Arroyo Strategy: Redefining Procurement For Modern Times
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”
–Albert Einstein.
This famous quote perfectly encapsulates the evolution of procurement over the years. The roots of procurement can be traced back to when the Egyptian pyramids were built, almost 3000 years ago. Back then, in the absence of a proper economic definition, the concept revolved around materials management and maintaining records of transactions made on papyrus rolls. Since then, centuries have passed; technologies and procedures have evolved, we have unearthed numerous functionalities in the supply chain landscape, except for one– accurately defining procurement.
For too long, procurement has held the status of a mere cost-cutting function. All it took was a black swan event like COVID-19, in 2020, to change the perspective and solidify procurement’s spot at the management roundtable as a strategic part of the organizational structure.
With the pandemic shockwaves disrupting boardrooms and roiling markets, organizations are tightening their belts and reducing risk appetite by embracing an enhanced procurement structure to combat the damage triggered by COVID-19. And in this attempt to create quick turnarounds and devise alternatives to removing roadblocks, organizations need to act swiftly. This is where Arroyo Strategy is moving the needle.
A company committed to supporting procurement teams by providing consulting, staffing, recruiting, analytics, and intelligence services, Arroyo Strategy adds dimensions to the existing old-school procurement models. “We are procurement experts; all of our resources come with deep expertise. We are able to offer value in a targeted way by bringing the right specialist to the table,” remarks John Evans, CEO, Arroyo Strategy.
But what enables Arroyo Strategy to consistently add value to its clients’ procurement propositions?
The answer lies in its ingrained knowledge and profound expertise for over two decades. Since its inception in 1996, Arroyo Strategy has seized every opportunity to bolster its understanding of procurement. The company’s proficient team infuses their longstanding expertise to step into a chief procurement officer (CPO) or a procurement professional’s shoe, understand their necessities, and accordingly deliver the advisory resources and services that best suit their requirements. Presently, Arroyo Strategy has emerged as a partner of choice for the Fortune 1000 by empowering companies to transform their procurement capabilities.
Procurement during the Pandemic
Evans mentions that besides the plethora of challenges that COVID-19 has imposed, cost pressure and supply chain contingency planning have emerged as issues confounding most organizations. With indefinite lockdowns and import/export activities coming to a halt, numerous companies were facing a shortage of materials and labor, among others. Besides, to sustain themselves, enterprises were compelled to shift their focus on immediate market demands like manufacturing PPE kits, hygiene-related stuff, and many more. The call of the hour was quick cost-reduction remedies that uplift their declining productivity levels. Arroyo Strategy helped clients assess the pandemic situation better and guided them to solve the immediate market demands. The company also enabled clients to devise long-term procurement strategies that create alternative supply chain opportunities and thereby prepared them to function smoothly during any similar crisis in the future.
Based on detailed analysis, Arroyo Strategy determines its clients’ internal business needs and ties its services with market intelligence. Focusing on the businesses’ procurement side, the company then incorporates assessment tools to identify opportunities that can trim down costs and bring benefits. Arroyo Strategy also searches for alternative suppliers who use value engineering methods to manufacture cost-effective products/solutions.
“We not only help organizations recognize and mitigate the constraints, but also educate them on the probable auxiliary plans they need to fight a crisis”
Besides, the company even helps clients transition from on-site working models to the virtual operating environment and provides additional staffing support to fuel their supply chain processes. “We not only help organizations recognize and mitigate the constraints, but also educate them on the probable auxiliary plans they need to fight a crisis. We basically develop a roadmap with them jointly,” claims Evans.
Speaking of the spiralling trends in the procurement paradigm other than the recent transition from on-site offices to virtual organization structures in the wake of the pandemic, Evans highlights companies’ growing affinity towards using the gig-economy model the last 3-5 years. Aligning to the gig architecture of procurement, many organizations have shifted their focus into categorizing and managing strategies to enhance their procurement objectives. Banking on its in-depth capacities to translate procurement into positive business feedback, Arroyo Strategy is sharpening its focus on providing execution support for special projects and on-going support for changing procurement needs.
Robust Advisory Solutions for Sustainable Change
Arroyo Strategy takes exceptional care in ensuring that their clients have access to the best solutions and services in the market. The company helps procurement organizations reach their true potential by harnessing the power of targeted assessments to identify specific enhancements that can bring remarkable procurement transformation.
Significantly, the Category Management framework employed by Arroyo Strategy takes a holistic approach when driving value. It aligns procurement seamlessly with business unit objectives and corporate strategy and enhances the lifecycle value through well-defined category parameters.
