ProcureTechSTARS with Sai Nidamarty, Co-founder and CEO of Trust Your Supplier
- Lizzie Black
- March 7, 2023
ProcureTechSTARS with Sai Nidamarty, Co-founder and CEO of Trust Your Supplier, a platform using blockchain technology to transform supplier relationships and provide advanced insights.
During the conversation, Sai shared his thoughts on creating meaningful, long-lasting partnerships, digital wallets, decentralized platforms and Puerto Rico.
1. What’s Trust Your Supplier’s mission?
Trust Your Supplier’s mission is to help organizations form trusted partnerships by providing a comprehensive source of trusted supplier information. There are a lot of ways to do that, but the greatest resource is data. It’s what drives the decisions that we make, and the partnerships we form. We believe by providing organizations with reliable and accurate data, we are driving that trust. We chose to do that on blockchain, where we will drive the future of supplier information using a secure and decentralized technology. This will truly enable a single portable supplier record accessible by many and controlled by the supplier themselves.
“We are primed to make the Digital Identity of a supplier their Digital Passport where it then becomes a wallet for the future.”
2. What have been the most significant decisions in the Trust Your Supplier journey so far?
I would say that our very first milestone was our partnership with IBM.
Having an organization like IBM which has a great marketing presence in the technology landscape and brings solutions to the market, is a great way for us to launch our platform. Our partnership with IBM is unique. In the formation of our governance council, we brought together top organisations like Nokia, BT and Lenovo to help guide our path to develop Trust Your Supplier. We also have been recognized by the industry as having a truly state of the art game changing solution. Today, we are the only solution using blockchain to manage supplier information and are trying to create a digital identity and wallet for suppliers. This means a great deal to us and to our continued growth. We were recently granted a US patent for use of blockchain to manage supplier information which is obviously a huge milestone for us and we are very proud of that accomplishment.
3. What do you look for in the perfect customer?
The first thing we look for is a relationship and the opportunity to form a true partnership. We don’t really look at customers as customers. We look at them as partners and somebody that’s going to share the journey with us. We want them to not only use our solution, but also to advise and help our solution continuously evolve to address their future needs. We are very customer-centric, and are committed to improving our product based on those changing needs.
Building a strategic partnership with our customers is key to us. Without it, how can we provide value to each other? It’s important for us to be transparent and honest with each other in a partnership for it to grow strategically in the long term. It is equally important to continuously co-create value for each other.
“With the value we create for our customers, we hope they will evangelise Trust Your Supplier to their peers in the industry and create a network effect. Once we have scale, we believe that it will have compounding benefits to everyone in our network.”
These companies recognise that the world is changing and the technology and services we bring will align with those changes. We’d like to believe that we are innovative and disruptive and hope our partners and customers value that.
4. What are the foundations of a great team?
aving a clear direction and vision that motivates, energises and brings collaboration among the team to deliver excellence.
“Having passionate and dedicated people who believe in the mission is very important. You can’t win, you can’t achieve, nor can you bring value to anyone unless you have that. That is truly foundational.”
We are fortunate to have people with true passion and dedication. I am blessed to be surrounded by people that have boundless passion and have adopted our mission like it’s their own child and will stop at nothing to make this successful. At Trust Your Supplier, we’re all about achieving our goals collaboratively and it is never about any individual – that includes me as CEO. We also execute it and achieve our goals in a way that we are proud of ourselves. Our mantra is We’ll go far because we all do this together. This is the core foundation of our team and that’s the basis of our confidence that we are going to succeed immensely.
5. As we emerge from COVID what will you be doing differently?
Quite honestly, we won’t be doing a lot differently. We transitioned quickly into a remote team when COVID broke out, and we’re still in that mode. Frankly, I don’t think we have lost any efficiencies and the team is just as close as ever.
Before COVID, many procurement organisations were focused on targeting traditional challenges, financial health, cost efficiency, and traditional performance factors of their suppliers. Now the world has changed. We have seen what a pandemic can do, how it impacts the world, how it impacts the supply chain. We’ve been awakened and exposed to social issues, environmental issues, as well as an ongoing focus on data rights and regulations. This is where we’ll focus on bringing the value to partners and customers.
