Ep44: Beyond the Numbers - Balancing Humanity and Commercial Clarity with Steve Day
Want to master the art of successful business partnerships and unlock the commercial power of human connection at work? In this must-listen episode, we dive deep into the often-misunderstood world of procurement, supply chain, and human-centered leadership with industry veteran Stephen Day, Chief Procurement Officer at Kantar Group.
Whether you’re a seasoned sales pro or new to corporate partnerships, Stephen shares eye-opening insights on what buyers really want, how to break through as a trusted partner instead of just a supplier, and the essential “human skills” that AI can never replace. Discover why empathy, curiosity, reframing, and authentic communication are the real “hard skills” of the modern workplace—and how embracing them can move you from lost deals to lasting relationships.
Packed with practical examples, negotiation secrets, and heartfelt stories of career lessons learned, this episode will shift your view of procurement and arm you with the tools to build better business from the inside out. If you’re ready to bring more humanity, confidence, and success to your working world, don’t miss this conversation!
Topics Discussed in this Episode:
Human-centered leadership in business
Commercial advantage of being human
Importance of empathy at work
Navigating procurement and partnerships
Building trusted business relationships
Timestamps:
00:00 "Exploring Humanity in Business"
04:28 "Procurement: It's All About People"
07:29 From Pride to Cultivating Empathy
11:03 AI's Impact on Career Foundations
15:52 Supply Chain Power Imbalance
20:00 Understanding Stakeholders for Supplier Success
21:59 Streamlining Procurement Decision-Making
25:48 Beyond Procurement: Winning Business Deals
27:36 Communication, Trust, and Transparency
31:02 Negotiation and Sales Strategy
35:41 Procurement Challenges in Blind Bidding
38:57 "Prioritizing Core Business Fit"
40:43 Procurement Engagement Tips
Read the episode blog here
About Stephen Day
Stephen Day is the Chief Procurement Officer of the Kantar Group, a 30,000 strong global organization headquartered in London, which became a Bain Capital Company in 2019. Steve boasts a thirty year career in Procurement and Supply Chain, having worked for Kantar Group, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Cable & Wireless, Atos, Rolls Royce and Philips. Steve holds a BA from Coventry University, an MBA from the University of Birmingham, and is a Fellow of CIPS, the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply.
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Helen Wada (00:02.804)
Hello and welcome to another episode of Human Wise. I'm absolutely delighted to have Stephen Day with me this afternoon on this rather hot afternoon in almost July, not quite July, but how can we be almost in July? Steve is the Chief Procurement Officer of the Cantar Group, a 30,000 strong global organization headquartered in London, which became a Bain Capital Company in 2019.
Steve, you've got a long history in the procurement and supply chain world, having worked for Cantar Group, Vodafone, T-Mobile, Cable and Wireless, Atos, Rolls Royce and Philips. Goodness, there's an awful lot of organizations there. A huge amount of experience. And I'd love to hear a little bit more about your career in a moment, but you and I have worked together for a number of years now. And when I was a global client lead, when I was one of the big four a few years ago now.
But actually we connected over human conversations, I'd like to say. And when I thinking about the podcast, a lot of what I talk about, how can we be more confident in ourselves in a sales environment? How can we have better conversations from a partnering point of view? would say actually it would be great to have somebody on the show that sees it from the other side. And I know that you get it. You've got a huge amount of experience there. So really delighted to have you on Human and Wise to explore.
What does it mean to be human at work? What are the commercial imperatives and how can we, who are sales people or looking to partner with organizations can think about things from the other side. So really delighted to have you on the show. Maybe tell us a little bit more about you and your career outside of the companies that I've just listed off there.
Steve Day (01:48.942)
Well, I mean, I could spend hours doing this, so I'll keep it really, really short so we don't lose the audience. But you might tell from my accent that I'm from the Midlands originally, so a city called Coventry, which I'm very proud to have come from. And that's really where it all began for me in the sense that I did my degree at Coventry University and along the way was sponsored by Rolls-Royce Aerospace, which was a big employer in the city at the time.
Helen Wada (02:15.612)
My dad used to work for Rolls Royce many years ago. He was a Birmingham Union, he started his career at Rolls Royce.
Steve Day (02:20.366)
There you go, many parallels in life. well, in fact, they, they, they, when I was 16, they did a little one week internship. I always tell this story and I went to this factory every day. I don't want to my age away, but let's say it was in the late eighties and they, I was with the, what was called the materials manager. I kind of shadowed him for a week and every lunchtime we used to go to the director's restaurant and it was silver service. Would you believe in those days?
Helen Wada (02:36.852)
you
Helen Wada (02:43.091)
Yeah.
