The Big Interview with Louise Clark - Senior Director, Procurement (EMEA & APAC) at Interpublic Group (IPG)

PROCUREMENT HEADS | The Big Interview with Louise Clark

The Procurement Heads Big Interview Series launched in 2017, and features Procurement Professionals throughout London and the Home Counties. It’s an opportunity to shed some light on the specialist world of Procurement and those who work within it. To be featured in Procurement Head’s next Big Interview, contact info@procurementheads.com

How did you get into Procurement?

I fell into Procurement, which I’m sure most people in Procurement do. Once I finished university, I started temping at Laing O’Rourke Construction managing compensation claims at sewage treatment sites…very glamorous! They offered me a role in the head office in Procurement (I did have to go back to my desk and look up procurement in the dictionary!) which I accepted, before eventually moving to RBS to join their Graduate Programme in Purchasing and Property Operations and that’s when I really started to get a feel for it; I took on a Contract Management role which gave me valuable insight into the operational side of the business – I believe that the experience helped me to approach procurement with an operational and customer focus as well as commercial.

What does a typical day look like for you?

Because of our global presence, different areas of our business are active at different parts of the day. So, for example, our mornings can be spent on the phone with APAC colleagues. During the day, we encourage everyone to get out and meet with agencies to find out how they work. After all, we can’t buy effectively for them if we don’t understand their business.

At IPG, we see Procurement as being a facilitator to encourage introductions with our agencies and networks – so my days can be very varied trying to organise as many meetings as possible. I also work closely with one of our agencies to build reciprocal trading deals. For example, we use Staples as our stationary supplier across EMEA (currently being expanded across APAC), where part of our stationery costs are funded by a media credit regime through one of our agencies. We reduce operational costs and gain a client.

What aspects of your role do you love?

I love the varied nature of this role and I think that’s testament to the industry. I love that we are encouraged to be entrepreneurial; we’ll try anything if there are legs to it! We don’t need to go through business case approval (there can be lots of bureaucracy in procurement) and we really can just get things done. We don’t jump through hoops and hurdles to achieve our goals and 9 times out of 10 it works well. We push the boundaries of the typical procurement function here and it pays off.

Is there any part of your role that you find challenging?

The biggest ongoing challenge is keeping people interested in procurement. A lot of our agencies don’t naturally embrace procurement, but we are actively trying to change that by explaining what we can do for them; yes we’re able to save them money but we can also introduce them to potential leads and networks. I’m always encouraging my team to network and meet other procurement people.

What are your proudest career moments to date?

It’s being able to say that we have tried things that never have before worked within the business. For example, we have currently just launched a Global Broking solution. We have agencies across EMEA, APAC, Latin America and North America. Every single country would have had its own broker, and often, every agency in that country would also have its own broker. We are over 70% compliant within 18 months of launch and soon we will have full visibility of all our agencies market practices.

We’ve also tackled one of our largest spend areas, temporary help. By working closely with a tech start-up called YunoJuno – we save recruitment costs for IPG by cutting out the middle man. All of our UK agencies have now signed up and we’re running at c. $3m of savings, just in the UK alone. We were shortlisted for ‘The Most Innovative Use of Technology’ CIPS award last year, and now hope to expand the solution to another region.

To read the full Big Interview with Louise Clark or to read others in the series, please visit the Procurement Heads website. 

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