Stewardship at Scale: Inside World Vision's Global Spend Strategy

Speaker A: Welcome to the SAP Concur Conversations podcast. Each episode we sit down with industry experts, visionaries and leaders as they share what it takes to build forward thinking, spend and travel programs. Our goal is to get you thinking differently about how your organization spends money. I'm, um, your host, Jean Dyen. I'm the global Vice President of Customer Advisory here at SAP Concur and my teams partner with our customers to bring out their best using data driven insights to fuel intelligent growth and innovation. And today I'm joined by two gentlemen. Ben Andrews, uh, the Global Spend Management Director, and Bob Perkinson, the Global Spend Manager at World Vision. World Vision is a global humanitarian organization operating in some of the most complex and fragile environments in the world. Supporting their mission requires a very thoughtful stewardship of donor funds across highly decentralized global organizations. So this is when spend decisions directly impact both trust and effectiveness. In this episode we're going to explore what it means to manage travel expense and all types of spend in environments where reliable electricity, stable Internet and even card based payments can't be assumed. We'll talk about how World Vision balances standardization with local realities, why they describe their approach as the old school T and E done in a sophisticated way, and how trust rather than mandates has really been the engine behind global adoption. We'll also share more about World Vision's long term journey with Concur their intentionally risk aware approach to innovation and how they're thinking about data and AI through that lens of good stewardship. It's asking not just what's possible, but what's responsible. So Ben and Bob, thank you both for being here today and to get us started. Would you mind introducing yourselves to us, our listeners, and sharing a bit about your roles at World Vision? Ben, I'm going to start with you, so welcome.

Speaker B: Thanks Gene. It's so good to be here. Honored and humbled to join you for this. I am, as you said, the Global Spend Management Director at World Vision. Which is, uh, just a fancy way of saying I lead a team that manages our global Spend platforms. We have, uh, several of them concur being one of them. So our team is responsible for optimizing our use of concur, uh, when it comes to travel and expense and you know, fully utilizing it, fully adopting it, um, in support of our mission. So I've been with World vision for about 15 years and had several different roles, but my current role, I've been in it for about seven. So thank you very much.

Speaker A: Thank you. And Bob.

Speaker C: Yeah, thanks Gene. Um, yeah, as you mentioned, My role is global Spend manager. Uh, I've worked at World vision for about 12 years and I've worked with Ben for about eight of those. Ben's my boss and um, he's been great to work with and uh, I lead a smaller team, uh, within the global Spend management team. Most of our roles focus around business intelligence, uh, related to our Global Spend platforms. But I usually get my hands in a number of additional projects and implementations as well, pretty often. So yeah. Thanks again Gene for having us on. It's a real pleasure to be here.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, thank you for being willing to share your journey that we have here. And I want to just open up for some of our listeners who may be unfamiliar with World Vision. I mean I know you, I remember implementing and some of the implementation and support that we've done for years with some of the groups within World Vision. Um, but I'm wondering if you could paint the picture of how the organization operates behind the scenes and why it's different from many of the enterprises. How that ties back to the mission of World Vision. I think that would be really interesting for our listeners to hear.

Speaker B: We talk about life in all of its fullness is really the mission summed up in a few words. Life in all of its fullness. We focus on helping the most vulnerable children in the world to overcome poverty and experience fullness of life. We help children of all backgrounds. I'm, um, going to arguably the most dangerous places on the planet. Um, all inspired by our Christian faith. So we are faith based Christian, um, as part of our um, DNA of who we are. And so that being our mission, um, we do have a vision statement as well. And I'm just going to read it because I think it's important to um, you know, it's been very thoughtfully crafted and it was made long ago, I think even by our founder Bob Pierce, about 70 years ago. World Vision has been around for a while. Our vision statement is this, um, our vision for every child, life in all of its fullness. Our prayer for every heart, the will to make it so. We have these big corporate statements that for an organization the size of ours is pretty critical. Uh, with so many staff and so many offices, uh, around the world. These are among the few things that really hold us together I think, um, as a unified team. And from that of course there's all the, all the things that we do which, which is a huge, huge ah, array of things. But those these things, mission and vision are really, I think at the core of who we are and what we do these statements, the mission statement, the vision statement. These really are at the core of world vision. And world vision being so large and spread out across the world. Um, these are among the few things that really hold us together probably more than anything, uh, to keep us as a unified team, a unified um, body of people working together.

