April 22, 2024

 I attended this morning the REV on the Road event by Jaggaer- and E-Procurement software company- with whom we have just contracted for implementation of this system at my work place. The event was a meeting of various existing clients of Jaggaer that were located either in the UAE or the wider MENA region.  I was also now a client but we had only begun the implementation so I was not really yet a user of the system. As such, I had not much to contribute but who can refuse a chance to get coffee and goodies, and perhaps even a lunch at the St. Regis on Palm Jumeirah? As it happens, I found this meet to be not very useful and I skipped lunch altogether and made a hasty exist around noon. I did not know what to expect, but I suspected there would be some panel discussions and some sessions. As is usually the case in these types of events. The panel discussion had an Operations Consulting Partner from KPMG as the moderator. There was a chap from Masdar and one from Dubai Airports who were the actual participants. There was an exchange of absolutely banal rubbish that gave me nothing. I tried to make notes but I was struggling to articulate what I was hearing into a sentence. There was some discussion on Sustainability and what Dubai Airports was doing in the area. And all I got was they were adding some criteria in tenders  and RFQs that would be evaluated as part of the overall award criteria. I was more interested in what the criteria was, and how could it be validated in a bid. For example, if I ask the bidder to mention if they have sustainability program, if they have targets and what are some key intiatives- well that was all well and good. But how do I vet their responses- they could be making anything up. A similar question was asked of ICV ( In Country Value)- which is a key criterion in procurement particularly in the government sector. Here there are apparently established bodies that certify a vendors ICV- so that the vendor in question can submit a certified document to justify their ICV- maybe there is even a score that is provided. In any case, such matters were not my immediate concern because our goals for both sustainability and ICV were not yet crystalline and the pressure of government companies had somehow not permeated to us- so we were less concerned with these matters on the supply side. On the other hand, when we bid for sales, many of our esteemed clients had us fill out their sustainability criteria and here we mostly came up short, and we would continue to do so unless we took some concrete steps. In this context, I know we have been discussing our ESG program and are very close to awarding a contract to a third party to help us formulate and drive our ESG program. This has taken a long time to award, and we are now in the midst of one final negotiation round. In the capacity of heading the Supply Chain department, the ball happens to be in my court to conclude this arrangement- and I increasingly understand the urgency here. It is only a matter of time where government mandates will force our hand to include sustainability criteria on our supply side as well. And the knowledge we gain from this third party on the demand side will also help on the supply side.  Aside of the rather mediocre panel discussion, there was a presentation on AI and other new initiatives in the Jaggaer software- made by this pre-sales guy called Francesco whom I had met a few times earlier. It was an incredibly dry set of slides and he spoke in a monotone- he had lost me within seconds. The main middle east guy was this towering hulk of an Egyptian bloke by the name of Hani- who looked like someone not to be messed with. He made a presentation whereby he mentioned a number awards to be handed out on stage to various clients. Another vacuous photo-op session to go on social media more than anything. Finally, following a coffee break, there were a few break-out booths where some of the Jaggaer folks were manning a portable screen and running through slides. I had a listen- which was hard because there was no amplification and the pool of people too large around any one booth. On other booths, there would be a one-on-one in progress between the Jaguar chap and a particular client- so that did not make it worthwhile to barge into what was obviously a very specific conversation. All in all, I was glad to see some of the Jaggaer team that was involved in our implementation- and it was good to get some feedback on how things were going- these were coffee conversations on the side. Aside of this, the content in this session was not worth the time of any of the clients- but certainly not of me and my wider team. After I got out of the Regis, I spent the next hour and half driving across dubai in search of an Emirates NBD branch that could provide me a 6 month stamped bank statement. This is not the auto-generated statement which I could print online. The Schengen Visa authorities in Netherlands had specifically requested a formal statement attested by the bank. I was to apply for such a visa in 2 days, and so I had to comply.  The things an Indian Passport holder has to go through in order to live an international corporate life. Personally, I could never be bothered getting visas- and certainly not for Europe. I had travelled enough, I had no desire to keep doing so. But there was still desire extant in the rest of my family and so it would be required that I join them. So I had to keep trying get a visa via the company for business travel and then hope they give me a longer duration multiple entry visa which I could then also use for personal travel should I plan to. I read, however, today that Schengen Visa was getting easier for Indian nationals- if they saw somewhat frequent travel they would automatically issue a longer duration visa. I for one welcome this, and I never understood why the Schengen countries were late to this party. USA, Canada and the UK - all offered long term visas for years to Indian Nationals. The USA offered a 10 year multi entry visa, and the UK and Canada each offer 5 years multi entry visas. This is so much more sensible and convenient. But the Schengen states like to offer a 1 month visa, then a 3 months visa and then a 6 month visa progressively. It is hurtful and it always made me wonder, as an Indian I could never really go to Europe to hog some native’s employment- because I did not speak the language. On the contrary I am always a threat to doing exactly this in any of the other English speaking OECD countries- and yet the latter are far more lenient in offering me a visa.  In any case, the EU had no more charm for me and I could not get myself to be bothered with all this hassle just to visit there. But now there was a business need for me to travel- so that was a different story. Let me see what happens and if I get a longer duration Schengen..