Working with the procurement side of contracts - Karthik Rama

Made with speech-to-text software, so a few words may be off.

0:02Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Contract Heroes, where we're not the heroes, our guests are. Today, we've got a great episode for you. The Contract Doctor is in. This is an episode we've been trying to get scheduled for quite some time now. Want to give a warm welcome to Karthik Rama. Karthik, thanks for joining us today. And before Pepe gives us, uh, kind of an overview of what we're gonna be chatting about, we'd love to get, uh, some more understanding on firstly, how you've come up with that name or, or gotten the name Procurement Doctor, and, uh, what you've been working on lately. Oh, wow. Uh, thank you so much for that, uh, question. And I, I'm always excited when someone asks me that question. So it lets me talk a little bit of, uh, what the Procurement Doctor is all about. Um, a- and I was- procurement includes contracts, and that's why we are here talking to each other. Uh, the Procurement Doctor, the name itself evolved, uh, because people were trying to understand what the heck I'm doing as a work, work type, right?

0:57And I was explaining that I usually go at a client, go to a client location, look at the current processes, look at the pain areas, I diagnose the issues, and then I give recommendations on how to go about it, right, uh, and how to fix. So it's basically, uh, my- one of my friends had suggested that, "Okay, you're like the doctor, but for procurement." And that kind of stuck to my, uh, head. And, uh, I thought, why not? Because I've created, uh, one of my previous companies, an entire, uh, diagnostic study, we call it the diagnostic study, and it was unintentionally even the cover letter of that, or the cover page of it, uh, had the doctor's, uh, what do you say, stethoscope and, like, a MRI thing and all that. So it was like, maybe it was in me way before that, uh, but this guy kind of got it out of me, and that's where the Procurement Doctor got started. And, uh, procurement, in procurement, there's a lot of facets, as you know, right? It's pretty broad. The reason I kept it broad is I just don't do contracts. I do, do a lot more than that.

1:58And, uh, basically, uh, contracts has been a bread and butter for me for a while, where people going through specific kind of pains, and I have, uh, thanks to my experience or the opportunities I've got, I work with, uh, multiple legal folks, uh, multiple, uh, contract administrators and multiple procurement organizations, and they have been fixing the contract database. Uh, the funny note on the side is my mom, uh, as a kid, like, you know, Indians are very ambitious. Either, once a kid is born, he either is tagged with a doctor or an engineer. That's why you see Indians producing- Right... so many doctors, so many engineers. And, uh, uh, and she was like, "What do you want to become, uh, once you get old?" And I was like, "I don't know. I'm a six-year-old kid," right? But, uh, it, then the doctor did come up. Um, and, uh, so this somewhere also ties back to that. We keep, I keep my mommy happy as well. Even though she knows I'm not a real doctor, I can't operate on a human being. I can operate on a procurement, uh, organization or a contract, uh, management, uh, process as such.

3:01So that's what my speciality is. Surgery, I can do surgeries on contract management tools or processes. That's great, Karthik. And so there's a lot of things that we're gonna cover in, in this episode, especially, uh, where are, like, the main difference between, of course, you know, like the sales, uh, and procurement. Contracting or negotiation cycles are completely different. Of course- Mm-hmm... on the sales side, if you're inside a company, you want it to be quick because you, you wanna close the sale. On the procurement side, maybe you want it to get, like, more on the details because you don't want to, uh, because you are more risk adverse and, and you wanna be covered in case, uh, shit hit, hits the fan. But- Yeah... before we jump into those details, Karthik, I would like to know your opinion on why in general contract management needs, uh, attention on every organization. Oh, wow. That's a good question, Pepe. And, uh, I'll tell you why. I just made a post like five days ago on LinkedIn. I think even Marc had liked it, if I remember.

4:06And, uh, it was a, a post with, with regards to contract management, and in five days, I received close to 10,000 views and 140 likes on it. Okay? Wow. And I'll tell you what the post is about. The post is a picture of, uh, uh, the movie Hangover. Okay. It has Stu and everyone in the middle of the desert, out of fuel in their car, and they're tired, and they're sitting down like that, laying down, right? Uh, the entire, uh, the three, three actors. And I said, uh, "Someone asked for a old contract, and this is what happened," right? They tried, they couldn't find a old contract, and this is what happened. And, and the, the epitome of it is you see that there's so many people. You know, procurement is a small world. It's not like sales, right? Uh- Right... but you could see the traction that it gave and the pain that so many people are, uh, they find it funny is because they're going through that pain day in and day out.