Speaker A: And Bob, you know we're hearing Ben talk about it being kind of spread out where it works almost on a confederated model. Right. You have a lot of different areas that you're going to. So would you mind explaining in some ways to me if I'm thinking about it in a for profit model, it's almost like a conglomerate, right. You have different countries, different models and I'm interested to hear how you work that as an organization.

Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. It's, it's definitely a bit of a, not quite unique but different than most scenario. If uh, you think of your standard business. It's, it's usually a, a top down situation where you have a, ah, a board of directors or an owner or CEO making the majority of major decisions and decision making power cascading down through your organizational hierarchy. World vision is a little bit different in the sense that we are a confederated organization, which means that each office is its own legal and financial entity and uh, each field office has their own uh, leadership, usually a board of directors and they typically have their own national director. And there is uh, sort of dotted and direct lines of uh, reporting that uh, feed into a centralized leadership organization. So there's not no connection. But um, you know individual field offices are not necessarily uh, under any obligation to do something that's uh, asked for or you know, requested by centralized leadership. So it does tend to lead to a much less of a mandate culture within the organization. It really tends to have a much more of a partnership feel to it. And uh, has been mentioned, you know, luckily, I do think there is a very luckily and intentionally there's a very strong organizational culture uh, of, of our mission. Being a faith based organization does, does tend to provide a lot of shared values for us to rally around. And, and then it's, it's not, it's usually not a question of uh, you know, what's important to us. It's just how are we going to work together to achieve these goals.

Speaker A: Well I think that kind of explains for me a little bit about that old school T and E in a sophisticated way that idea where you know, we're talking about groups that maybe aren't fully digitized. They don't necessarily always have um, connectivity and they may not always be able to use some sort of card based setup. When I think about digitized. And I also think, you know, there might be some heavy currency volatility happening in and around this. So for me, when you talk about that, it makes sense. But I'm interested in hearing what does that motto of old school T and E in a sophisticated way actually look like in practice? And why is it, besides some of the things that I've mentioned, why is it the right approach for your mission?

Speaker C: Uh, as uh, we've m mentioned, World Vision, uh, has really prioritized work in some of the most fragile contexts in the world. And fragile context usually comes with something that is happening that makes the context fragile. Everything from environmental disasters to civil conflict to drought or famine or internal displacement, external displacement, oppression of every kind that we as humanity have managed to come up with. So typically, you know, those sorts of things lead to all sorts of complexities, uh, when it comes to operating your standard business travel and expense activities. A few years ago I was involved in setting up some of the infrastructure for a disaster management response to a place called Beira, in which there was some major flooding. Um, and in fact a whole city basically went underwater in a manner of hours. And uh, as World Vision responded to that, one of the difficulties was that when everything is underwater, really not a lot of electricity, you know, in that location. And so World Vision has a, has a dedicated disaster management team and a subgroup of a, ah, global rapid response team of individuals who respond to major disasters. You know, within 24 hours, uh, we're on the scene and starting to do things. And so that whole process of, you know, trying to set up procurement lines and supply lines of getting supplies to that area effectively had to be done with no electronics that couldn't be operated by a battery. Um, and so, and those are the, you know, that's the sort of complications, um, that come with some of the places in which we work. Um, and so it, it sort of mandates that a lot of stuff, um, you know, if people aren't operating, uh, anything that doesn't function with a battery, then you're not processing a credit card transaction, you're handing somebody paper cash, and then you're recording that information as best you can, you know, by a person. Um, and it tends to uh, to necessitate some really basic old school travel and expense due solely to the nature of where the, where something is being purchased.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker C: Ben, would you add to that?

