The disruption caused by the COVID-19 outbreak has affected every industry, most notably their supply chain and logistics functions. While disruptions caused by the pandemic have unfortunately impacted the competitiveness, economic growth, and even the viability of some organizations, Richard Martin (CEO of Requis) thinks there’s another truth below the surface. “The overall effect of the coronavirus pandemic has been to expose the existing fragility of our global supply chain,” he says.
“There has always been and will always be volatility in the supply chain caused by disruptions that scale from inconveniences all the way to pandemic level events. A foundational flaw lies partly in the nomenclature of “supply chain”. It can foster an inherently flawed structural organization with participants individually linked from left to right as perceived from the demand side. In reality, what is needed is a focus on the VALUE of optimally connecting supply and demand together in a vibrant NETWORK that can dynamically reconfigure around disruptions. The disruption caused by COVID-19 not only showed the world the importance of the value network, it showed organizations that better visibility and interconnectivity is an essential part of building more resiliency into “supply chains”. Ultimately this evolution from the supply chain to the VALUE NETWORK will inherently require the adoption of cloud-based platform solutions.”
Transparency, Innovation, and Simplicity
Richard is an industry veteran with over 25 years of experience. “I’ve had the benefit of experiencing the supply chain from perspectives that stretch into almost every aspect of the business,” says Richard.
He has leveraged this experience to grow several companies into successful ventures. Currently, he is the CEO at Requis, a leading cloud-based supply chain platform. “At Requis, we believe there is a better way. A better way to buy, a better way to sell, and a better way to manage asset lifecycles that significantly improves capital efficiencies for all participants. We’re inspired by consumer commerce platforms and aim to provide companies with a similar ubiquitous experience augmented with enterprise-class requirements such as scale, compliance, roles, auditability, and security. Luckily for us, the market and our customers seem to be feeling the exact same way and demonstrating a strong appetite for change through their adoption,” says Richard.
Requis was officially launched in 2018 when the founding team noticed the lack of modern end-to-end supply chain management solutions.
Combining Platform Convenience and Personalized Service
A unique differentiator for Requis is the combination of online convenience and personalized service. This combination has helped the company expand its user base dramatically in the past year.
Another advantage lies in the fact that the development team at Requis is constantly upgrading and adding new features to the platform. Richard comments, “Our product management and development teams are constantly incorporating new capabilities into the platform based on user feedback. We are maniacal about our users getting value from the platform. If we get that right, the rest will follow.”
Richard also feels that Requis allows organizations to adapt to disruption more easily. “For example, following the pandemic, a number of oil and gas projects were put on hold or canceled. As a result, we’ve seen a dramatic increase in the use of our Marketplace for surplus disposition. Leveraging the Requis platform ecosystem, oil and gas operators were able to simultaneously increase the cost recovered from surplus sales as well as find high-quality surplus to lower the cost of ongoing projects. I think there are a lot of oil and gas operators who are looking for ways to become more efficient, and part of that efficiency lies in using a platform like Requis.”
He also believes that there are advantages for procurement teams who use Requis.
“Procurement teams are learning to value supplier relationships and to diversify their supplier lists thought the insights provided by detailed supply chain analytics. Requis is democratizing the supply chain by making it easier and more efficient for demand and supply to connect and transact together,” he says.
Showing Practitioners that Change is Possible
A key challenge for Richard and his team is winning over supply chain professionals. “Let’s face it, systems providers have not done a great job arming supply chain professionals for success. They have witnessed a number of multi-year, multi-million dollar system rollouts with little operational benefits or positive impact on KPIs. How are we winning you may ask? Well, we are supply chain professionals ourselves and we spend a lot of time in that community. The result? Zero system roll-out time and procurement professionals generating live RFQs before lunch the morning they are introduced to the platform.”
“Our other challenge is something that all successful young platform companies face: the need to balance big strategic goals with shorter-term tactical ones. We do this through a fanatical focus on customer value and the things that will not change. Operators will always want to procure at a lower price, get assets quicker with higher quality and lower risk, while suppliers will always want to increase their customer reach, collapse their sales cycles and drive higher revenue. We share with customers what’s possible and they help us curate that into the right priorities.”
Adjusting to Remote Work
For many organizations, COVID-19 has imposed an overnight shift from office environments to remote work. The Requis team, however, has been remote since inception.
“The most important part of my job is hiring the right people, defining success and empowering them to reach that goal. If you’re hiring right, it won’t take too long before they define success and arm you to keep propelling the company forward. The Requis team has been globally remote since birth, with people across four continents and eight time zones. From that perspective, the pandemic has been minimally disruptive,” affirms Richard.
Highlighting the differences between the pre-COVID and post-COVID eras, Richard underlined the absence of travel and face-to-face communication.
“Video calls are great, and you can’t beat them for efficiency, but they’re not the same as in-person collaboration. I miss spending time with the team; I get so much energy from them. With a series A funding round on our doorstep, potential investor interaction has been completely remote, but I expect that to change once we get closer to that event,” he says.
Anticipating the Future
Richard sees the supply chains of the future becoming more connected, efficient, and resilient. He comments, “As we move forward, we’re considering relevant uses and integrations of things such as AI/ML, blockchain, and IoT. But I consider part of our job to be looking out for our customers, and ensuring applications are relevant and valuable. I’m also excited about our focus on sustainability and driving the circular economy as our platform inherently does. We’re developing a sustainability index that our customers will be able to reference when engaging with each other, hopefully driving and incenting each other to continuously improve on that front. My hope is that we’re driving a brighter future for both Requis and the environment.”
Richard and his team aim to provide a practical avenue for the next enterprise transformation. “The horizon seems boundless right now as we’ve been very fortunate to be at the right place and the right time to count some of the world’s leading companies as our customers. What’s next is what is always next. We’re going to keep working unbelievably hard every day to earn our customer’s trust and business. One of my mentors called this “maniacal execution”…. sounds about right.”
Read full issue: The 10 Best Leaders In the Supply Chain and Logistic Sector 2020