5:00And that, that's what struck to my mind a- as soon as I- I, I didn't even expect that to blow out of proportion, right? Uh, it was just a plain joke on a Friday. And then you could see so many people, uh, there were at least, like, 50 people who commented on it. "Why is this the case? Why can't we manage a contract? Uh, why is it even though we have a tool, uh, we don't know what the heck is happening with the contract?" or things like that. Uh, and, uh, that is one simple example which I could correlate from last week. But essentially, if you look at it, uh, contract, whether it's sales, procurement, real estate, employee contracts, whatever may be the contract, right, it is like your, uh, your bloodline of your entire organization, even though people don't think of it that way. If you, if there, if there's something wrong in your blood report, it's high cholesterol or high sh- uh, high sugar, I'm talking from the doctor's standpoint, right, immediately it affects your entire body. And it's basically the same thing.

5:56And if, if you're looking at it at a, as a human anatomy or entire body structure, that the body is your company And contracts are the, like the blood stream that need to be monitored at all times, managed the right way. You've got to be fit, right? And you need to ensure where, what is, how, how, uh, fit you are as a contract management process to ensure you're living without stress, because I see a lot of people in stress just because of contracts. It may... And it's not to do all with tool, Pepe. It could be also just a very strong business process. You need to at least have, uh, the, the willingness to adopt a business process that is helpful for everyone, and then maybe you could look at a tool. And, uh, that- that's why I think it's really, uh, important to have, uh, uh, a good... Attention needs to be given to contract management tool.

6:49And I'll tell you, on the procurement side of things, what I've seen is like, like you spoke in the beginning, right? Right. Sales, you're getting, getting in the moolah. The money's coming in the bank. Here, the money's going out. You want it fast. You, you want to hold it as long as you can, right? Right. Or you're not sure, uh, that, uh, you're buying something, something gets messed up. There's risk-averse-ness, right? So all of that kind of plays in, uh, comes into play. And, uh, th- that, and that's why I see that there is a definite need to have, uh, much more attention towards contracts in specific. Right. And, and that's a really good analogy because, uh, what happens in most of the companies is that they don't see this in, like, in their contracts because, I, I mean, most of the companies, they just think about contracts because it's just, like, a very form- formal way that you have in order to, uh, close a commercial relationship.

7:46And once you go through all these negotiation process, you sign the contract and put it on the file, and that's it, and you're n- and you're never going to see it. Yeah. However, the information that it's inside those contracts is exactly that. It's the blood streams. How are you going to get those services and deliver those services or products, and how are you going to get paid? And what's happened, and, and, and, and what can happen when something goes wrong in the middle, right? Absolutely. So, uh, I would say, like, that's, that, that's one of, of the main reason why companies most, uh, pay more attention into their contracts, because it's the manual of those commercial relationship that at the end is the ones that are going to produce economic value to the, to the company, either if you're on, on the sales side or in the buying side. And now, that said, uh, Karthik, I would like to know more about your experience on this, right? Like, what's the, the difference between the sales and procurement contract management?

8:46Like, you know, like, sales wants everything fast. They just want the money in. Yeah. And procurement, they just want to hold the money. They just wanna, they- ... they don't wanna spend more than the- Absolutely... than the annual budget. But, but what's your experience in, in these two departments? Yeah. So I, I was fortunate to implement one of, a CRM tool to some extent, uh, of late, recently. It's not, uh, one of the big guys. It's just a pro- simple CRM tool. And, uh, I, I was able to also help with some of the, on the sales strategy. So I wouldn't call myself as a sales doctor as yet, but I am the procurement doctor. So I m- I might need your help in chiming, chiming in a little bit on the sales side. But what... And I was able to implement for two of my clients in the past, I was helping them with the procurement technology, and they said, "I also need the sales side." So I was able to deploy the, uh, the sales side, uh, as well as a, as a technology for them in the same tool itself. So that was a repository for the sales contracts. And, um, like, we did touch upon it a little bit on the, uh, the money element, trying to, uh, uh, hold onto the money on the procurement side.