Helen Wada (02:48.66)
you
Steve Day (02:50.528)
And I thought to myself, wow, I'd love to have the opportunity to have a job like this where I have silver service lunch. And it just basically energised me into thinking about what my career could look like in the future. Well, spin forward, I did my degree at Coventry and then did a summer internship. And then the very same roles always sponsored me to do my final year at Coventry. And then I joined them for a couple of years and had a wonderful time.
Helen Wada (02:56.531)
Yeah.
Steve Day (03:17.856)
And then as you do your very young age, you'll have children at the same, my comparative same age now, starting their careers and you just spin through several companies really, really quickly really, and you just accumulate experience and knowledge and then before you get really serious about your career.
Helen Wada (03:28.628)
Mmm.
Helen Wada (03:35.406)
that always in procurement Steve or was that across a range of disciplines because you know you have a broad commercial role now at Cantor right so
Steve Day (03:40.526)
Yeah, do. That was a brilliant question because you often get a lot of people, procurement people say I fell into it. I didn't know what it was all about. I may break the mold. I from a very early age, I decided I'd really like to get into the procurement supply chain profession really. Now, whether I realized it was procurement or supply chain in those early stages of my career, probably not. But
Yeah, I really saw that I would be comfortable being in that procurement role. And the profession has really moved on enormously. When I started at Rolls-Royce, I'm a kind fresh-eyed graduate working with really seasoned professionals. mean, you're just doing real grunt work, chasing orders down, trying to expedite things into the factory.
chasing supplies that were dormant or you haven't heard of and all those kind of things. And it was just a, it was a wonderful grounding really in terms of just learning the skills. And I suppose the skill that I learned very early on was it's all about people. And I know that sounds, I mean, all your audience may say, well, of course it's all about the people, but you you don't really learn that at university. It's a very technical thing.
And then when you get into the workplace, how you talk to people, how you engage with them, how you motivate them, those become skills that you acquire over time. And I think you're either got an aptitude for that or not. And I think you do need those skills in procurement for sure.
Helen Wada (05:18.164)
And I think that that really brings us onto a great place to start. it is one of the reasons that I've set up HumanWise, the podcast, launching the book next year, because to your point, we develop through our school, our university education, even sometimes those early stages in our career where we're developing an expertise, whether that's in procurement, supply chain, law, engineering, accountancy, finance, whatever that may be, construction. But actually the more senior you get,
more, the more quite frankly, the AI is going to be coming into T, we can use it and you know, for the knowledge base piece, the more the skills in the workplace of those are soft skills, but it's actually about being human. It's about having that the conversations, knowing how to influence, knowing how to push back and challenge. And I'm sure we're going to get into all of that. tend to kick off these conversations with one question to kind of ground us, but
What does being human mean to you? What does being human at work mean to you?
Steve Day (06:20.334)
Gosh, that what a great question. And you can tell these aren't revised, by the way, because I'm now struggling for an answer that sounds like this is worthy of being invited onto the podcast. what I so look, I think the best way for me to frame this is that very early on in my career, I got to a very senior position at T-Mobile. And the backstory to that was that I completed my master's degree at a company and then I
Helen Wada (06:26.749)
you
Steve Day (06:46.286)
went to them, went for an interview at one to one and it was like the head of supply chain role. what, one to one, and the people that were interviewing me knew less about supply chain than I did. And basically they gave me the role. And if you can just imagine I'm kind of 30 running a 40, 50 people organization, but it was the function that was kind of ordering mobile devices.
Helen Wada (06:50.76)
Gosh, I remember that. Yes, one to one. Yes.
Helen Wada (06:58.44)
Bye.
Steve Day (07:11.722)
injecting them into the channels and then acquiring customers. And in those early stages of the mobile industry, that was really what the game was about. And I was doing it with some really seasoned professionals. Anyway, long story short, we went through a ton of change and transformation and we made it the best performing supply chain function of the T-Mobile group. And I was very proud of that. And then we did an employee engagement survey and basically everybody hated my guts. You know, it was like a little, you know, very
very energized, very focused, didn't really take much interest in people, didn't show much empathy and things like that. And it was a bit of a moment where I realized it's all very well knocking out the park in terms of business results. But if you don't build the right culture in the organization you're working in, you're going to really have a problem progressing and developing and going forward. So what I very quickly realized is there are some skills I think are so important, empathy,
Helen Wada (07:42.259)
Huh?
Steve Day (08:11.79)
building emotional resiliency, building safe space. And there's a word that I can't quite get to, but basically allowing people to express their concerns or their worries, or their issues is so important. And I've seen just examples of where leaders just not been prepared to have a conversation around dissent or disagreement or about concerns.
It creates a very toxic environment. what I like to think myself of now is authentic, willing to admit what I don't know, very willing to acknowledge mistakes or decisions that I've made are wrong, but more importantly, just listening. And then the final thing I would add, again, it's a skill that I've picked up with experience rather than I was out the gates.
doing this. I think how many conversations do we start with people where we actually ask how is it? How's home? How was their weekend? How's things working out? Do we ever spend 10 minutes just getting to know the people that we're talking to? Or do we go straight into the conversation, right? Tell me about the numbers X, Y and Z. And what I've learned is that, you know, that few moments of just human empathy or intimacy.