Speaker B: Yeah, no, Bob, that was a great. I really liked how you painted that picture and just um, taking a step back in our history Gene of uh, Concur. One of the things in our history that um, sort of caused us to deviate from concur actually um, so many years ago we, we've been using Concur for uh, I think over, over 20 years. And we started with just our US group, uh, our US based staff. And so when, when Bob and I came on the scene around that time we were starting to look beyond the US for a T and E solution. We actually ended up going with an IBM platform. And one of the main reasons why we went with IBM was because they offered offline functionality. Right. To work in these places as Bob was describing the, these fragile contexts where we may or may not have any, you know, Internet electricity. So to have something offline was really compelling and we went in that direction. But funny story, I think it's funny now looking back. It wasn't as funny. We were about a year into our deployment with IBM and IBM decides to basically shut down that part of their business. The message to us in about after a year implementing to maybe 20 or so of our offices out of 80 or so. Yep, they're now going to be retiring their product that we had just you know um, bought into. So we had to very quickly figure out our next steps. Long story short, we, we did a competitive process. Concur was in there along with other companies and uh, one of the members of the IBM team ended up becoming one of the senior members of the Concur team when we bought into IBM. One of the members, um, his name, his name is Dan, Dan Outerkirk. And he was great. I mean he was just um, solid so on the team. So a year later we're like, we're needing to find something different. And I remember Concur was coming into our office to do one of their presentations. You know we were conducting uh, an RFP and you know coming down the hall, I'll never forget it, I was standing next to the conference room door and up walks the, the Concur team. And one of them, I, I, I, I started thinking, you know I kind of, I, I recognize this guy. So familiar, so familiar. And, and he, he looked at me. It ended up being Dan Outer Kirk. But he had been in the same conference room a year before selling us IBM. So we know we sort of looked at each other and we didn't say a word. Kind of giving us this like he, he had a little bit of the deer in the headlights and both of us Were still kind of wondering, are we going back in time? And, uh, this is, this is a little bit awkward. So, long story short, we ended up going with Concur. And, um, Dan was great. He didn't do anything wrong. This is not a criticism of him. In fact, you know, apparently whatever Dan is selling, we're buying. So, you know, if Concur wants to ever sell us more functionality, all they need to do is bring Dan into the room. And, uh, no, but it was, uh, it was great. So we've been on concur ever since and went global with Concur and you know, we continue to use. We actually Concur actually does have an offline functionality, um, that we do use in some of our places, which is okay, which is great.

Speaker A: I have a very similar story, so don't worry about telling that. I have a very similar story about, uh, somebody else who I trusted very much with a different product when I was a customer who came in the office and said, hey, guess what? So, uh, yep, we're everywhere. We. It happens all the time. So. But one of the things that I did want to ask about this when. So you moved from that paper phase, you went to initially to Concur, then you went to IBM, then you came back to Concur. I want to know, when did you start to see some real kind of value, something that you could measure from this evolution? Were there things this time around with Concur that you were able to realize, um, that really benefited your organization?

Speaker B: Great question. Yeah, I'll, uh, I'll share something and I'll give Bob a moment to think the first thing actually that comes to mind. Gene. It was probably a year or two into using Concur globally that we, you know, we, we started to really get a better handle on reporting and analysis. And, you know, some of our donors increasingly more and more, you know, our donors require to know and understand, you know, where are we spending their money, how are we spending it? Um, government donors, individual corporate donors. So Concur has allowed us, I think it allows. It really became clear at least a few years and maybe before that Concur was able to help us with those kinds of reporting requirements and as a result, um, become more competitive when it comes to raising revenue. You know, winning grants is something that our organization historically has done and more and more. So it's been a rough year in the world of grants for obvious reasons, but that's one of the ways that we raise revenue. And so Concur in that sense actually helps us to Raise revenue, um, giving confidence and assurance to our potential donors that yes, we're able to fulfill what we call the donor promise, which is you know we, we promise, we're making a pledge to actually take your hard earned money and that you're giving to us and making it work in the places where we're telling you that it will go into these communities, into these places, into these spaces. So concurrent plays a huge role in allowing us to be transparent financial controls, you know, um, efficiency, effectiveness with all those things. Again giving assurance to the donor um, has played a big role in that.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: What do you think Bob? Anything else that you can think of?