And when clients need to increase savings and achieve a competitive edge in the marketplace, they can always rely on Arroyo Strategy’s strategic sourcing capabilities. A backbone of any world-class supply chain, strategic sourcing can generate up to 20 percent of savings against the clients’ external spending, thus creating unparalleled value. Besides, targeted and strategic supplier relationships and world-class supplier networks facilitated by Arroyo Strategy can position procurement and supply chain organizations as drivers of enterprise growth while saving dollars.
Data to the Rescue
While the strategy is a critical part of Arroyo Strategy, it places equal importance on data management. The company is committed to present insights that can be acted upon and not just necessary information. The company’s analytics and intelligence services provide CPOs with actionable insights and help them make effective decisions that drive their organizational goals.
How? Together with Alteryx, one of the leading providers of self-service data analytics, Arroyo Strategy designs its tools based on premium technologies like big data, AI, blockchain, and others. The company’s market intelligence division collects the data and compiles reports based on major supply chain market statistics using its visualization tools– Power BI and Tableau. The Arroyo Strategy experts create custom dashboards around the Power BI technology and then analyze the result to pair it with the client’s internal data, unearth growth opportunities, and deploy the best resources to augment productivity.
In essence, Arroyo Strategy strengthens enterprises’ bottom line by reducing the cost of their spend categories, improves cost-savings through smart budget planning, and increases credibility with stakeholders by providing a detailed understanding of the supply chain lifecycle.
The user-friendly platform improves internal processes of organizations, consolidates their operations, and reduces administrations by implementing data-driven decisions. Contrary to the one-dimensional traditional methods of determining data analytics by merely cleansing and categorizing spin information, Arroyo Strategy adds a twist. The company combines the organizations’ internal workflows with the business forecast report and market intelligence, a proactive and predictive way to add multiple dimensions and build end-to-end analytical solutions. With its integrated spend analytics tools, Arroyo Strategy analyzes and classifies expenditure data, determines the future price and market logistics, and scans for supplier profiles that ideally suit the client’s procurement requirements.
Staffing Services that Bring True Talent
Arroyo Strategy extends its deep-rooted expertise to help chief procurement officers find the supreme quality procurement talent that is fit for the organizations’ needs. For instance, to help companies make a permanent hire, Arroyo Strategy conducts a three-phase interview process to screen for highly qualified and specialized individuals to amplify an organization’s procurement team’s value. At the same time, Arroyo Strategy’s professionals also wear their consultant hats and help companies recruit the best candidate to fill a short-term gap through contingent procurement professionals or recruit multiple resources to assist in a critical project. “Having been in the staffing business for over 15 years, we can offer a wide range of resources—from on-demand strategic resources, single resource, to top-tier, highly experienced senior consulting resources,” says Evans.
Above all, Arroyo Strategy’s unique, flexible staffing model addresses customers’ specific problems and provides them with resources that precisely match their purpose. Either a single resource service or solutions bundled with Arroyo Strategy’s value-added services such as methodology, training, and other features, the company provides clients with the option to select services that serve their unique demands. Besides, Arroyo Strategy also assists clients with hybrid projects by providing a mix of low-cost transactional resources and senior consultants to deliver a highly cost-effective and efficient staffing model.
Solving Challenges through Strategy
Exhibiting an array of stellar capabilities and services, Arroyo Strategy caters to a wide range of customers and helps them mitigate their procurement-related challenges. One such customer, a large electric utility in the U.S., needed to drive down their repair cost significantly as per the Public Utility Commission’s instructions. Arroyo Strategy leveraged a robust procurement transformation and strategic sourcing program to help the client save over 100 million dollars in a short period of 2-3 years. Given that purchase materials and services comprised a significant part of expenses for any company, with Arroyo Strategy’s expert guidance, the client could achieve substantial cost reduction without facing any disruption. Evans mentions, “We also helped them put in place a much stronger network of strategic suppliers to provide them with materials and services.”
Taking Giant Strides toward Growth and Success
Today, the company takes pride in weaving similar success stories and rightfully call themselves “the procurement experts.” In the near future, Arroyo Strategy seeks to expand and enhance its analytics and digitalization offerings in the procurement space by investing in emerging technologies like advanced analytics, predictive analytics, AI, and RPA. In addition, the company is also seeking to expand its capabilities with additional off-shore support models as per client demand. “While bringing engagement into our workplace, we are also looking to deliver better value to our clients and guide them to procurement success,” concludes Evans.