My goodness me, that carries you a long way.
Helen Wada (09:38.356)
You're absolutely right, Stephen. I think that's a wonderful story to share and thank you for sharing that with us because you're right, know, in what I'm doing, the way that I'm working with individuals, with organisations, it's how can we balance that commercial focus? Because there is a commercial need, whether you're in a commercial business, whether you're in a not-for-profit, we can't ignore the numbers, right? We can't ignore the numbers. Otherwise, none of our businesses, we wouldn't be able to serve the people that we want to serve and create the value that
we have within us. But there is absolutely that human side, if you talk about human centred leadership, that for me, it's a yin and a yang. You know, I talk about, you know, my husband and I, he's the calm to my crazy. You know, we work because we have different blends of personality together. And for me, I talk about a commercial focus and a coaching approach because we absolutely need that commercial focus in business.
Steve Day (10:24.45)
Yeah. Yeah.
Helen Wada (10:33.94)
It's there, you're working on the bank capital right now, you know the numbers are there and you have to focus on them. But the way in which you deliver them, we have a choice.
Steve Day (10:38.21)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I think that's right. And I've worked in lots of organizations where the leader made a deliberate choice to act in one way. And it makes for very uncomfortable, very difficult working environment. You touched on something earlier, where you kind of talked about AI and what that might do to the hard skills. And then you kind of talked about the soft skills.
I would say I don't think soft skill, I don't think skills of leadership and I don't think they are soft skills. I think they're hard skills. I, but what I ponder right now is if you think about the workforce, I mean, in the journey that I described, you know, I went into Rolls Royce, did all the grunt work.
Helen Wada (11:15.057)
Absolutely.
Helen Wada (11:29.128)
Yeah.
Steve Day (11:29.462)
and then progressed over time. I think your leadership skills and your experience are a progression of your previous experience. What do we do when AI takes away all of that grunt work that many of us started our careers on? Where's our hinterland of the stuck? Because you can't, I don't think it would be most unusual for someone to suddenly go from a grad position into a media or senior leader.
position without doing some of that grunt work. I just wonder a little bit whether there's a danger that the foundations that we've all been through, people are going to lose. And I think that's going to be a profound challenge going forward.
Helen Wada (12:08.338)
I think you're right. think, you know, I haven't got the answer by the way, so I'm not going to profess to, but you know, the way that, you know, some of the conversations that I've had when I think about the coaching skills, we'll cover those, I'm sure in a moment, you know, the core coaching skills of questioning, of listening, of challenge. When we think about questions, our ability to question and to continue to question, to get to the real nugget of what we're trying to do becomes even more important.
with the use of AI because if you're not asking, A, if you're not asking questions and B, if you're not asking the right questions or taking things at face value, we're very likely to potentially get a suboptimal answer. And so for me, it's not soft skills, they're fundamental human skills that we need to build our muscles up with that enable us to interact with AI.
Steve Day (13:01.698)
Yeah.
Helen Wada (13:05.949)
but also interact with people. And yeah, I don't know exactly what those look like, but when I talk about the human framework, which is about how you show up, which is about understanding others, it's about your mindset, how you act and adapt with the next steps, but that understanding others, that curiosity, I think will have to be a ground up skill that we build right from the bottom. Because if we're not curious, we're going to end up and we're not questioning.
Steve Day (13:30.676)
Absolutely.
Steve Day (13:35.213)
Yeah.
Helen Wada (13:35.7)
I talked to my husband and he works in finance, but people have come back and they say, this legislation says this, well, actually, no, they picked up the wrong year and they've missed the, the AI has missed the latest report that came out two weeks ago. So if you don't have that awareness, I agree with you. I think we're going to have to put these fundamental human skills right back into the school's agenda and the graduate agenda.
Steve Day (14:00.066)
yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Helen Wada (14:05.542)
it will make them even more important than we are today. Hopefully we're not going anywhere anytime soon, Steve.
Steve Day (14:13.816)
planning to with four children you can imagine is very expensive so you know I still need to keep working at it.
Helen Wada (14:21.14)
So talking about being expensive, Steve, that kind of brings us nicely onto the role of procurement in organisations. But in a second way, this wasn't planned at all. But what do a lot of people think about? I've dealt with a huge number of procurement organisations in my time, including your own. And it talks to me, they're like, oh, but it's always too expensive. It's always too expensive. And so a lot of people I work with are those...
Steve Day (14:27.013)
nice segue.
Steve Day (14:37.616)
here we go.
