Tropic

At Tropic we have a small army of procurement professionals that work directly with customers to manage spend requests. (We call them Commercial Executives). Yesterday, I looked at hundreds of data points from customer feedback to see what traits they seem to value the most in their procurement partners. Here’s what I found to be the most commonly referenced: 1️⃣ Customer Service Comments like: “Made the process easy.” “Took the load off my shoulders.” “She made me look good.” “Prioritized the urgent request.” Customers clearly value a strong partnership, helpful coordination among stakeholders, and employees who help navigate and lead an efficient process that is complex in nature but makes it feel simple. 2️⃣ Strong Communication Comments like: “Loved the consistent follow up.” “Responsive.” “Explained a complex situation.” “Great communication.” Although it goes hand in hand with customer service, the specific and frequent references to communication made it so I called it out. Stakeholders want to be kept in the loop. They want data that is clear and easy to understand. They loved being presented with options but also valued data-based recommendations. 3️⃣ Listening Comments like: “Listened to requirements.” “He was able to understand what we needed.” “Great Advocate.” Different departments, different companies, different employees have different needs. They don’t want a one-size-fits-all approach. They want to feel heard and understood. They want someone who listens and understand their business and will advocate on their behalf. 4️⃣ Results Comments like: “Great negotiating.” “Great outcome.” “Outsized results.” “I felt confident that we had achieved a strong offer.” Results can look different and should be aligned with customer expectations. Getting to a better price, saving them time, and helping them source better performing suppliers are having a tremendous impact on companies today. Summary The demand for GOOD procurement is as high as it’s ever been. Want to unlock partner status as a procurement professional? Follow the data 👇 Truly listen to your stakeholders to understand their unique needs. Communicate clearly and with supporting data. Offer strong and proactive customer service by focusing on a great user experience and drive results that they truly care about. Massive shoutout to the awesome commercial executives at Tropic who are driving incredible value.  

“Who in their right mind thinks it's a good idea to hunt for contracts, for renewal conversation notes...and why would you want to put yourself through a situation where you have to do that?” 🙋♂️ We certainly don't. Neither did Daniel Brundige, VP of IT at Bennie. Turning their purchasing into a proactive and efficient machine paid dividends, as they achieved nearly 3x ROI and $244K in savings to date. 💰 See how they did it: https://lnkd.in/gEbgksB3 #spendmanagement #procurement

I’ve been having a bunch of conversations with CFOs about budgeting for 2025, and it feels substantially different from last year. Here’s why: Last year the directive from boards was “default alive”. As a result finance leaders were critically evaluating their spend and cutting all superfluous investments. Anything and everything that wasn’t connected to a core business function was at risk for consolidation. I haven’t ever really seen growth stage companies pursue zero-based budgeting, but 2024 planning felt pretty darn close. I would call this type of planning maniacal efficiency. In 2025, planning looks a bit different. Interest rates are coming down, growth feels to be picking back up, and many companies have transitioned from maniacal efficiency to cautious growth. Cautious growth includes the following: 🔹 Thoughtful consolidation In 2024, the perspective was: Not essential? No budget. In 2025, the right tool can unlock massive efficiency and growth. However, that optimism is tempered by a belief that tech stacks have redundancy and wasted spend. Finance leaders are pushing their functions to make difficult choices to eliminate waste, and drive greater system efficiency. That can mean bringing on a new tool to consolidate several others, or expanding an existing tool in place of other best-of-breed point solutions. 🔹 Innovation scrutiny As finance leaders have seen the compounding effects of poorly adopted tools, they’re heavily scrutinizing any new purchases. Functional leaders are tasked with growth and efficiency; investment in systems to support those goals is a key responsibility. But finance leaders are suspicious of tools that promise the world, given countless failed implementations of expensive technology. With AI, there’s a desire to believe the hype and secure some magic within the organization, but paired with a healthy dose of skepticism around lofty value propositions. 🔹 Strategic bets Finance leaders feel growth expectations turning around for 2025, and are having deliberate discussions around high ROI bets. Whether it’s a new product release that will unlock a new market, a new GTM motion that will increase scale, finance leaders are pushing their teams to build strong cases for these investments. Unlike ‘20-’22, not everything will get greenlit, but also unlike ‘23-’24, there is more willingness to invest in key growth levers. Cautious growth is a nice change of pace from maniacal efficiency - increased optimism for the future and growth-oriented decisions. Is anyone seeing this play out in their executive team conversations?

Here's how you leak cash and light your money on fire (software edition) 🔥 ▶ Miss 1 renewal ▶ Buy unnecessary licenses ▶ Have unapproved purchases being made ▶ Pay 15% more per license than the average user Oftentimes, this is a compounding domino effect that leads to thousands – even millions – of dollars wasted...and hundreds of hours lost trying to backtrack and fix the process. It's time to audit your #spendmanagement and #procurement program, especially with 3 months left in the year and budgeting/planning underway. And maybe, it's time to do something about it. 😉

The quarter might have ended yesterday. But the work doesn't end with signatures on paper. Here's a quick 3 minute video about how to turn that deal into a long term, profitable venture for both buyer and seller.

Would you rather: Save 2% on $1M spend OR Save 40% on a $100K deal? Saving 2% on a $1M spend item may require lots of effort and lead to minimal results. Whereas saving 40% on a $100K deal might be an easier lift and yield higher results. When driving cost savings, it’s important to remember ▶ Your largest savings opportunities ARE NOT always tied to your largest suppliers. Oftentimes, teams believe they can achieve immediate impact by focusing on the top 20% of spend (or the top 20% of suppliers). 💡 But as Michael Shields says, “Instead of focusing on the largest spend items, focus on the largest opportunity items.” Not only can you drive meaningful savings this way, but you prioritize your time by identifying which vendors have high savings potential and need your attention (and which don't). To find these opportunities? The key is to use reliable vendor price benchmarks. 📊 #procurement #finance #spendmanagement

2 DAYS LEFT TO GO 💰 Grab your seat with #CFO Russell Lester and #Procurement Head Michael Shields. Explore strategies and trends that will impact how your org spends money and invests in various programs in 2025. Save your spot now! 👉 https://lnkd.in/g9UVHAfb

Wishing a warm welcome to a group of new Tropic teammates that joined us this past quarter 🌴 Whether you've joined early, mid, or late Q3, we're excited to have you as part of the team and see you impact the business! 👋 ICYMI: We're hiring. Check out our open roles here: https://lnkd.in/gCUgyTYy

Budget tip for budget owners 👉 If you unlock efficiencies and savings in the business (which is GREAT), put it to the "Center of Table." This approach means putting those efficiencies and savings in front of your CFO and leadership, where they'll collab on the best ways to reinvest this money across the team to achieve company goals/targets. And very often, budget owners get to reinvest some of this money back with a solid case anyways. If you're running a sound #spendmanagement process and combine that with reliable benchmark data/insights, you'll unlock MANY efficiencies and savings as it is... ...so why not goal yourself on the expense side when it comes to tech spend? As #CFO Russell Lester says, "There's no reason in your planning process that you couldn't look at your tech spend relative to benchmarks and say it's clear we got room to reduce."

Integrating Slack with Tropic makes #spendmanagement even easier. 💰 You can approve a new purchase, get notified about an upcoming renewal, or tag in a teammate in a purchase conversation — all within in a quick Slack message. These activities seamlessly sync back to Tropic, giving you one source of truth while driving process adoption in a channel your users are already familiar with. Now that's what we call a Buyer's Paradise. 🌴