856: LIVE From Ellucian Live 2024 - with Richard Forrest, Chief Product Officer, & Matthew Boice, Board Advisor, ESM Solutions

Joe Sallustio: Welcome back, everybody. It's your time to up on the EdUp Experience Podcast where we make education your business. And yes, we are continuing to make education your business here. It's day two at Ellucian Live in San Antonio. Day one was pretty incredible. I recorded three podcasts, hit the exhibit hall. There were some setups that you would not believe. I'm going to shout out to my boy Robert Ferrelli who had fries and burgers and a DeLorean that I was able to cut the line for. He said, "Joe, cut the line." So he walked me up to the DeLorean. I was able to take a picture in the car. You have no idea what that meant to me considering last week I wrote an article about higher education and I used the theme of Back to the Future literally around higher ed. So to end up in a DeLorean like five days after I wrote the article was kind of a cool cap to day one.

But we're in day two now and we're going to have amazing conversations. Can you believe, you guys, before I even say anything, I need reading glasses now to see the names of my guests. I don't know what's happening to me. Last year, didn't need reading glasses. This year, need reading glasses. So hold on, everybody. I got to put reading glasses on. 

Who's with me today? First, two guests. And this guest is returning for a second straight year at the mic. He's Richard Forrest. He is Product Officer at ESM Solutions. Richard, welcome back.

Richard Forrest: Thank you very much. Yeah, it's lovely to be back. 12 months under my belt. And I'm just going to talk about the glasses thing because I'm really on mine's long distance. I've got people coming up to me in the corridor without my glasses. Unless they get really close, I can't see them.

Joe Sallustio: I know. Mine's the other way around. I'm trying to hit podcast sound effect buttons and I can't read what they say anymore. So it's gotten really interesting. Between us, we're fine. We're fine. Richard, bring that mic up a little bit closer. There you go. So you're not reaching down for it. 

And our second guest today, he looks ready to rock this microphone. Shoot, I can't read. I took the glasses off. He's Matthew Boyce. He is board advisor at ESM Solutions. Matthew, welcome to the podcast. How are you?

Matthew Boyce: Thank you so much. Very, very well. Honored to be invited by you and Rich.

Joe Sallustio: Yeah. Because I know he had another Brit with him last year. He did. Feels that we need some accents. Is he still here? Is he still around?

Richard Forrest: No, he's at home. He has a newborn.

Joe Sallustio: Oh, congratulations to him. We gave him the year off.

Richard Forrest: That's fair. Yeah. And a newborn is like a full-time job. So there's nothing you do.

Joe Sallustio: But Matthew, is this your first podcast? When's the last time you did a podcast?

Matthew Boyce: I think this is the first one. This is the first one. 100%.

Joe Sallustio: All right, so it can only go down from here. I promise you if you do other higher ed podcasts. Let's set the stage for us. Whoever wants to take it. Just what is ESM Solutions and why are you here at Ellucian Live?

Matthew Boyce: So ESM Solutions provides procurement software and we're particularly passionate about trying to help personalize the way that people buy. And what's making us super excited are the possibilities that we now have with Ellucian to make that real. So let me give you an example of that. If you look at the different work that an institution has to do and the different things that they need to buy, the services and the goods that they need, they vary so enormously. It can be as simple as a pen, a kind of memory-based purchase. You don't want to spend a lot of time on that. You just want to get hold of these things. But it can go right through to extremely complex scientific equipment, it could be an MRI machine, it could be a robot, but lots of people have to come together to collaborate, to figure out the specifications, the requirements, go find those things. So the different types of need so far have not been catered for well. Systems have tended to just focus on one thing, one way of buying. And there's so many different things to buy, right? There's nothing to say about the cycles, the sale, the complexity. You've got high risk, low risk, some stuff doesn't matter. You're not going to make an error that's problematic with a one dollar pen. But you could well with a piece of valuable scientific equipment. So that spectrum of need for us, what we really wanted to try to accomplish with Ellucian is going about serving those different parts of need, if you like, in the way that is appropriate to that. 

So if you're just wanting something quick, you're at the checkout of the store and you see those memory-based purchases, right, your favorite chocolate bar, your favorite packet of chips, as you'd say here, those things, if we, in computer terms, we don't want many clicks before we've just got the thing that we need. So that's a good example of a quick buy, a quick purchase versus something else that's more involved. So that's what we've been working on with Ellucian.

Joe Sallustio: That's a fact, that's a fact. One non-fact is we don't say packet of chips. What's the word? Bag of chips. You might have packets of other things. Like a packet of gum or whatever. I like what you said. Richard, what do you want to add to that?

Richard Forrest: I think last time I was here, I was only three months into ESM actually...

Joe Sallustio: I remember you not knowing a thing about what you were doing then. Deer in the headlights.