Helen Wada (14:48.98)
Brilliant experts that then have to sell and work in partnership and create proposals and find commercial partnerships that work. And procurement is seen on the whole, I generalize, but on the whole is kind of a barrier to effective working together and partnership. Tell me, what's it really like on the other side? are you, you know, you're a seasoned commercial leader.
beyond procurement. But what are organisations actually looking for Steve?
Steve Day (15:24.886)
I gosh, it's such a good question. I'm sure there's lots of people that will be, if anybody's listening to what I've got to say now, they'll be smiling and think, oh, this is interesting. What is he really going to say? As part of my career, I did a master's degree at, oh, it sounds a bit pretentious now, but there is a point to it. I did a master's degree at Birmingham University. again, back in the day, there were a number of professors around procurement supply chain. Andrew Cox was one at Birmingham.
Helen Wada (15:33.95)
you
Steve Day (15:53.582)
There was a chap at Cranfield and then somebody at Bath and they had kind of contradictory points of view. One was about partnerships, one was about supply chain and Andrew Cox, his point of view was, know, at the end of the day, you've got to understand where you are in the supply chain and who has the power. And the best example I can give you is if you think about Apple right now and Apple phones, you know, if you were to
Helen Wada (16:02.416)
Interesting.
Steve Day (16:22.51)
kind of do the componentry. So from design, chipset, manufacturing, retailer, mobile network operator. If you looked at that, you would see the Apple make 45 % margin in their business. Foxcom, the manufacturer make 2 % margin. The retailers, two or 3 % margin. The network operators, you know,
not great margins, to be honest, with relative to the capex that they make. And I think that sometimes people have these illusions, if I can say this, that the relationship between a buyer and a seller is equal in all cases. And I'm sorry, it's not, know, fundamentally, you know, the the discussions that you're going to have with anybody is going to be prefaced on so many things, you know, who's got the intellectual property?
Is it a seller that really needs to secure the account or is it the buyer that really needs to buy the capability? You know, what are the pricing and all those kinds of things? I think you need to know first and foremost, what does that dynamic look like from a supply chain perspective? And I always think about that as I then think about the conversations. Now, what I do here, and there's some resonance in that, is that procurement seem
very myopic in trying to get to the lowest digital point of price. I think there's probably some truth in that. In my experience, there's always a tension between endless rounds of negotiations versus actually having to get going and begin to start getting on with the change or the implementation or the sales of the thing that you need to buy and purchase and all those kinds of things. And then I think...
Helen Wada (17:55.508)
Yeah.
Steve Day (18:16.574)
what procurement aren't good at doing is kind of framing the context of the company in which they're working. Again, another great example, I won't talk about the name of the supplier, but I was working for Vodafone and we had a set of really big application design and maintenance contracts that we needed to retend and we had two vendors. And it just so happened that we took market share away from one vendor and gave it to another.
But the total wallet spend had declined quite significantly. So the vendor that had won more market share was complaining like hell because we've been too successful in taking costs out of the contract. It went on and on and on. at the end I said, look, I take your point, but first and foremost, budgets are reducing anyway. But by the way, you've increased your share of wallet. So, know, and what's my point? My point is...
In the same way salespeople think about framing and reframing, I think it's also the role of procurement to do that as well. And I don't think we're good at doing that. Sometimes I think we're just too binary, too focused on the, the, the componentry and the pricing. And then the final thing I'll say to you is that, you know, procurement, procurement's role, this is where the relationship stuff becomes, you can't underestimate the role that procurement has to play to try and coordinate internally within a business.
Helen Wada (19:23.572)
Mm.
Steve Day (19:43.672)
You know, I think sometimes buyers, suppliers think, you know, if someone specifies something or asks for something, they speak for the entirety of the organization and have that authority and permission to do so. It's more complicated than that. For sure, you have businesses like that, entrepreneurial led businesses, founder led businesses and things like that. But look, in the companies I've worked in, you've always got this internal constituency of people.
that all have points of view and things like that. And oftentimes what procurement is trying to do is solidify that into a kind of single version of the truth. So you can articulate it to the supplier about what it is that you're trying to get and what are the meaningful outcomes you're trying to secure.
Helen Wada (20:29.404)
And I think that relates back to one of the points actually that I've been writing about in the book, about understanding others. So if you're a supplier going into an organization, we all now know for the most part, again, generalizing, but there's not just one person that's your buyer. There are multiple stakeholders. And so as any supplier into an organization, you need to be able to map the landscape.
Steve Day (20:46.594)
Yeah.
Helen Wada (20:54.772)
to understand who's where, what their opinion might be, what role they may well play. And I draw a lot on the coaching world. So when I'm working with my clients on the coaching aspect, we look at something called systemic mapping, which is plotting it all out so that we can ask ourselves the questions of who haven't we got covered, who has really got the power here, going back to your power question and giving yourself a good enough chance to be able to navigate that network because...
Steve Day (21:06.477)
Yeah.
