Market Dojo Conference 2019 Summary

Last month marked Market Dojo’s third annual conference, bringing together clients and prospects alike for a day of industry insights and socialising. The event was once again held in the heart of the Cotswolds at the picturesque Stonehouse Court Hotel.

Upon guest arrival, each attendee was welcomed with a limited edition Event Ninja as well as an array of other goodies, such as our new eSourcing Top Trumps.

Our CEO and co-founder Alun Rafique began the day by giving an overview of Market Dojo’s year to date, as well as introducing the theme of the day: ‘Digital Transformation: eSourcing evolution vs revolution. Adopting on-demand eSourcing and supplier engagement to deliver real change.’

Our line up included our keynote speaker, Business Reporter’s Andras Rac, alongside four experts within the procurement industry each giving an insight into their business and Procurement best practice. (While trying to loosely focus around the day’s topic of Digital Transformation and Evolution vs Revolution.)

First to present was Andras Rac, Broadcast Producer, Creative Director & Video Journalist from the Business Reporter. Andras approached his presentation with confidence and delivered a highly controversial insight into the psychological position of buying and selling. His points gauged a huge amount of audience reaction with attendees keen to learn more about how they can improve their own selling techniques when approaching their senior counterparts for sign off.

Geoff Elliott from IWG/Regus kindly stepped in last minute to take the lead from his colleague Chris Kayatz. Geoff discussed IWG/Regus as a business and how flexible workspaces are encouraging employees and having a positive impact on many businesses. He elaborated on how the evolution of the ‘cloud’ allows for flexible office space to exist and explained the ability customers have to customise workspaces with the company to avoid a ‘one size fits all’ theory. Geoff then went on to discuss his use of Market Dojo ‘How procurement is building its space’. IWG are opening offices at an alarming rate and are constantly needing to procure services and equipment, Market Dojo has allowed Geoff and his team the flexibility to procure when they need and store all their data in one place.

Ben Harvey our Product Manager was next to take to the floor.

Ben discussed our existing Market Dojo Roadmap and our company vision for 2020; to move forward, we must look back. With an overview of 2019, Ben explained what we have learnt as a company along the way. Showing how we have continued to integrate into our software, Host Onboarding, Introduce Intelligent Notifications & Advanced Lot Performance, Release Contract Dojo, Sim Dojo UX and improve our Customer Support. Taking a look at our vision for 2020, Ben discussed how customer success will remain a top priority; ensuring our software is user-friendly and accessible to all. Ben noted that upgrading our software will also be a priority, enabling us to develop upon our multistage RFQ’s, integrated performance and advanced lot performances.

Our COO and Co-founder Nick Drewe followed next with, ‘Unusual Events We Can Learn From’ discussing some of “the most bizarre categories we have had put through our tool”. You may have seen from the day, or perhaps heard of, our marketing teams latest initiative, ‘Market Dojo Top Trumps’. The top trumps were made using our own eSourcing data which we have split between the most popular 34 spend categories and then assessed to create the savings potential, supplier liquidity, complexity, strategic importance and auctionability. Nick went on to discuss some of the most unusual events and products that have been put through our tool proving the versatility of eSourcing and Market Dojo’s solution. 

Throughout the day, there was plenty of time to network and chat, whilst munching on our fruit stand or delving back in time with our pick and mix cart. There was the opportunity to learn about some of our partners and their solutions via stands dotted around the venue, or prove your golfing prowess on our putting green! Stonehouse Court put on a fantastic lunch catering to all dietary requirements, with sandwiches, pastries, fries, curries and much more for our guests to enjoy.

The day’s activities continued with a presentation from Aurelie Pages a Senior Buyer for workwear & FM at G4S. Aurelie talked us through her first experience with eAuctions, and how she ran an incredible 15 in one day using Market Dojo! 

Aurelie discussed the preparation she undertook when faced with such an overwhelming concept and the results she was able to achieve. Aurelie was joined by Lewis Bernard, Market Dojo’s Senior Business Development Manager, who was also part of the crazy eAuction day. Lewis was there to assist Aurelie with the preparation before each event, looking through the data and considering the most natural places to break the auction down. He noted that the Pareto rule was often used with lots where there were a large number of items. 

The days next event was a Market Dojo conference first. Having taken on feedback from last year, we decided to run some parallel sessions, giving those attending the option to choose what Market Dojo product they would like to learn more about. Our Supplier Onboarding session was hosted by one of our key SIM Dojo clients Dan Firth from Ground Control. Dan opened his session up to be a Q&A format welcoming questions on why he chooses to use SIM and how our solution has helped transform Ground Control’s supplier onboarding process.

Our very own Jon Pole presented a workshop on our most recent solution to release, Contract Dojo and Eve Eyres ran our ever-popular eAuction game. Our eAuction game engages all players into a reverse auction bidding war while having to focus on not bidding too low and risking disqualification! 

Finally, we welcomed one of our partners on the day, Richard Nixon from The Hackett Group to the floor. Richard began on theme by discussing The Hackett Group’s transformational process from ‘journey to world-class’ while elaborating on what this has meant for procurement. Richard focused on the concept of becoming a trusted advisor for the business, cost reduction goals and stakeholder satisfaction, by looking at what he thought to be the top 10 goals in procurement for 2019. Like all speakers on the day, Richard raised some fantastic points which led to a great level of interaction from the audience.

Throughout the day, we had some excellent discussions during Q & A sessions with all our presenters. From how to improve both supplier and stakeholder adoption, questions surrounding procurement best practice and engaging group chats regarding their personal thoughts on topics surrounding digital transformation in procurement. 

The day came to an end with a final farewell from Alun, we were pleased to see so many familiar and new faces in attendance and everyone taking every opportunity to network with others. 

We would like to thank all our incredible presenters as well as our attendees for taking the time to come along to our event. We hope you have learnt a lot from the day and for anyone who missed it we would love to welcome you next year!

We will be following on the theme of our conference, on Wednesday 13th November, when Market Dojo and Jon Hansen will once again combine forces to host our next webinar ‘The Real Obstacle To Digital Transformation: Finding An Alternative To Spreadsheets And Emails’ 

To catch up on any of our previous webinars with Jon, click here or to register for our latest one you can, click here

Team Dojo will also be closing out the year by hosting our own internal webinar: ‘What you may have missed in 2019’ keep your eyes peeled to our social accounts for more information.