Atlantis The Palm, Dubai's Bhanu Pratap Singh, Anantara Hotels & Resorts Abu Dhabi’s Madhu Gopal, and Al Dar Sweets' Wissam El Cheikh Hassan debate key procurement issues in the region ahead of Hotelier's Procurement Summit.
The second edition of the Hotelier Middle East Procurement Summit is set to take place on Tuesday 4 November, and in preparation for the event we gathered together some of last year’s event speakers to discuss the key purchasing topics on their minds.
Meet the experts:
- Bhanu Pratap Singh, director of procurement at Atlantis The Palm, Dubai has been in his role since 2009.
- Madhu Gopal, director of procurement, Anantara Hotels & Resorts Abu Dhabi has held his position since 2012.
- Wissam El Cheikh Hassan, managing partner Al Dar Sweets, a home-grown Arabic Sweet company based in Abu Dhabi.
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Ahead of the second Hotelier Middle East Procurement Summit, to take place in Dubai on Tuesday 4 November, Hotelier met with Bhanu Pratap Singh, director of procurement at Atlantis The Palm, Madhu Gopal, director of procurement, Anantara Hotels & Resorts Abu Dhabi, and Wissam El Cheikh Hassan, managing partner at Al Dar Sweets, all of whom spoke at last year’s event.
This year’s Procurement Summit is expected to welcome more than 100 procurement professionals from across the GCC to discuss the challenges and strategies of one of the most important, yet overlooked departments in a hotel.
Staff procurement departments often find it a challenge being listened to and having the final say in purchasing decisions. How can procurement managers make their voices heard?
Bhanu: I am trying to do my best but people never listen to me and almost all of my colleagues have a similar type of experience — they want to contribute more.
It’s important to understand the other perspective of the people who you’re dealing with. For example, if you’re dealing with a CEO, whether indirectly or directly, he has expectations. Similarly the GM has some expectations of the function since it is part of the business he manages and he has certain limitations.
Wissam: I think purchasing differs a lot between one property and another. But all companies are generally directing toward outsourcing everything that is not core, and as painful as it might sound, purchasing is not core; it’s a support function. So how can we make purchasing matter? I know this probably sounds easy but at the end of the day it’s about how you handle the business.
You can say “Boohoo, I don’t have support” or you can say “I’ll do it this way and get the saving justified by finance and send it to the GM and let everyone know I have done this”. And then people will ask you what you think they should do, rather than not getting support. It depends on how seriously you take your job; let them notice. So how can you make purchasing matter?
Bhanu: Inside a hotel, the procurement manager can only go to the director of finance, they can’t go to the GM.
Wissam: Then you go as high as you can go and you say “I want to make a contract for a supplier”. If you have the support from upper management, do a blind tasting session [to test the difference].
Madhu: The purchasing managers in this region don’t have any authority — how are we going to make people understand what we are paid for? Most of these people are not even allowed to question. Instead of being instructed to just go and buy something, we should question it saying “so why are we getting it at this rate when we can get this price?” That is not there at the moment.
Bhanu: Definitely, it’s a struggle that procurement is not able to make its place. There are two reasons for it — stakeholder values. The CEO expects the purchasing manager to do the necessary deeds. We have to move from savings, which have been primarily given to our job; “this is your job how much money will you save?”
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