Helen Wada (21:22.884)
know, and I'd be interested from your perspective, but as a supplier, if you can make it easier for the organization to buy, then actually you're starting to get towards a true trusted partnership rather than sort of the transactional buyer seller.
Steve Day (21:40.3)
Yeah, I mean, again, have in mind you can't, again, I think sometimes people make the mistake. the example I gave you about Apple, not everybody can be a partner. You can't have partnerships for everything you buy. You sometimes it's just the case that it's mechanical and things like that. But it is certainly the case that you do then have relationships with vendors where you have an enduring relationship beyond just a transactional purchase because they're either leading
transformational, bringing a technology into your business. My stance has always been with vendors, listen, you can speak to whoever you want to in the company. Absolutely no problem. I'm not going to act as a gatekeeper. But what I do expect them to be is being transparent to me in terms of who they're talking to, what they're talking about, what they think they are evolving and thinking about. And my role is then to pick that up and think about how we're going to frame that commercially and whether it needs to be
subject to a tender or whether it needs some clarity. And I think that's important. Again, can you give so many examples of how sometimes suppliers hear what they want to hear from internal stakeholders. They will invest quite a bit of pre-sales investment, and then the opportunity never arises and they get all frustrated and then it gets handed over to procurement. Procurement say, well, fortunately, the budget wasn't there in the first place or business priorities have changed and things like that.
So I just encourage people to think of procurement as a useful role to play. Now, does that mean you'll get the juicy margins that you hope for? Maybe not. But what I think it will do is give you more clarity in terms of what are the purchasing decisions. And as many people will know as well, by the way, mean, how many people in this podcast, if anyone's listening to me in terms of what I'm going to say, kind of do the deal, shake the handset, and then they spend a miserable six months trying to get on boarded.
or get risk assessment sorted out more, all those kinds of things. mean, you know, and again, you know, early engagement, I always say, is so important to kind of get all of that stuff out of the way.
Helen Wada (23:33.844)
you
Helen Wada (23:47.936)
And I, it's interesting what you talk about there about conversations about where budgets are held, because again, talk about the human framework, negotiation is at the final end of the human, it's the end. And what I say in the book is whilst it's at the end, actually some of those conversations around budget and what are you doing are far easier to be had upfront. Yeah. Who holds the budget? What budget? They become less...
Difficult conversations earlier up you are in the conversation and it keeps that transparency open with for a lot of people I know there's a fear around who you know, I don't can't talk about money Actually, why not because if you're creating? human human conversation Whether you're transaction whether it's you know, one-off transaction or whether it's more of a partnership both agree, but
Steve Day (24:30.338)
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
Helen Wada (24:41.918)
Again, money comes into it, right? And if we don't understand the parameters...
Steve Day (24:43.406)
But will it. Yeah, but Helen, that's like British people not wanting to talk about their salaries because everyone gets a bit embarrassed about it. I mean, no one ever likes to talk about what their budgets are because I and to some degree that's OK because look implicit in all of this is some gaming that are going on between the respective organisations. You know, what are we prepared to pay? What is our budget?
Helen Wada (24:50.74)
Yeah.
Steve Day (25:09.9)
what can we save, what we can afford, what margins people have to make. So I think it's just important that everybody also understands that there's some context behind that as well. what mystifies me is sometimes an eye of tea on both sides that people don't feel comfortable. You you say to me, Steve, what's the budget? I well, Helen, quite honestly, I'm in a competitive situation right now and trying to see where it lands and things like that. I do want to say a couple of things. First and foremost,
Helen Wada (25:34.804)
Yeah.
Steve Day (25:38.37)
Procurement has all of the spend, but none of the power. you know, good, good procurement is about nurturing the business to good commercial decisions based on framework that you build. I never think that I make the decision on behalf of the business. My role is to facilitate the business making a decision based on a good set of principles and a good set of agreed business outcomes. And I think that's just important that I do make, make that point. Cause again, I know there are
Helen Wada (25:41.524)
Yeah.
Steve Day (26:08.128)
some people that think that procurement is kind of big monopolistic controlling organization. That may be the case, by the way, in some procurement organizations, but it's certainly the ethos that I try to operate in the ones that I manage.
Helen Wada (26:18.142)
Mm-hmm.
Helen Wada (26:23.348)
Yeah. And I think that's a great point because again, I often hear around, know, oh, you know, it's all about procurement, procurement, that is procurement that was actually, I honestly think that it's a bit of a scapegoat to be perfectly honest, that actually if you're not winning the contracts, if you're not winning, I would argue that for 80, 85 % of the cases, you've lost it at the business engagement point, not at the procurement stage.
If you are managing the relationships right, if you're having the right conversations and understanding your customers in the right way, it comes back to that understanding others, what's important to them, are they trying to get to? What, how could your solution or solutions help them get to where they want to get to, know, fast, quicker, cheaper, whatever. it's not, you haven't got the conversations of procurement is you haven't had the right conversations with the business to enable you to be successful.
