Purchasing goods and services is a necessity for any business, whether that’s simply stocking up on office supplies, or looking for someone to manage your IT environment. Procurement has a key role to play in keeping things running smoothly, along with facilitating the core values of businesses as priorities change, such as a commitment to ESG compliance.   In this episode, Ian is joined by Philip Ideson, Founder & Managing Director of Art of Procurement, to discuss procurement’s role in ESG compliance, the challenges procurement faces with ESG, and learn about their mission to 10X the impact of procurement. You’ll learn ·      Who is Philip Ideson and the Art of Procurement? ·      What are the current trends in procurement? ·      What is procurement’s role in relation to ESG? ·      How do ESG deliverables fit in with the other results procurement is expected to deliver? ·      What are the greatest challenges procurement currently faces with ESG? ·      What is Art of Procurement’s mission to 10X the impact of procurement? ·      What are the 6 principles of this mission?     Resources ·      Art of Procurement ·      Art of Procurement Podcast ·      The Art of Procurement philosophy ·      ESG Compliance     In this episode, we talk about: [00:25] Episode Summary – We welcome today’s guest, Philip Ideson, Founder and Managing Director of the Art of Procurement, to discuss the role procurement has in ESG compliance. Additionally we will dive into Philip’s mission to increase the impact of procurement. [03:00] Who is Philip?: Philip has been in the procurement space for almost 25 years now! He started at Ford Motor company, in direct Procurement where he was purchasing parts for car manufacture. He later moved into indirect Procurement, which is essentially everything you need to operate on a day-to-day basis i.e. office supplies, childcare facilities ect. Philip has worked in the UK, Europe, India and has been based in the US for the past 19 years. To get a perspective on the other side, he joined a Service Provider who provided outsourced procurement, that company later got bought out by Accenture, which was when Philip decided to go out on his own and started ‘Art of Procurement. His podcast has been running for 9 years, and has the aim to share inspiring stories of companies who think differently about procurement. [06:05] Hard Truth: Inside the Football Industry Podcast – Philip also co-hosts another podcast in his spare time, which was awarded the EFL podcast of the year in 2023! Hard Truth delves into the behind the scenes aspects of football, co-hosted by the owner and Chairman of Peterborough United, it also gives an owner perspective of the football season. [07:05] What are some of the top trends and priorities in procurement currently? Digitisation: Procurement was an area where technological change happened relatively slowly, at least up until around 5 years ago there weren’t many tech solutions built specifically for procurement. However, a lot of money has been poured into the space, so now there’s the challenge of ‘How can we digitise?’ The problem with a lot of technology solutions is that they often become obsolete quickly, and with the rise of AI it’s trickly to keep up, let alone get ahead.   [08:10] What is something about procurement that might surprise people who don’t work in the field? Procurement gets a bad rep for trying to save every last penny at the cost of bullying suppliers. However, they are a lot more passionate around the role that suppliers can play in the growth of a business. It’s all about marrying together the capabilities of supply chains with the needs of a business, rather than trying to squeeze every last penny’s worth out of suppliers. [09:15] Procurement put into a box: In a lot of businesses, procuremen