Speaker C: Yeah, so at the time uh, that the organization was moving away from our IBM platform back to Concur, I was working sort of a customer service type role um, where individuals would you know, I locked myself out of my account. Can you help me reset my password type things? And. But some other you know, um, configuration or system based questions, we get those as well. And one of the things that was noticeable to me right away is that concur, uh allowed for a lot of more standardization of the business process of travel and expense. Uh, at the time the IBM tool uh, was much more of a blank slate that really allowed people to write in information. But Concur at the time had a lot more um, system support for standardized processes. And so as we started to migrate over to that travel and expense from one part of the organization started to look a lot more like travel and expense from another part of the organization of the same organization even. Um, rather than two organizations doing travel and expense not knowing that the other one exists at all, um, which is actually, you know, particularly within World Vision is exceptionally healthy. Um, because there is a lot of internal movement within the organization. Uh, individuals being seconded from one national office to another national office, uh, leadership being brought in to support a struggling area that has more need. That um, sort of thing happens all the time. I know that I've worked with directly with some individuals that have been seconded to our team, uh, from other groups. Uh, so that sort of internal movement within World Vision is very, very common. And having some of your baseline business processes be similar enough that uh, you're not relearning how to be an employee at an organization has been especially helpful for us.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's an interesting point you bring up around standardization versus the localization and you don't use a one size fits approach. How you manage, you can't. Right. The different regions and, and the different situations call for different Processes similar but different and the platform's able to handle that. So I'm just curious Bob, how do you decide what needs to be standardized globally versus what needs to be flexible for localization?

Speaker C: Yeah, that's a great question. Uh, very carefully, uh, as it turns out, um, as you might imagine, the rules and regulations around travel and expense in the United States is very different from the rules and regulations around travel and expense in uh, Jordan or Zimbabwe or um, Thailand. And so a lot of that conversation, there's almost nothing where we want to standardize a process and it is exactly the same for every entity. And so most of the time what we're doing is a cost benefit analysis of um, the process standardization versus how many exceptions are going to be, are we going to need to make in order to do it? Um, and so there's just uh, I think one of the main keys is uh, open and frequent communication with the individuals that are aware of, of the rules and regulations. Within offices it's important to have a strong governance process where any proposed changes gets to go in front of regional leaders, national office leaders before we try to push it, put it into effect. Small, uh, set pilots before going broader with a particular process or standardization effort are all really helpful tools for us um, to really kind of do an effective cost benefit analysis. You know, what's going to be the benefit of standardizing this process and how much uh, effort are we going to have to make in the exception front in order for every part of the organization to be able to function within it? So yeah, I think um, ongoing communication with uh, with those leaders in those areas and a strong governance process have been some things that have been effective ways to help do those cost benefit analyses efficiently. Ben, would you add to that?

Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's great Bob. Maybe just a few things, um, just to uh, give maybe an example. I think concur is great. One of the great things about it is that it allows us to you know, come up with um, standards that we can localize. It's really kind of a blend and I think Bob was painting that a good picture of standardizing to a degree and then allowing for localization to take over. An example of that is um, what we call low materiality. So it's ah, a, it's an initiative that we just recently rolled out where we're um, you know, helping our staff to figure out um, which spend platform to use. Do they use concur for procurement and I'm talking even about non travel expenditure. So just procuring the goods and services that we need. Um, do they use concur for that or do they use our other spend platform for that? So we were able to come up with, um, you know, concur allows obviously for a very standard workflow process. You know, when you incur your expenses, you fill out your expense report, there's a work approval workflow. Um, but we also came up with different thresholds, um, for offices. So, so the standard was there in terms of the process. But, you know, we came up with different monetary or financial thresholds because not every country, not every region is the same. Right. Um, $500 in the US looks quite different than $500 in Somalia. So, you know, lower thresholds in certain areas based on, you know, a lot of that sort of analysis. And I'm glad, Bob, um, hit on the governance that's really, I think, been key to our ability to roll out really anything. Um, either, you know, global standard, um, along with localization or, you know, to what degree, on either end of that is through our governance process where we have stakeholders at the field level, so where our programs actually happen at the regional level, where we have strong leadership and at the global level and any of these, um, new features, changes to process, changes to technology, we bring it to all levels so that people have a chance to give us feedback. And sometimes that, uh, gives us new ideas of how to better localize it or to maybe unwind localization and maybe make it more standard. The other thing I'll mention as well, in terms of standardization, Gene, um, you can have more than one standard example for us with that is workflows. In some offices, the approval workflow works one way. Um, where the direct line manager might be the first approver, followed by, um, our finance group and other offices, it's the other way around. So it's nice that concur actually gives us that flexibility to change things up based on the local needs and requirements of our various offices. Yeah.

Speaker A: So a lot of what's happening here is sounds like communication and trust. That whole idea is that. I keep hearing it. You're not saying it out loud, but it's inferred. And everything you're talking about, especially what you were just talking about, Ben, and I know, Bob, some of the things you were talking about as well, um, it's the base of your mission, it's the foundation of how you run the organization. So why is trust not actual mandates, the real engine behind how you run world vision?

Speaker C: Yeah. So I think some of it stems from the nature of our structure. Right uh, as I mentioned as a confederation there really isn't a lot of top down mandate uh, within the organization. And uh, I really think that that has its pros and cons. Sometimes it can be difficult to enact change within the organization within an organization. On the other hand, as anybody who's worked in a top down structure of some kind knows uh, what comes from the top isn't always a great thing. And sometimes the top doesn't always listen to uh, the bottom. And um, in a buy in scenario you tend to you, you by necessity get a lot more buy in than you might in uh, in a top down uh, situation. So you know there is sort of the, the structure element of the organization mandates that you know, buy in is part of that process. Um, but at the same time, you know, I think, you know, much of the conversation that we've already had sometimes is standardization versus localization. And in a scenario where buy in is key, um, you kind of have to strike some sort of balance of that Standardization can't run over localization or they just won't adopt your platform. And you know we've talked a little bit about um, you know, technology versus sort of old school, teeny same situation. You know, the technology can't outpace the infrastructure of where we work. Or again they just won't adopt it. Um, it just won't happen. And so the buy in really has to become you know, the engine that makes um, this sort of more sophisticated travel and expense uh, requirement. Uh, and uh, and again I think in a lot of ways it helps the organization by necessity to strike a good balance of what sorts of things are prioritized. Um, and um, talking about governance, I think you know, some of the things that we've been able to do to encourage that sort of buy in culture is um, we've brought in leaders from regional and national offices and put them on the governance group and they have a vote and a say in what sort of processes and technologies get adopted and things. And so um, you know one of the easiest ways to ensure somebody has buy uh in is to give a mistake in the game, you know. And uh, so yeah, I think we, you know, those are some of the reasons why it's an important part of the process for us. Um, but at the same time some of the benefits, I think that comes from that and the way we make that happen. Ben, would you add to that?

Speaker B: Not much, Bob. Uh, great, great thoughts. And I maybe just to put it in these terms Gene, I think of um, our multicultural context, world Vision having staff in nearly as many countries, in as many countries as we work, which is, you know, over 100. So we have, you know, layers, uh, layers and layers of culture and language and um, ethnicities. Again, we, we, we are as bad, as global as you can find when it comes to, um, organizations, nonprofit or for profit. So I think when it comes to how we roll things out, as Bob was, was saying, mandates can be difficult just from that perspective, um, because not everybody understands and is, is accustomed to the same kinds of things. When we come up with a standard oftentimes, you know, those of us in certain, I guess, developed contexts, you know, U.S. and Europe, you know, it's like, yeah, yeah, that totally makes sense. And that's just, you know, that was five years ago. Let's do this. Whereas in other contexts it can be a brand new concept, a brand new way of doing things. So we have to be very careful. And the buy in approach is, uh, seems to take longer. It does. It's harder. We have to, we have to become marketers. But in the end we have found that um, we build trust more. And building trust of course takes, takes time. Uh, losing trust, you can lose it right away. But, but building trust, which is really the currency of how we get things done at World Vision, takes time. And in the end we've just seen the fruit that. That is born through that approach.