Steve Day (27:21.09)
Yeah, and look, businesses are just like the outside world. know, people struggle to have those difficult conversations. I mean, I talked to lot of my peers and things like that. And, know, their sales organizations are constantly complaining to them that, you know, the client loves the work they do, but then they hand it over to procurement and procurement kind of tear it apart. And I always say to people, look, procurement doesn't operate in a vacuum. You know, I can't go and do that with a supplier.
if the internal stakeholder genuinely thought that what the supplier was offering was so important to the business, that they were prepared to concede low cost for speed. And my point is, you know, sometimes procurement is really just delivering the message that the internal stakeholder didn't feel comfortable delivering themselves.
Helen Wada (28:13.724)
interesting, it? It all ultimately comes back to communication. It comes back to, it comes back to trust. comes back to transparency. Dare I say it, comes back to the intimacy. You know, we talk about David Meister's, the trust equation, you know, and self-interest. And, and I think coming back to the human skills and, what you were saying right at the top of the podcast is if you don't invest the time you were talking about it in terms of your team, how are you, how are you showing up? What's important to you?
Steve Day (28:17.709)
Yeah, for sure.
Helen Wada (28:44.062)
What's going on in life at the moment? You know, if you don't create that intimacy with your customers and across the business and you seem self-interested, it's all about you. Then actually you're not setting yourself up on the right foot to move forward.
Steve Day (28:45.805)
Yeah.
Steve Day (29:01.422)
Absolutely and look let's face it, I mean in our personal lives we all got friends in our community, some we love, some are passing acquaintances, some never ask you about their children, always tell you about how their children are getting on. I mean it's just like that in sales, it's just like that in procurement, it's just like that in companies.
Helen Wada (29:23.476)
And I think for me, part of what the human advantage is bringing into the world is about, we need to be thinking about people. know, we talk about human-centered leadership, but these human-centered skills are equally applicable, whether you're within your organization, managing teams, leading teams in the UK, globally, but as they are with external customers, external suppliers, partners.
It's fundamentally the same skill set that we need to create these relationships and to have the open trusted conversations.
Steve Day (29:55.947)
show.
Steve Day (30:00.654)
Yeah, I completely agree with that.
Helen Wada (30:02.996)
And thinking about that, and you've seen so many different suppliers across the years and all your different organisations. Taking a step back, what are some of those skills that if I'm on the other side, Steve, that I need to be mastering to have the right relationships, whether it's with you or whether it's with the business? You know, what do I need to be thinking about? What skills do you see that people do really well? Or maybe on the converse side, it's easy to, you know, there's some stories where people have really screwed it up, excuse my language.
is like that's not the way to behave. Just curious in your experience.
Steve Day (30:37.097)
Well, I tell you a funny story. I don't know if Bill would ever listen to this podcast, but there was a guy at IBM called Bill Kelleher. He was the Vodafone account director. He went on to run the global TMT set reporting to Ginni Rometty. Bill then became the CEO of IBM, then the chairman, and he's recently retired from IBM.
And I always said to Bill, I met my match when I came across you. Bill was brilliant at networking around the organization. I mean, he was unbelievable, point number one. And point number two, he was brilliant at reframing. And that's why I come back to my point about reframing, because I think it's such an important.
Helen Wada (31:15.934)
Bye.
Yeah.
Steve Day (31:27.422)
skill. So, so networking and reframing are really, really important skills.
Helen Wada (31:32.724)
So tell me, tell me a little bit more about that. Cause I know what reframing is, but some of the, you know, reframing is not necessarily it's a word that everybody is used. What was he doing that to reframe? How did that show up?
Steve Day (31:45.964)
Yeah, I mean, look, it's the so it's an example of so, you know, you start a negotiation and you say, right, well, the price isn't where it needs to be. Why isn't the price where it needs to be? Well, because we've got this lead time that we need to meet. And we've got the sales execution plan that we've got to achieve. OK.
Well, how about then? So the challenge really is that you need to get your sales revenue up as high and as quickly as possible. Is that really what we're talking about? Well, actually, yes, that's the challenge. OK, so if we could, in fact, advance manufacturing or supply or availability, is that something that is more meaningful to you than the lowest possible price? Now, I've done that in reverse from a buyer to a seller. No, seller to a buyer.
But I think you heard me say another example of where we'd done a big technology contract at Vodafone. We were spending less but giving more to one particular vendor and the particular vendor was seeing less but they had more markets. So then the conversation is your share of wallet is going up, you're getting more markets.
And you've got to imagine, because those people have got to sell it back into their business because their sales or the CEO says, oh, we just won this contract, but it's worth less than the original contract. Well, that might be the case, but we've got more markets and we've increased their share of wallet from 50, 60 % to 70, 75%. So suddenly it's not about what the ultimate size of the contract is. It's about things that they've won that they can talk about and makes them feel like they've landed in a good place.
