In the latest episode of the Art of Procurement podcast, host Philip Ideson speaks with Zoetis’ Global Head of Indirect Procurement, Stephen Rauf, about building a lean, high-impact procurement function capable of supporting business growth, managing risk and embracing emerging technologies.
Rauf oversees approximately US$2 billion in indirect spend with a global team of just 15 procurement professionals, a structure that he says forces teams to focus relentlessly on activities that create the greatest value.
“I would suggest by any benchmark that we are lean and leveraged. We really have to focus our internal talent on the highest-value work,” he said.
Rather than measuring procurement maturity by team size or spend under management, the discussion centres on how operating models can help procurement direct scarce resources towards strategic stakeholder engagement, demand management, complex sourcing initiatives and business advisory activities.
A key theme explored in the podcast is the growing importance of the “build versus buy” decision.
As procurement’s remit expands into areas such as digital transformation, risk management and AI adoption, organisations must carefully determine which capabilities should be developed internally and which are better delivered through external partners.
According to Rauf, this decision should be driven by factors such as business criticality, risk, value and speed to impact.
“We tend to use a decision matrix where we look at value, criticality of a category, frequency, risk, speed to impact, to help us influence where to build or partner. My goal is to continue to build capabilities at a pace, not necessarily build an empire,” he said.
The conversation also highlights a broader shift taking place across the profession.
Procurement’s value proposition is increasingly moving beyond traditional savings metrics towards demand orchestration, stakeholder alignment, accelerated decision-making and enterprise risk management.
This evolution requires new skills, new measures of success and, importantly, operating models that can support a more strategic role for procurement within the business.
“You have to sort of reframe the business case from bringing in experts to manage spend, to orchestrating demand, to accelerating decisions, to managing risk at scale,” said Rauf.
The discussion offers practical insights into how lean teams can deliver outsized impact through a combination of people, processes, technology and stakeholder collaboration.
“Don’t overvalue the top procurement spot, and don’t undervalue the tools and the budget required. It’s an ecosystem,” said Rauf.
Listen to the podcast here or via Apple and Spotify.