Richard Forrest: I think you must have seen it in my eyes. Ably supported by Joshua. But sort of 20 years actually working with or alongside Ellucian and understanding the education market, but I must admit I didn't truly understand the impact that procurement has and how broad it goes across institutions, how technical it is. It really is technical. But I think people often think that the procurement side is just dealt with in the procurement office. The reality is, procurement... The buyers out there are actually across... It's one of the processes within education that actually touches probably the most people at an institution. Pretty much everybody buys from students to lecturers. Keeping the institutions with janitorial supplies, equipment, the whole thing. Everybody is buying and understanding how you can have a positive but also a negative impact if you get it wrong. So if you're creating friction in that process, it's taking time out from the education side. So really smoothing the processes across and making it easy to buy was something that we've really put a lot of focus on.

Joe Sallustio: Bullseye! So much focus, so much focus that you have won an award here at Ellucian. Can you tell us about the award, what it means to ESM and how you guys will celebrate tonight?

Richard Forrest: Yeah, we were so... we've already been taking the pictures and sending them home. This meant a lot to us and it follows on to that theme because we've been working really hard with Ellucian on integration and we won the Integration Partner of the Year award last night. So great thanks to Ellucian who helped us along that road. But yeah, it's very much about that. With that deep integration, we've been working with Ellucian's experience solutions so that we're surfacing our information and our data through their experience portal, which means they don't have to log out and go into a different solution to do what they need to do. Everything that they need is in one spot and through that deep integration they're seeing it real time. It's not updated overnight or anything else. They're seeing what they can buy, tying it against the budgets, understanding whether they can afford it or not, how it's going to impact. So having that real deep integration has really been something we put a lot of emphasis on and it's really nice to be recognized for that.

Joe Sallustio: Do you guys think that, by the way, congratulations, it's an incredible thing to win an award, partner award, it means that you're impacting so many schools in a positive way, and students, thereby students, right? Do you find, and this is a general question, do you find that schools are prioritizing procurement and technology around procurement? Or is it an afterthought? Well, we have to do this first, and this, and this. You know what? Don't worry about procurement. We'll never get to it, right? But then it creates incredible inertia because you need things to do the job. But if you don't prioritize procurement, then you're creating marmalade. Right?

Matthew Boyce: Marmalade, is that a reference to Paddington? He's from London.

Joe Sallustio: That works.

Matthew Boyce: I think you've hit the nail on the head there asking that question in terms of, what? Why is this different? You know, the truth of it is there hasn't been something transformative that's made people sit up and say, well, why would I look back at the tools that we use in procurement? The example that Rich gave there about the budget in flight with a transaction. It sounds so simple, doesn't it? I'm about to make this purchase of this item for my students, and I need to know how that impacts my budget. For most institutions, that is a walk across the corridor. It's a wait for a week for a report. That's the reality of trying to put those different data together. It's driving everybody nuts because you're basically trying to make a purchase with some confidence, I'm covered in my budget, I know where I'm at, et cetera. So the example that Rich gave there of this is bringing live budget information right at the point that a commitment is gonna be made on the purchase side and giving someone a little visual cue just to let them know, hey, this is the impact of this on your budget. And the people that we've been showing this to here, and Rich talked about the number of people that get impacted by this. We had an institution visit us yesterday who said, we got 250 people that we're going to be launching this with. And what you've just shown us completely changes how they're going to be able to go about buying with some more confidence.

Joe Sallustio: Amazing. I think it's going to bring the spotlight back onto this topic and for the reason that there is a transformation available, many transformations available. Is procurement siloed typically to like one person or two people who are doing all that work, probably overworked, don't have access to great technology, almost receiving things in a negative capacity all the time? Because we need this, Richard, we got to get this. Well, I got to do this first and that first. And the person doesn't walk away going, thank you for all your help. They're going, I need this faster. Give it to me better.

Richard Forrest: This is the... It can be seen as a negative term, but we have heard the phrase that sometimes the procurement department can be effectively preventing business and it's not their fault, it's not that they're wanting to prevent business but the processes that they've been given, spreadsheets and other processes, are actually slowing the process down. So people do get frustrated with the procurement process because it's not as fast, they need it now, they want to buy it now and that's what we're really trying to open up here and enable some of that red tape just to be cut because you don't need to necessarily always approve a one dollar pen. But it's the same process often that people have to go through.

Joe Sallustio: But a lot of schools do approve one dollar pens because they're watching the money.

Richard Forrest: The information moving from department to department is delayed so your spending isn't necessarily on demand. You've got to get it approved. You've got to do all this. But if you understand that with an inefficient process that one dollar pen can suddenly cost ten dollars because of the process being inefficient. If you bring a really efficient process that one dollar pen will cost one dollar, not ten dollars because you're waiting a week and having to do time, pass things around, even the pieces of paper and approvals. You know, there's still institutions that are having to go through physical, sign a piece of paper, put it in an envelope, put it in an in-tray, that whole process is costing more than, and that's where the spend management really needs to be controlled because we want to focus on education, not on the business processes that are inefficient. That's what we can really improve on.

Joe Sallustio: Do you guys have a group of, I mean you're board advisory, do you have a group of procurement officers from universities going, yes this is amazing?

Richard Forrest: We have a number of them actually, so after this session we're actually going down to Lancaster in Pennsylvania for our, we have two advisory councils and another in Philly the day after. And just that small group is so pleased with the direction that we're taking and just yeah.