Speaker A: Appreciate that. And there's one thing I do want to talk about here. I don't want to forget about it because I think I'm probably contractually obligated to talk about AI at this point and data. Um, but I like to think of your organization, not necessarily. There's some organizations that are risk averse. I think of World Vision as being risk aware versus risk averse. M. You are looking at AI, you're looking at where it helps you, and you're very intentional at what you do with it. So can I ask you how you're using AI in this place? Because there was a mention earlier about responsibility. You have this idea of risk responsibility and at the end of the day you're responsible to your owners, it is fully funded. And so you have to be able to explain what you're doing, why you're doing it, how you're doing it, and be very risk aware of the things you're doing. So can we talk a little bit about, um, Bob, I don't know if you want to start and then go to Ben, but that idea of where you're using AI and what the intentionality is of that usage?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think you're spot on with the question in um, framing it around responsibility. I know that I do and I know many others within the organization feel a strong weight of responsibility. Uh, non profit, we're responsible to our donors, but um, we're also responsible to our beneficiaries. Right, the people who are receiving the things that are coming. Um, and ultimately as a faith based organization we consider ourselves responsible to God. He's allowed us to steward these resources in his name. And so it's something we take very seriously. Um, and so yeah, we definitely do uh, our best, um, as people to be risk aware. And as such the organization is for a number of different reasons, not as technologically aggressive as some, uh, for profit businesses. Part of it has to do with being a non profit and the idea of as eliminating overhead as much as possible. Um, but at the same time you want to stay as efficient as possible and not accumulate all sorts of technological data and take resources that are not necessary to do something that can be accomplished much more efficiently. So we try to walk a fine line between those two. Um, and one of the things that tends to have us do is to apply technological tools in ways that have already proven to be effective. And so when we come to the situation of AI, what that generally means is that initially, um, I wouldn't say the organization is uh, trying to revolutionize our internal reporting mechanisms by just throwing AI at the problem. I would say that generally what I see our team doing and other, you know, other groups within the organization is taking AI and applying it to things that AI has already proven to be effective at doing. Um, so in our case, some places where we're looking to implement and utilize AI, uh, now and in the near future, something AI has already proven to be really good at doing is cleaning and normalizing messy data. And as an organization that uses a lot of cash in the travel and expense space, we've uh, got a lot of human entered data, right? You have a transaction with a credit card. The system's really great about capturing a whole bunch of information and pre populating that information. When you go to fill out your expense report, uh, when you buy something with cash, there is nothing that's pre entered. Everything you get came from a person and it came from a person who may or may not speak English at all. It may come from an individual who English is their fourth language. It may come from an individual who, you know, has been working for, you know, three days straight in an emergency response scenario. It may come from all sorts of staff and scenarios where World Vision is, is working and, and that data isn't always the cleanest, it isn't always the most complete and isn't always the most robust. So uh, one of the things that we've started doing is using AI to try to normalize that and get as much value out of that data as possible. Another thing that AI has already proven to be effective at doing is picking up on currencies and language and inconsistent inputs in a pretty effective way. So we are starting to look at that as well. Another thing that AI has already proven to be doing is managing, uh, and building data models. Um, that sort of thing done by a person can take quite a while. So in a scenario where we could hypothetically use AI to do that in a much quicker way, uh, just improves our own internal reporting efficiency. So yeah, it's an area where, uh, particularly with AI, the idea is let's take AI and use it to do things that it's already proven to be effective at doing and to keep our eye, uh, on other organizations and the business world as a whole and see where else AI proves to be adept and very efficient and, and bring those on as we, as we find them. Ben, would you add to that?