9:55Uh, it's, uh, on, on the procurement side, if you look at it, I'll count on a few, few specific scenarios. For instance, you're purchasing something, a service or a product or whatever. A person has to come on the site to conduct the services. So that's, if you see, it, it is risk, risky, right? For sure, we have to pay more attention to it just because that person might be a drug addict or whatever may be the case. So he could be, for, for instance, he might do something, he might steal your printer and go away, and you... Then, then who's gonna pay for it? So that's, that's the reason the procurement contracts are more so, uh, risk-averse or, uh, they're not that open-ended as such. On the sales side, like we know, it, it's... Uh, and, and there's a, um, on the sales side, who's owning the contracts or who's going to be initiating the contracts? It's, it's the sales guy, you know. And the sales guy knows how to get things done, right?

10:52Because he has a customer online, he wants the money. It's, he's got a commission on that sale. There's a lot of things that are working in his favor, right? Because it's, it's, it's, it might be a big deal or whatever may be the case. And the, even the legal folks also are, uh, they don't have the same mindset when they're working on a procurement contract versus a sales contract, right? If they have two contracts in front of them, a sales and a procurement, which one do you think they'll pick first, or what will be their priority on? There, there'll be more push on the sales side. So that, that's the other angle, right? Uh, the, the sales guy has commission. The customer is waiting. There's money that's going to come in the, uh, in- into an organization. So I see all that kind of things working out. Uh, because of this, uh, what I've seen over the years on, or what I've heard talking to the various sales folks in, in my life, the, the process steps in the sales process are not as stringent or long or lengthy in compared to what happens on the contract process. Uh, so those are the main two pieces that I see. Even on the, on the procurement side, like, I took one example, right?

12:00Um, the other clear example here is, I'm assuming if it's a, a sales contract, if it's something to do with, uh, work that's... It, it usually is your company paper, right? On your legal-... formal. Uh, that-that's what I could, uh, that's what I could imagine in, in most of the cases. On the procurement side, it could be, it could be either or, depending on, uh, what. If you're a big company, you can push for your own contract, uh, template saying that, "Yeah, I need you as a supplier to sign this." But if it's, if you're a small upcoming guy, you might not have the leverage to push, uh, your own legal template. That's another reason why there's a huge difference in terms of cycle time between these two process areas as such. Um, I, I don't think of any other, uh, things that come to my mind apart from that. Yeah, no, Karthik, and I, I think a lot of the, the differences there are, are key areas where it's, it's interesting to see how different departments work and where companies are focused on, on these different types of contracts.

13:04And especially, you know, when it comes to legal, like you said, right? They're always going to try to jump on that, those sales contracts over the procurement ones. But I would say most of the time that's because legal's breathing down their neck to, to get their red lines done so that they can close some more opportunities. Right. That's right. For sure. And the sales guy's gonna be a pushy guy regardless. Mm-hmm. As opposed to a procurement guy, right? So that, that's the inner difference out there between both those pieces. And, um, and it, we- the, the other thing is the sales guy also, I-I've seen a lot of sales guy who are very also educated in the legal terms, is because they don't want to give it to legal. Right. If you give it to them, they're gonna take a longer timeline, right? So they're like, "Yeah, yeah, that's okay. This is, this is not okay. That's okay." Or he'll try to negotiate the legal terms and make it, make the customer agree to whatever is best for the legal folks because he has that commission hang- uh, the carrot in front of him. Yeah.

14:00So he'll, he'll try to do that. Yeah. Yeah. And the procurement guy is, "Oh boy, I don't want my company to be sued. Uh, let me run this past legal every time." Because he, he doesn't want to get into that. He doesn't want, and he, he doesn't want to do more than what it's supposed to do. And the other thing as well, uh, the sales guys also, y-you might have a big line of salespeople in your company. Uh, tell me if you have the same number of people on the procurement. You wouldn't, right? Because even though you don't need a, you need, maybe you're making 10, 10 sales per month, one guy ha- can do. Uh, so if you wanna make, uh, 10,000 sales, so you need to have X number of people. On the procurement side, if you see, if I need to buy, uh, 20,000 of those product types, he's gonna work with one supplier and he'll get the thing done. So that's the other variation that you see, uh, in both these processes, and it ties back to the contract piece eventually as well. Yeah.

14:54Yeah, and I, and I think, you know, on either team or on any team, there's, there's always individuals who are, um, better or, or excelling faster than, than, uh, maybe some other members of the team. And I, I think that this is something, you know, that I wanna bring this next question into, which is, you know, around implementing a playbook. A-and like you said, you know, maybe you have somebody on the sales, the sales side who is actually negotiating his own contracts, and it... How does, you know, building out a playbook, how will that help these teams to operate more efficiently, uh, i-i-in, in these contracting processes? And before you answer that, Karthik, I would, I would say that maybe we can start on defining what's a playbook. What's a playbook- Yeah... inside a contract management process? Yeah. Yeah, it's, uh, uh, yeah, I know. It's, it's playbook is nowhere related to Playboy, guys, just to clarify, right? It's not a Playboy magazine as such. So playbook is something completely different. Uh, playbook is, um, just in layman terms, right? In layman terms is where it's, it's just giving, it's like, uh, a, a, a chess, a board of chess, right? And you know you have the rules as to when, when which...