Helen Wada (33:25.332)
And I love what you said there about what Bill did, that reframing, because actually what I heard, you know, was it was questioning again, going back to those skills. He was getting under the skin of what was actually important to you as a business, right? Rather than taking it for black and white, as I think people can do sometimes, you know, it's a number A or a number B. So, even by asking, so what is it that you're trying to achieve here?
Steve Day (33:40.46)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yes.
Steve Day (33:48.163)
Yeah.
Steve Day (33:53.004)
Yeah, yeah.
Helen Wada (33:54.068)
And what's the, what is the most important of those, that list to you and where does price feature? Because it might not be the price is the key factor. It might be the fact that you need it done in three months. And if you don't get it done in three months, you're not meeting the regulatory requirements or something like that. And therefore, you know, there's a, there's another conversation I had with somebody said, you know, the numbers wrong. Well, the numbers wrong in what way actually you've underscoped it.
Steve Day (33:58.53)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Helen Wada (34:22.462)
When people hear the numbers wrong, they often think the numbers too high. But actually, it may well be and from your knowledge of the business, you've missed out this. It's way more complicated than that.
Steve Day (34:33.742)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's an important point you make actually, because there's nothing worse than thinking you've delivered a massive savings to the business from a procurement perspective, only for those costs to increase subsequently down the line, because you didn't do the due diligence properly or the supplier under-sold it. That's never a good place to be.
Helen Wada (34:58.16)
did Bill do so he did he was great at networking he was great at reframing what else what else made him that great leader for
Steve Day (35:01.217)
yeah, he was phenomenal.
He was just a very, very good negotiator. So I think he was very empathetic to the organization and he played quite a brilliant role of being an advocate for Vodafone back to the mothership as well. Because again, you know, these roles can be a little bit lonely, you know, they're out there.
advocating for a particular client when a company of that size is similarly being bombarded with investment requests or pre-sales investment from a multitude of different clients. And again, takes a sales representative to have certain intimacy of the client they're representing.
to get that justification. Again, sometimes I don't think procurement people think about that. You know, it's like sometimes we have a bit of a mindset that says, well, they're selling it to us, you know, you know, so we'll tell them what we want and good luck. you have no real understanding of what that means for that sales representative that has to go back to the business.
So that's why I think that reframing and helping them sell their message back into the business is as important as you getting the right deal.
Helen Wada (36:15.028)
It comes back to that human conversation, doesn't it, Steve? He was able to understand what was important to you, but also knew what was important to him. It's that commercial coaching when we blend the two.
Steve Day (36:20.354)
Yeah, and that's where Yeah, yeah
Steve Day (36:28.46)
Yeah, exactly. And Helen, again, you know, so again, you know, we get into the real nuts and bolts of where I think sometimes procurement deserves its reputation is because people end up in this kind of very blind bidding process where they're not really getting any information or any intelligence or any context. They get a request to bid, they put it in.
and they're not really having those kind of detailed conversations with procurement. And I've seen lots of examples of where
I did when we work for Vodafone, they had partner markets and business and we did some training courses with some of the partner markets and one of them was negotiations. I won't mention the individual or the or the brand, but I had to negotiate with one of the partner companies. And let's just say that this person had a very generic, dynamic approach. And honestly, I felt sorry that if this.
Helen Wada (37:17.364)
you
Steve Day (37:30.426)
I felt sorry for the suppliers that had to negotiate with this person. They gave nothing away. Absolutely nothing. You didn't know where they were coming from. It was just like, no, that's the price. Okay, well, you know, no, that's the price. Okay, right. It's gonna be difficult to crack. You know, but sell a V, you know, that's just the way the profession is.
Helen Wada (37:36.713)
Yeah.
Helen Wada (37:52.596)
And when we're thinking about that sort of where procurement, supply chain are coming from, when you're on the other side and you've got not a lot of information back from an organization, stepping away from where you are at the moment, what would you advise people to do that, again, well, I just don't know where to start? What are some of the things that from a supplier's perspective they need to be thinking about in those situations? Is it like, do you know what, if I don't have enough information, I'm just not going to bid?
Steve Day (38:20.494)
Well, you know what, I... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, there's such a good question. It sometimes mystifies me why suppliers don't turn around and say, we're not gonna bid. I can tell you that a message that a supplier is not prepared to bid is, honestly, when I've seen that happen before, the alarm bells go up in procurement. Because then you're thinking...
Helen Wada (38:20.81)
or are there ways in which you can navigate that?
Helen Wada (38:32.756)
Mm.
Steve Day (38:46.462)
what's gone wrong here? Why is it someone that we would like their technology? Why are they not prepared to bid? And oftentimes it's because you have a bad reputation for decision making. can actually, we're in short supply, we can actually make margin elsewhere. You're not a particularly good payer. We don't have clarity on your requirements and all those kinds of things.
