ve done quite a bit, a little bit with ISM as an example. All the. Institute of supply management, but where are some your go to resources? How do you keep up with things? How do you grow your knowledge base? Any areas we’ve mentioned podcasts that we hope to think that ours is providing some good insights, perspectives, but I’m sure you have some of your own that you wouldn’t mind sharing with our audience.
[00:39:38] Walter Abreu: I do. I do. And one, so again, I’m a big, I’m big in podcast. I like the idea. And again, living in Miami, it’s not easy to commute here. It takes a while. So the time that I spend on traffic is just amazing. And I take my time with podcasts. I barely listen to radio anymore or even music for that sake. So podcast is, it’s a very interesting one.
[00:39:58] Walter Abreu: Not only you’re probably, you’re going to learn something. And that’s going to give to you just a small piece of, okay, just to kick off that curiosity about that specific topic. So that’s why I think that the podcast, that’s what’s going to give you, you’re, are you going to have a deep knowledge from a podcast learning?
[00:40:19] Walter Abreu: I don’t think so, but there at least is going to trigger some things to you that you’re going to, if you’re curious enough, you’re going to learn with that. So definitely this is a good one to go. I like a lot what you guys do it here. I like Art of Procurement. This is a very interesting one as well. They have a lot of interesting content when it comes to technology too.
[00:40:40] Walter Abreu: And we, we didn’t touch, uh, during the talk here about the, about technology, but definitely in all areas and procurement is not different. We just mentioned AI as, uh, as one of the things here. So, uh, they, they do have a lot of content. I do rely a lot on IASN as well. When it comes to reading and courses and there are different places to go, but I would say on the top of my mind, those are two that I go to when it comes to more knowledge and continuous improvement.
Absolutely. Those are great. You can also get lost in YouTube and the internet, but, and there’s a plenty of people out there that give, maybe not the best advice, but I’ve always felt that the more people we talk to guests, let’s say, for example, they’re in procurement like yourself, you start hearing those commonalities and you, a lot of the shared advice, it’s okay.
I better take note of that. You spy people that I listened to on the last five podcasts are saying a lot of the same things in terms of the importance. So Walter, it’s been a pleasure speaking with you today. Thank you so much for coming on the supply chain careers podcast, our day in the life series. We know our audience is going to get a lot of value and benefit out of this.
And hopefully some of those nuggets that might make a positive impact on their own careers. So thanks again, Walter.
[00:41:52] Walter Abreu: I appreciate the time here. And again, come to meet whenever you guys need it. Yeah, right. Excellent.
[00:42:02] Mike Ogle: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Supply Chain Careers podcast. Be sure to listen to other episodes and sign up to be notified when future episodes are released as we continue to interview industry leading supply chain experts.
[00:42:18] Mike Ogle: This podcast is made possible by SCM Talent Group, the industry leading supply chain executive search firm. Visit SCM Talent Group at scmtalent. com.
