Michael Shields sits down with Russell Lester, CFO and President at Tropic, and Justin Etkin, COO and Co-Founder, for the inaugural episode of The Spend Table. The trio dives deep into the tensions between finance and procurement during budget season, exploring why traditional budgeting processes often fail companies. Russell brings his perspective on the difference between strategy, planning, and budgeting, while Justin shares insights from working with hundreds of customers on spend intelligence.

The conversation gets spicy as they debate who's really at fault when six figure renewals pop up unbudgeted. Michael argues for more scrutiny on existing spend versus new purchases, while Russell pushes back on the expectation that budget owners should be more accountable. They explore practical solutions like contract based budgeting, pulse surveys for stakeholder sentiment, and the four key data points every procurement team should collect beyond historical spend.

Key topics covered:

[00:00] Intro

[03:05] Planning Season Priorities and Customer Insights

[05:55] Strategy vs Planning vs Budgeting Framework

[07:36] Procurement's Annual Humiliation Ritual

[10:30] Zero Based Budgeting Reality Check

[14:54] Annual Budget Purpose and Flexibility

[19:14] Contract Based vs ERP Based Budgeting

[23:55] Four Essential Budget Data Points

[26:01] Six Figure Surprise Spend Responsibility

[32:12] Budget Flexibility for Big Opportunities

[39:17] Procurement's Strategic Data Advantage

[42:45] Underutilized Software License Problem

[49:08] Data a la Carte Statistics Segment

[57:34] Story of the Week License Optimization

[1:02:04] Next Episode AI Preview

Don't miss their heated discussion on AI ROI measurement and Michael's story about cutting video recording licenses from 200 to under 100 using data driven analysis.

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