16:03I'm not a chess player, so pardon me if I say something completely inappropriate. When can you move the, the, the elephant, whether the elephant goes straight or diagonal, or the horse. Everybody plays a different role, right? So basically, uh, the, the king can go whatever steps to the other side. So the playbook is somewhat like a chess book with the rules in it, and it's telling what could be moved where. The only difference here is, uh, is the playbook is of a game of chess with contracts and contract languages. And, uh, what it does is it would empower the, the procurement guy because legal is shit expensive, as we know, right? And if you go to them every time, especially if you have external counsel, then you're going to, uh, get billed maybe, uh, $400 an hour. An hour. $400 an hour. And, uh, no, uh, disrespect to legal folks, they're like, they might try to drag it as well, right? That, that's, that's a natural thing, right? I would have done the same if, if I was getting paid so high.

17:05Uh, I'm, but I'm not like that. Okay, just for, that was just a joke, guys. Don't take that into consideration. So the, the legal folks, if you're having ex- ex- especially external counsel or even in-house counsel, it's a pretty expensive, uh, cost to the company. And if you're a company who's dealing with, uh, products which is insurance related or if it's to do with something, uh, let's say you're doing, you're working in research and development on nuclear en- nuclear energy, or you're doing radioactive waste, right? So it makes sense to pay them money and ensure that you're doing the right stuff, right? Yes. But, uh, but not everything needs to go to them. Do you think everything needs to go to them? Like, the sales guy has learnt it because he has a, a, what do you say, an incentive. The same thing we wanna do for the procurement guy, and what the playbook does is, I'll take a plain and simple example. Confidentiality la- language, right? Okay. A few companies are pretty, uh, strong. The first, the legal template with the confiden- confidentiality language is one way. I, I, I save, uh, my ass, I don't save your ass.

18:09So that's it, that's how the, the language is in it, right? And then- Right... the supplier is like, "No, no. I don't agree to that." And then it doesn't need to go to legal, technically. If the legal already knows a- and if all the lawyers think alike- So the problem that I see, the reason I came up with the playbook was because I used to work with three category managers who had three lawyers, and each lawyer liked to spell out or write the clause in, in their own style because that's how they are, right? And, and what I used, I used to do is I used to work with these three people. I used to write the language as per one of the lawyers to the other lawyer, and that guy used to get pissed as to, "What the heck is wrong with Karthik? Does he know, or doesn't he know how to prepare a contract?" And then it happened too often, maybe for a couple of months, and then I walked up to my boss and I told him, "It's not my problem. I can't remember so many things, and, uh, we need to... Let's why not we do a playbook?"

19:06And that's how all of this happened. And, uh, coming back to the confidentiality example, right? The first is one-sided. The second could be mutual, right? Where I am, I'm also say, "I'll save your ass, you save my ass. You scratch my back, I scratch my back." So that particular clause sits in the playbook as a secondary language that could be utilized, and you put it... And it would also have a rule saying that, "Don't engage legal." Procurement has been given the auth- authorization to use that clause without their involvement. That's, that's just one simple clause, guys. This could be done for the entire, uh, 270-page document if you want to, right? Uh, maybe there's certain scenarios that you absolutely do, can't have a fallback language. Um, and you know the, the way the tools are. This is what I'm talking about in the 1920s, what I did, right?

19:58Right now, we're, we're, we are in the age of AI and this technology, all these options, and I, I was fortunate enough to do a similar concept in one of the procurement tools, where you could basically add the same fallback language on the NDA. Uh, and, uh, it, it, it doesn't go to the procure- the, this, uh, legal team. But if the supplier says, "I don't like this mutual either," or he says that, "I want it to be one-sided," or whatever may be the case, right? He, he's still, still changing the mutual language in a particular way. I can have the system automatically trigger the approval to the legal guy who's a specialist in confidentiality, and this could apply for indemnity, patents, or whatever may be the case. So that's what the playbook does, and it also, uh, it's, it's a mammoth of task.