6. What is the vision for Trust Your Supplier?
We have a fairly aggressive vision for where we want to go in the future. As mentioned before, we really look at ourselves as disruptive and innovative.
“Boldly, we believe we are at the tip of the revolution of how information about organizations will be managed. While things are still being done in a traditional way now, even though we are part of the digital transformation age, we at TYS are thinking in even bolder ways.”
We really see Trust Your Supplier as a solution that enables a truly decentralised portable supplier identity platform. It’s the true golden record that we have discussed in the industry for so long. It will be owned by the supplier. They will choose how and with whom they want to share it and they’ll carry it digitally like a passport or a wallet. How cool is that?
We think today’s traditional “vendor master” maintained within the organization is in its final phase. The future calls for a decentralized platform of all supplier identity like Trust Your Supplier, accessible by everyone and maintained by the supplier.
This identity can be consumed by other networks when needed, where they are provided with confidence that this information is accurate, current, trusted and specific to the supplier in question. The innovation that we bring, is that the supplier identity can be used by anyone in or outside of our network. We believe that Trust Your Supplier will be at the heart of this revolution, and it’s clearly our vision in the future over the next three to five years.
7. How are you doing good for the planet?
I think everything we’ve talked about so far has been about the planet! Everything that we do is about bringing information to the appropriate parties for them to make the right decisions and forge effective partnerships, for them to be equipped to do what is right. Every organisation that we speak to has serious objectives around things like sustainability, diversity, social responsibilities, and other key factors that are all affecting the planet today. We support that 100%. Trust Your Supplier helps organisations achieve these objectives which we’re very proud of. We live here too, and we’ll make sacrifices and tough decisions to do what’s best for the world.
INSTANT INSPIRATION
1. What is your favourite book or blog?
The Second Mountain by David Brooks.
The book talks about how we all seek to reach the top of the first mountain to be a success, to make our mark, to experience personal happiness. When we reach that peak of the first mountain then we realize that there is another mountain, life moves from self-centered to other-centered, a kind to embrace a life of interdependence, not independence. I love that book.
2. Who is your favourite inspirational leader?
Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill to name a few.
3. What is your favourite cocktail?
I’m not a cocktail person, but during Thanksgiving I was in Puerto Rico with my family and I have to say, I love the pina coladas there.
4. What is your favourite piece of technology?
I am always fascinated with any emerging technologies. Obviously Blockchain is ingrained in me as I have invested so much into it. I love Apple products, iPhone, Mac.
5. What’s your favourite way to celebrate a success?
Celebrating success is fun, right? I always give the credit to the team and show appreciation and gratitude to everyone who contributed to the success. I like having big celebrations and rewarding people appropriately, but most importantly, you should remain humble and grounded, no matter how big the success is.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
1. Data is the greatest resource to forming trusted partnerships
2. Give power to your suppliers (and trust them)
3. Have a clear direction and vision that motivates, energises and brings collaboration among the team to deliver excellence
4. Be strategic and think long term – how can you grow together?
5. Surround yourself with people who are as passionate as your mission
6. We are at the tip of the revolution of how organisational information will be managed
7. Remain humble and grounded, no matter how big the success is
About Trust Your Supplier
Trust Your Supplier (TYS) provides a single application with aggregated supplier data including integrated third-party risk intelligence, supplier-owned data, and reporting & analytics. With automation and intelligent workflows, TYS accelerates supplier onboarding, lowers procurement operating costs, informs global regulatory compliance, and provides real-time visibility of supply chain risk across an encrypted blockchain environment. TYS supports large enterprises that are managing a broad, complex base of suppliers and driving transformative business change in risk management & compliance.
About ProcureTechSTARS
Our industry is moving forward faster and faster, empowered by innovative, progressive digital procurement solutions created and led by inspiring teams. ProcureTechSTARS are the digital procurement company CEOs and Founders that are leading the change, they are entrepreneurs, engineers and architects collaborating to transform procurement and the enterprise. In an open conversation with these leaders Lance Younger will be discussing the highs and lows of building the future now, the challenges they’ve faced, their perspective on accelerators and hot topics, and what keeps getting them up in the morning (and keeps them up at night).
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