Speaker B: Yeah, I'll just, I'll, I'll try to try to cover all of that with a, uh, statement out of our global strategy gene. So World Vision has a, a global strategy that was born, I want to say like six, seven years ago, seven, eight years ago. And we're in now phase three of that strategy. It's called our, our promise. So Donor Promise. Our Promise. That's the name of our global strategy. And so we, we're in phase three, we call it Bold Hope. So going, uh, where we go, these fragile contexts and doing the work that we feel God has called us to do. We have some key enablers, those things that actually equip us to do our work. And one of them, I'm just going to read it because I want to make sure I get it right. This is coming straight from our global leadership, uh, global strategy, and I quote, we will harness the power of digital technology and AI to equip staff to work smarter, respond faster and boldly innovate to meet the needs of vulnerable children in a rapidly changing world. So I think that probably sums up, you know, our organization's appetite for AI, um, specifically and just sort of digital technology in general. We want to embrace it to the extent that it helps us to do our jobs better. So that Our beneficiaries can be helped, uh, more than you know, before we use those tools and our donors that their, their donor, that the promise we're making, the promises we're making to our donors can be fulfilled in, in better ways.

Speaker A: So yeah, um, yeah, yeah, that's great. And it actually leads me to my next and probably final topic around what does the future look like for World Vision when it comes to spend management? And I'm going to use the term responsible innovation because it seems to be that that's really the core here, right? You're looking at everything and then taking these steps that not only are you beholden to your donors, but you're beholden to the staff on the ground in any country. You're beholden to the beneficiaries of those of that, of the staff members and you're beholden to multitudes of uh, compliance regulations. So how are you doing this? Are there any things that you can talk about near term or medium term that you're working on right now to move your organization forward and innovate?

Speaker B: Yeah, great question Gene. So a few thoughts. We're just coming out of a very significant restructuring and reduction season, uh, because of the industry that we're in, um, and the difficult space that the whole global humanitarian industry has gone through with the changes around the world. So World Vision was subject to a lot of changes or we've had to change in response to a lot of these global movements. Um, so we have come out of that, we're still sort of coming out of that season, uh, leaner than we were and yet still expected to accomplish the same mission and hopefully do it better, uh, and more efficiently and fulfilling the donor promise in the same ways, if not better than we were before. And um, meeting the beneficiaries, meeting the needs where we're making promises. So I think the future holds more opportunities, not less with even though we're running lean and I think AI, uh and some of the things we've talked about um, and concur specifically are going to help us to get there. I think it makes um, for us to take some risks when it comes to doing things differently. We're looking at some AI within concur that we don't currently use. Um, we're looking at different functionalities to help us to get to where we need to be and want to be and aspire to be, um, that we may not be able to do just on our own or in the same way we've always done things. So I think the future uh, will be more risk taking. So as, as risk aware as we are within, you know, our mission, we sort of go to risky places as an organization. That's just what we do. You can't do what we do without taking risks. And, and that's no different in the spend management world for us. You know, we, we realize we can't stay the same because the world is different. Um, the needs of our beneficiaries and needs of our donors are changing. So we have to be very clear of those changes and trying to match and align with those. Um, Bob, any thoughts that you have