20:51If you have a messed up, uh, process or you don't, you don't have a hang of all the legal templates on the clauses, uh, it's definitely a big effort, but it's worth the effort because it would ensure that you clear all the cholesterol from your bloodlines or all the blockages. It's kind of you t- you getting on a fitness regime and trying to, uh, redo your, uh, entire health from the contract standpoint. From that point onwards, it'll be much easier for you. There's lesser tension and, uh, for definitely I see this as a good cost savings for an organization as well. Because you see over a period of time, the usage of legal will come down, and that's how you could use a playbook. Yeah. No, and, and I think you know that that kind of playbook is something that, that we often talk about, you know, while we're going through these processes and, and helping organizations to get a better understanding of, of, of what, first off, what processes they, they wanna work on, and secondly, you know, how an, an application or a software application can be utilized to, to help them with those changes. But, you know, at the end of the day, if you don't, if you're not putting new processes in place, you know, software's only going to take you so far, and I think that that's exactly where the, the playbook comes in extremely handy.

22:01Absolutely. There's a funny analogy I made, uh, in one of the other webinars recently. It was a bunch of folks from UK, all, uh, high level, uh, chief procurement officers, senior managers who came in. It was very intimidating with with just me and so many other people who could ask me anything. There was no format. It was just an open AMA, a- as we call these days, right? Ask me anything. And, uh, on, on, on that session in particular, I was saying, uh, the, the, the... It's, it's not like you wear a Fitbit and you get a six-pack ab, right? And that, that's what the freaking technology is. Unfortunately- ... whatever bloody processes we have or companies we have, they have some extra money in their pocket at the end of the day, and they're like, "Oh, how do I spend? How do I spend? Okay, let's buy this tool. I got, I got a billion dollars in my budget, and let's implement it in, in three weeks or four weeks or six weeks or eight weeks just, and let's, uh, assume that everything gets fixed overnight."

23:03So, um, it, it again c- comes back here, and it's very funny because that's how people think or that's how organizations think. I wear a Fitbit, I get six-pack abs, and I start looking like, uh, The Rock, Dwayne Johnson. So unfortunately, that's not the case, guys. That's a great analogy, and I would say that that's completely true because some, some of, most of the times pe- companies will like to jump in, uh, to technology before they do, uh... We, we recently have an interview with Tom Fuchs from Video, uh, call it phase zero, where you have to have all your processes, uh, well defined, what's going to happen, what's your goals, uh, having of course your templates. Because if you don't have all of this, if you wanna use a system, and then you have no idea what to do with that system, then you- your, your staff is never going to use it. So those couple of thousand dollars will, uh, were not going to be spent well because nobody is, uh, the, the software is gonna be sitting there for months.

24:06Maybe they're not going to renew on the, on the next year- ... and, and that's going-- and then the procurement department is going to be in the, in a problem, right? Yeah, receiving end. Yeah. So they just find a reason to... And they blame the software. So unfortunately, that's the case. Um, uh, the, the other funny thing, uh, recently what I've seen is, um, the kind of requirements they ask. They have a- Right now they're doing it manually. They don't have any software, no nothing. And then they want to advance it to the level that they have never imagined. Uh, there are certain requirements that, uh, my clients had asked. And, uh, to basically to one of them, uh, I told, "You don't need to do anything. Just you think about a contract, it just gets populated." So I was like, "Y- you gotta have some bit of patience or some... So you need to have some business process or a logic. That's when the soft- software can help you, right? So the logic or the business process is what needs to be built.

25:02And, uh, if you want to still convert from your standard to the current process to the future process in your CLM system, it basically is not going to bring you anywhere." And, uh, I was giving him as an answer because he came back with a such a, a, a weird requirement which is not at all, uh, not at all attain- attainable by any system as such. So I told him, "Maybe what I'll do with the system is you start thinking about the system, and the contract gets created, the supplier comes and signs it, and everything gets done automatically. So you don't need to even, uh, join, get onto the internet, no- not the laptop, no nothing." So that's how their mindset is. Right. Sometimes they just want Alexa to do everything. "Hey, Alexa." That's right. "Do a master agreement," and there you go. Oh. "Give me, give me all of these contracts from, from, from last quarter." Absolutely. I don't think they're even looking at Alexa. They don't want to talk to Alexa. They just think and things happen, and that's how they they pretty much are expecting technology to work. We haven't gotten there as yet, unfortunately. No, no. But I, we're, we're on our way.