And it's a mistake that I see a lot of salespeople do, which is they just chase stuff when sometimes they should actually just have the confidence to turn around and say, we're not going to pursue this. And some of the sophisticated businesses, they do do that. They look at the sales investment required to acquire the logo or something like that, will be quite choiceful in terms of whether they decide to pursue it or not. And I think that's really to be applauded.
Helen Wada (39:38.164)
I think you're right. comes back to that commercial focus that I talk about. have to know, define your own goals. What's your measures of success? What's your value? Unless you can scope out something that you know that you can deliver on, then actually you're putting your reputation at risk and quite frankly, the longer term relationship with the client. you're right, people just, I've got to do it because, and actually when you look at...
the real cost of acquiring that customer or that piece of work. It's not actually in your sweet spot and the best, know, and we always have a choice. I always talk to people about, you've always got a commercial choice. Cause if you don't invest your resources there, then there are other opportunities, other clients that you might fit better with. And you have to be able to take a step back and say, that's not for us, but that's about.
Steve Day (40:11.971)
Yeah.
Steve Day (40:16.6)
Mm-hmm.
Helen Wada (40:32.19)
holding your call, knowing who you are, knowing what's important to you commercially, and then bring that coaching approach in and having just an honest, open human conversation to say, do you know what? If we can't get access to the people or to the data that's gonna help us shape what we might be able to do for you, then, a bit like Dragon's Den, I was watching Dragon's Den, it's kind of the I'm out, right? And that's the grownup thing to be doing.
Steve Day (40:42.947)
Yeah.
Steve Day (40:55.022)
Hmm. Yeah, I saw one recently where an investor actually turned down a Dragon's offer and they were completely mystified. Again, it's like understanding the power dynamic. know, people have choices. Sometimes you can say no.
Helen Wada (41:12.376)
And having that, talk about transaction analysis is the lens from coaching, but having the confidence to have an adult-adult conversation, which goes back to your point about what did you see in Bill, that you met your partner and you could have a true adult-adult conversation, eyeball to eyeball. You both came at it from different perspectives, but yet you were having a grown up conversation.
Steve Day (41:16.994)
Yeah.
Steve Day (41:29.101)
Yeah.
Yeah, although I think I did say, I think I, with Bill, I think I met my match. In other words, he was better than me. No doubt about that.
Helen Wada (41:40.495)
Always something to learn. And just look at the time, we could talk for ages. I'm conscious that the listeners have got lunch breaks and go out for a ride and things like that. But on that note, talking about, you know, the great bill there and things to learn. For our listeners, I always like to leave them with sort of one top tip to think about, you if you think somebody from the other side now, so if I'm looking to sell into an organization and I'm looking to partner with somebody.
Steve Day (41:48.14)
No, sure they have, yeah.
Helen Wada (42:09.458)
What are the tips from your side that you would give to people to have better engagement with procurement number one? And then what's a question that you might leave them with to think about?
Steve Day (42:20.174)
I mean, first and foremost, getting early. Get those conversations going in with procurement early doors. Validate the process, validate the timing, validate the budget if you can, understand the decision criteria. Any good procurement person should have the confidence to give you that information. No problem at all. That was the first one. What was the second one you mentioned?
Helen Wada (42:45.084)
A question, a question for people to think about. Because a good coach loves a good question. Percolates the mind.
Steve Day (42:50.646)
Yeah, well, I think this gosh, this isn't going to sound anything groundbreaking. But I think, you know, if the supplier sometimes asked what what are the business outcomes you're trying to achieve?
Helen Wada (43:05.076)
That's a great question. I think it's a great question.
Steve Day (43:06.412)
And yeah, if you ask that question repeatedly to the client, to the different stakeholders within the business, you're trying to sell in the solution. Don't be surprised if you get a different response, but in doing so, will help you solidify what seems really important versus what are nice to haves. Cause you might have people come up with random stuff that sometimes you over index against and what you're really looking for is where there's the consistency.
Helen Wada (43:37.044)
And you make a great point, know, there can be a whole list of requirements, but not just asking what are the business outcomes you're trying to drive, but what's most important in those. And that's where the deeper questioning comes in, because the more you can refine down your questions of them, the greater likelihood that you'll have a good shot about understanding what business outcomes they're trying to drive and how you may or may not be to. Steve, it's been an absolute pleasure. Lovely to see you again.
Steve Day (43:48.493)
Yeah.
Steve Day (43:58.862)
Absolutely.
Steve Day (44:05.102)
Thank you. Thanks, Ellen.
Helen Wada (44:06.715)
Great to have you on the show. Wish you all the best with the current role and what's ahead and busy times for you all. But great to see you and have a wonderful weekend when you get there.
Steve Day (44:16.888)
Thank you very much. Thanks, Alan. Bye.
Helen Wada (44:18.856)
Take care.