Speaker C: with the future, specifically in terms of places where we see the first steps to making some of those changes is some things that are already happening within the organization. I think we've been going through, and particularly on the policy front, making quite a few, um, you know, looking back through our travel and expense policies and making sure that they're appropriate for the current business environment and uh, technology availability, um, and that sort of thing. So we've been making some updates on that front. And of course, any changes in policy mandates, changes to process, mandates, changes to reporting, uh, you know, effectively the whole, the whole business process, you need to take a look at to uh, align with the new policy platform. So I think that that's a good example of one of the places where the rubber kind of meets the road in terms of what Ben was talking about.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Well, I want to thank you for that thoughtful conversation, uh, that we've had. And typically the way that I close is that I have three takeaways that I bring to our listeners and to you. And I want to make this interactive. There are things that I've learned and I want to find out if you think that I have actually nailed it or not. You can tell me that I have, you can tell me that I haven't. It doesn't hurt my feelings. So the first takeaway I have is good stewardship isn't just your message as a mission. It's a mission of the organization and it's a mission of how you do your business. It requires a very thoughtful, responsible approach to innovation. So for me, I talk about you being risk aware. It means that you can actually modernize when technology is grounded in the mission and that you have that financial responsibility and real world constraints working together. It doesn't stop you from innovating. It just means that you are actually taking your mission to heart and applying it to your work. Does that sound about right?

Speaker B: I think so, yeah.

Speaker C: Huh.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Okay, so my second takeaway is something that will surprise everybody who hears me talk a lot about standardization. And I will say when you talk about that one size fit all approach doesn't necessarily always apply within your organization. I think you'd be surprised to hear that that is the truth. Most every organization that we work with, it's very hard to get that one size fits all approach. Global systems can succeed even when standardization respects local realities. So I think what I heard from you, from that global system perspective is you're balancing consistency and flexibility. You've got that in a balance, as the kids would say, six, seven. And you're meeting people where they are, not where the technology assumes they need to be. And because of all the challenges that your organization has, that means that your flexibility is critical to anything you do moving forward. Does that sound about right?

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. I think uh, that uh, meeting people where they are, not where technology assumes they should be is, ah, it's quite truer than you might initially think. Um, I'm often surprised to see and hear some of the working scenarios that my colleagues are in. You know, when people reach out to me with a particular question or issue, you know, sometimes, um, it's wild to hear about where they are and what they're doing and what they're seeing and who's surrounding them. And um, I think uh, one of the things that I quite enjoy about my job is the sense of adventure that I get from some of it. And um, some of the places that I've been that I also know is a layer removed from our frontline work and the things that I have seen has been pretty spectacular. So, um, yeah, technology makes a lot of assumptions about where people should be and what they should have access to. And that is just not the case. So. So, yeah, very true.

Speaker A: Yeah. My final takeaway is this transformation is a big deal. It's a big deal for everybody. Uh, transformation can be big or small, but when you're talking about transformation, technology is enabling that transformation, but it's the trust that sustains it and makes it successful. So when I hear you talking about how you work with your internal teams, when you're talking about your technology partners, when you're talking about that long term success that you're trying to build upon, it comes back to that communication and the transparency in how you communicate and what you're communicating and your willingness to show up and support that team regardless of what's happening in their lives to ensure that, that you can continue to support them in any way possible. So I hear it in Your mission. I hear it in your voices, and I've seen it in action, uh, within the configuration. But for me, your trust, the trust that you engendered within your organization is what has allowed you to transform your organization. The technology is just kind of a nice to have.

Speaker B: Thanks, Gene. I think that's really true. Um, we, we often say around here, you know, the technology and the process are the easy parts. It's the people that is always the hardest. And I think trust. Building that trust and using that in responsible ways is how we, we at World Vision, um, see the best outcomes. And I think we've seen that with our use of concur along with other, you know, technologies. So I, I would, I would agree with you. Yeah.

Speaker A: And I think that's it. I want to thank you both, Ben and Bob, for coming and talking to me today. It's been really wonderful to talk with you, especially since your situations are a little different, but somewhat similar to a lot of what our other customers are thinking. I think people are going to take a lot out of this conversation. So thank you for being here and being so open about talking about World Vision.

Speaker B: You are very welcome. Thank you, uh, and your team for having us on, for inviting us to share some parts of our stories. It's just great to do that and to get to know you guys. And it's been a pleasure.

Speaker C: Thanks.

Speaker A: And thank you all for listening to this episode of SAP Concur Conversations podcast to hear more exclusive insights and interviews from the world of travel and expense management. Be sure to subscribe and listen wherever you find your podcasts. And please join us in again for our next SAP Concur Conversation.