26:05Who knows where we're gonna be- Yeah... in a couple of years. It's pretty crazy. I think the Alexa functionality- Uh, we could just-... is actually coming. Yeah. We could install this chip in their brain- Yeah... for contract management. And what that does is it goes and connects the dots and creates the contract. I think there's a movie about that. Yeah, for sure. Hey, so Karthik, so if, if you could, you know, suggest maybe one way of, an ar- an organization could focus their attention on, on their contract management processes, what, what would be, like, the biggest tip or the biggest takeaway that you could give them today? So we s- we did speak about the playbook. Mm-hmm. That's a very good item to consider if you're having trouble with your contracts. Um, I see, uh, the, one of the biggest pain points, I know the process has also been covered, so I don't want to bring back the process. It's also a tighter thing.

26:59Uh, the biggest pain point is the data and maintaining your contracts. Uh, maintaining your contracts also ties back to the point we spoke in the beginning. You just sign it and put it in the cupboard and it's there for life. Unless someone asks for it or there's, uh... You don't care for it, right? So that, the maintenance or the management of the contract data, uh, makes a lot of your life easy. And it ties back to the post that I told that got close to 10,000 views as well. Mm-hmm. So it, uh, I see that as the, the main improvement area. If you're a small company and you're a startup, you're about to, uh, grow, it's better to get that, inculcate that in your process. There are a lot of free tools as well in contracts. Or you could manage your database even online on OneDrive or wherever, but start doing it. If, if you should get that as a part of your company culture, you would not fall flat on your face later and, uh, uh, and work backwards, right?

27:54So the data administration, maintenance, and ensuring that you're following through on whatever the contract was signed for. And this goes for sales as well as, um, the procurement side of folks. Great. No, I, I think those are, those are some great takeaways there. And, um, definitely, you know, I, I don't wanna keep focusing on the, on the playbook th- thing, but I, I think- ... that that's, you know, definitely the biggest takeaway of, of, of today's episode, is really, you know, being able to, to understand that and implement that, I, I think is, is, again, a key takeaway, uh, for a lot of these organizations. Absolutely. And I, I tell you, uh, in my overall, uh, 17 year lifespan, I've, uh... I think I've migrated close to 40,000 contracts. Wow. Old contracts. So you can imagine the pain and torture that I've gone through, the scrapes and bruises that I've been through of, uh, collating the contracts from 22 different countries.

28:50And then they had it in their drawer, in their, uh, in their cabinet. They had it on email of an employee who left. They had it in a shared drive. They had it all places. So... And they didn't know what the heck is happening. One country had paper ink signed contracts. One country had them online. Uh, they, they didn't track the expiration dates. Few people had an extension. So there's a lot of variations around that. And, uh, I, I could for, for, I, for one, can, uh, have a nice methodology around how do you want to go about this procurement contracts that the 30,000, 35,000 contracts. And how do you want to bring them to a system, whether they make sense, are they active or not? Is it a PO against it or an invoice against it? Uh, is it non-compliant? So all those kind of stuff. So that's where w- I think it's very critical to have a very good, uh, contract database which is active and, uh, pushed or maintained. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think that that's, that should be everybody's, you know, first step.

29:48After understanding your processes, let's get everything into that database and, and allow folks to have access to it so that they can track it, you can track it, and, and the whole company has a, a central location to go to. Um- That's right... well, Karthik, this has been a, uh, a great conversation. We really appreciate you coming on. And, uh, if folks want to connect with you or, or learn more about The Procurement Doctor, where's, where's the best place to do that? Oh, I'm very active on LinkedIn. Uh- Yeah... so you could, you could search by Procurement Doctor Karthik Rama. Uh, Twitter, uh, we have, uh, uh, Twitter, YouTube. I got a couple of videos on YouTube. Uh, these are the three places that, uh, I could be reached out at. And, uh, my... You could just type in my name and it's K-A-R-T-H-I-K, and then Rama, my last name. And I'll share you the links as well, uh, Marc. You could put it in the show notes or wherever you'd like to for my- Yeah... how we could reach out to me. Absolutely. Will do. All right, Karthik. Well, this has been a pleasure. Thanks for joining us.

30:47Thank you so much. It's been a, it's been fun talking to you both, and I was able to relieve some of my frustration as well, so thank you. Thanks a lot, Karthik. Take care, guys. Thanks everybody. Bye. Thanks for listening to another episode of Contract Heroes. We hope to hear you or have you back here soon. Bye-bye.