The Buy Side

In our fourth and final conversation with Michiel, we talk about the importance of price benchmarking for validation during negotiations and how Bloomreach utilizes Vendr for those insights, how he navigates the cultural differences working with Procurement and vendors across many different countries, and why he thinks Procurement still gets a bad rep (and ways to move away from that).

In our third conversation with Michiel, he describes why SaaS is one of the most difficult areas for procurement today (i.e. a large piece of the margin is often made up; hefty implementation costs; etc.), how he approaches SaaS buying conversations to get the fairest possible pricing and terms (i.e. always come prepared with data and always be transparent), and what he thinks the future of SaaS procurement looks like ("procurement is always going to be a social business").

In our second conversation with Michiel, we start off by talking about change management and how to overcome the "experience baggage" employees might have with procurement from past companies. We also cover the intersection between procurement and the SaaS buying process and where Michiel prioritizes his time knowing he only has 24 hours in the day.

In our first conversation with Michiel de Bruijn, Procurement Lead at Bloomreach, a Commerce Experience leader, he shares his experience building procurement capabilities in Europe and the United Arab Emirates, the differences between operational and strategic sourcing, and the in-depth processes to create cost awareness and better manage spend in a new role.

What makes a good CFO great? What defines the modern CFO? If anyone were to answer this question, it's Steve Isom, Bloomerang's own CFO. In our final episode with Steve, he outlines the 5 pillars of the CFO's role, advice he'd pass on to fellow finance leaders, and last, but not least, his favorite SaaS tools right now.

In our 3rd conversation with Bloomerang's CFO, Steve Isom, we get into the nitty gritty of Q4 planning… what he's learned over the years and how to make the process a more collaborative and effective experience for all of leadership. And in the spirit of EOY planning, we also talk about EOY software renewals and best practices going into the next fiscal year. Let's get started.

In our 2nd conversation with Bloomerang's CFO, Steve Isom, we get deep and talk about the finance challenges and tribulations that keep him up at night and how he works to solve them. Risk mitigation, new competitors in the space, and managing a growing SaaS stack are just a few. Let's dive in.

Welcome to the first of four conversations with Steve Isom, CFO at Bloomerang, a CRM software company for nonprofits. In this episode, Steve takes us through his journey to CFO at a fast-growing company after starting his career in the banking industry, what he learned from his experiences working at bootstrapped, high growth organizations, how he spun up the company's first strategic finance function, and more.

In our third and final episode with Chloe Poon, Finance and RevOps leader at Teikametrics, we continue our conversation around the impact Covid has had on existing and new software tools, how she and her team track company efficiency, and last, but not least, her theories on where the Saas finance world is headed in the next several years.

In our second conversation with Chloe Poon, Finance and RevOps leader at Teikametrics, a leading Retail Optimization Platform, we cover how to introduce new finance and SaaS buying processes to your team through change management, along with Chloe's approach to long and short-term planning post-COVID 19.

In our first conversation with Chloe Poon, Senior Director of Finance and RevOps at Teikametrics, a leading Retail Optimization Platform, she talks about how her experience in operations armed her for a smooth transition to Finance, how she thinks about increasing the efficiency of a fast-growing team, and how her team goes beyond the transactional activities of a traditional Finance team.

In our final conversation with Michael Denari, we talk about how the sourcing expert and his team partner closely with Vendr to shave an extra 20% off on SaaS purchases, where he focuses his time with those extra hours saved, and last, but not least, his favorite up-and-coming SaaS tool.

In our third conversation with Michael Denari, Canva's Strategic Sourcing leader, he uncovers the biggest issues with SaaS renewals, his go-to negotiation tactics, and where the procurement and SaaS industry is headed in the next 5 years.

In our second conversation with Canva's Strategic Sourcing leader, Denari shares his views on change management for SaaS buying, how procurement teams can get better at bridging the gap between stakeholders, and how he's building Canva's procurement team from scratch.

This week, we introduce Michael Denari, Head of Global Spend & Business Systems at Canva. Hear how Denari went from entry-level accounting to building a procurement org at a leading SaaS company – and how the continued (and rapid) adoption of SaaS will impact the procurement industry forever.

In episode 3 of The Buy Side, Omar Ghani describes how important empathy and positive intent are to successful SaaS negotiations. "I wish they taught this in school," he said, because using these tactics, he closes deals faster every single time.

In episode 2 of The Buy Side, we continue our conversation with Omar Ghani, addressing the biggest challenges that come with SaaS negotiations and how to avoid them. As a Vendr customer, Omar also describes how he's been able to free up time and build his strategic sourcing team while partnering with our team of expert buyers.

Welcome to The Buy Side, hosted by Vendr, where we interview finance and procurement experts from leading companies on negotiation, innovation, and more in a quick, digestible way.  To kick off the podcast in our first episode, we have Omar Ghani, Reddit's first-ever procurement hire looking to build out a team that looks like a Fortune 500 environment of operational excellence.