Joe Sallustio: It's a small piece, but they have a... I'm going to ask you a question before I get the words wrong. Don't ask me anything I can't answer right.

Matthew Boyce: You're going to be able to answer this just instantaneously.

Joe Sallustio: Parking warden, someone who puts a citation on a vehicle, what do you call those guys in the States?

Matthew Boyce: Rent-a-cop.

Joe Sallustio: Rent-a-cop, okay. What are those? We saw one in the hall.

Matthew Boyce: Yikes, yikes! I think they were going to put a citation on the little... So, okay, rent-a-cop, but traffic parking citation. Procurement is often being accused of being like that. The person you don't want to meet and negative association, you're slowing me down, there's too many steps, blah blah blah. That doesn't necessarily have, you perceive not to have authority that you don't want them to have authority because they're slowing things down. You don't think they're adding value and so on and really that, we've got the opportunity to change that relationship.

So Rich was given the example of the approvals. Cut the steps out, let's enable people properly, let's automate that stuff in the background. Just surface the things that need scrutiny, but for the routine stuff, let it go through. And that changes the relationship with the parking warden. It changes the relationship with procurement. And it also helps procurement spend some time focusing on what they need to do. And we've got a wonderful vendor with us in Consolidus. We wanted to show what this stuff actually is. What is a supply chain? What is a supplier? What does it mean when you connect that together? And then I think the reputation of procurement changes when people start to see what's possible when you do a great job of integrating that supply chain and we're happy that people stop by we can show them how this works then I think procurement has the chance to be seen as something other than preventative or negative or whatever it can be an enabling important part of the picture.

Richard Forrest: That is correct. So if you carry on the analogy of the one dollar pen if you don't make the process efficient, that person is going to stop off at Walmart on the way home buy that one dollar pen and expense it when they get back in and that's another process that actually adds to the cost of the pen so it's about that procurement. It's about bringing the suppliers that really you know we're sourcing the right suppliers into the institution so that it's not just about if it's under a dollar. It doesn't matter it's under a dollar and it's been pre-approved because it's from the supplier that we trust. It's from a local supplier or diverse suppliers. It's about curating the buying process. So the purchasing the things that you've already pre-approved. You want a whiteboard pen, we've got a whiteboard pen, buy this one. You want a bit of choice, we've got two or three, you can select from these. But it's quick, got it. I don't need to go to Walmart on the way home now.

Joe Sallustio: Yeah, don't do that. Okay Matthew, since you asked me a question, I'm gonna ask you one back.

Matthew Boyce: Fair enough.

Joe Sallustio: Do you know what a parking warden eats for lunch?

Matthew Boyce: Crikey.

Joe Sallustio: A packet of chips.

Matthew Boyce: I walked straight into that.

Joe Sallustio: What else do you guys want to say about ESM solutions to the audience? We have an active, listening, engaged, higher education audience who buys stuff. What do you want to tell them about ESM?

Richard Forrest: I think one of the things is to understand that we are so closely linked with Ellucian. It's actually the solution is Ellucian Purchase and Ellucian Supplier Management. We just power it in the background. So understand that they're one and the same.

The other thing is that we would love to see people chat through whether it's at this event easy to get hold of us. I think it's one of the things where we want to be remaining part of the community. We understand education. We understand procurement's different in education. Again, just real quick thing on procurement outside in different industries, which a lot of solutions are multifaceted. They'll service different industries. In those industries, it is just one or two people who do all the buying. Solutions are built for one or two people.

In education it's different. 80 to 90 percent of people in institutions, students through to the president will be buying something. And that takes a different solution. It means there's a broader persona that we have to think about. And that's one of the things I want to, I suppose, my leave behind is we're thinking about education.

Joe Sallustio: Do you, Matthew?

Matthew Boyce: I'm going to leave one and it's that we don't have all the answers about how your institution's users want to buy. What we'd like to do is put forward a set of ideas about how they may like to do that. And we're really keen that people challenge us on those things. And the reason is very simple. What Ellucian has put in place for us as a partner are a set of tools that enable us to very, very rapidly develop these ideas. And we're talking days, not weeks and months and years. And what that allows us to do in conversations, and we'd be having these conversations here and we'd love some more, is to put something in front of someone as a concept and say, look, this is what we can do with the budget. We can do this in flight, in a transaction. How would you like to see it? And engage them in that dialogue and iterate those experiences. So that's something that I would say we'd throw that challenge out. If we can help your institution change the experiences that your end users are having, we'd love to have that conversation.

Joe Sallustio: Nailed it. Well, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, another episode of the EdUp Experience here at Ellucian Live in San Antonio, Texas with my guests. No, they are your guests. He's Matthew Boyce. He's Richard Forrest. They're from ESM. I'm not going to give the full titles. Go back to the beginning if you want to hear what they do. You can contact ESM how? What's the best way? ESM website?

Richard Forrest: Yep, ESMSolutions.com.

Joe Sallustio: Right. There you have it. You've just EdUpped.