Creating a Digital Procurement Function For the Future with Reba Cox, MongoDB

Hello and welcome to another episode of Procurement Reimagined, brought to you by Gatekeeper. Joining us today is Reba Cox, Global Head of Procurement, Travel and Sustainability at MongoDB. 

Join us as Reba shares her passion for procurement and discusses the importance of adapting to the changing world and industry. Learn how to build positive relationships with stakeholders and the need for continuous improvement. Reba also explains how technology and strong relationships can significantly impact an organization's efficiency and profitability.

Reba is the Head of Procurement, Travel, and Sustainability at MongoDB and has ten years of experience growing and scaling procurement organizations. She has led all of the FinOps launches for global internal tools as the company grew to 4,600+ employees. She has a strong passion for mentoring young women and empowering them to speak up and raise their hands. Reba is currently writing a (hopefully) future New York Times Best Seller called "What a Girl Wants, How to be who you are and get what you want".

Key Highlights:

• Why Procurement is Awesome (00:39 - 01:30)

Reba shares her passion for procurement and mentions that it is the only role in a company that allows you to learn how the company runs. As part of your day-to-day routine, you will get to interact with people from sales, operations, legal and finance teams. This gives you an insight on how they make decisions, the technology they use, and their pain areas. You can then piece this together to get a sense of how the company runs. Only procurement gives you this working knowledge across different business verticals. 

• Why and How to Build Positive Relationships with Stakeholders (01:54 - 03:21)

The typical procurement workflow pivots around chasing multiple stakeholders to remove the workflow blockages. Now, think if the same stakeholders viewed you as an essential part of getting their work done, would there be fewer blockages? The way to cultivate positive relations with your stakeholders is to understand their pain points and current gaps. Next, identify the gaps as system, process, or communication issues and then fill them with efficient processes and automation. Your stakeholders will start viewing you as an asset that provides value. Go out of your way to get the vendor to sign up for a certification that your legal team requires. Provide solutions for sales in your purchase-to-pay cycle and automate routine tasks for the stakeholders. 

Quotes:

• “I think one of the coolest things about being in procurement is that we know a little bit about everything that happens at the company”. 

• “Every year, we do a big gap analysis, and we say, what's a systems issue? A process issue or communications issue”.