Masters in Marketing Procurement Series In Partnership With RightSpend

Dana Small: Passionate about marketing procurement – blogger, podcaster, speaker

Effective Execution

“You have great agencies who can pitch and offer great creative ideas, but when it comes down to it, they simply can’t execute them…that’s when the in-house team has more insight into what the brand really wants and may be able to be more efficient and effective in that manner“

Dana Small has spent nineteen years in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, fifteen as a Strategic Sourcing Professional with experience in Finance and the last twelve of those supporting the Global Sales and Marketing (Commercial) Function. 

Using her undergraduate degree in biology from Eastern Illinois University, Small started her career in a quality control lab at Eli Lilly and Company, the US-based pharmaceuticals company. 

However, Small soon found that the control lab wasn’t enough for her and although she enjoyed the scientific element of the work, which she explains “is still very interesting to me”, she knew she could translate her skills into something more fulfilling.

After completing her MBA, where Small was the youngest graduate on the executive program, she moved into FP&A (Financial Planning and Analysis) as an Associate Finance Analyst at Eli Lilly. During this time, she managed expenses including planning, forecasting, reporting, and analysis of internal business customers. It was here that she realised the potential in procurement. “I realised it could influence business partners and be involved at all stages of a decision”, she says. 

In fact, she is incredibly grateful for her time in the labs, saying “a lot of the skills translate really well into the procurement space”. They gave her analytics and attention to detail, and embedded a scientific rigour into the way she approaches problems.

After five years at Eli Lilly, Small moved to the biotech company Amgen, where she embarked on her strategic sourcing career in 2007. As Category Manager for Global Strategic Sourcing for NACO (North American Commercial Operations) at Amgen, Small developed and managed the overall sourcing and supplier management processes for the Fleet category, providing opportunity analysis. Particular highlights include delivering $1 million in hard savings in the first nine months and $8.5 million in her second year, exceeding the target goal for a Category Manager by over 200%. 

Since then, Small has also worked at Gilead Sciences in a similar sourcing role, now working at BioMarin Pharmaceuticals as Associate Director, Global Strategic Sourcing, where her primary focus is supporting Global Commercial, Professional Services and HR Organizations.

Having worked in various sized organisations from large to small in the US, Small believes that she has found a sweet spot with BioMarin. 

“I have found I really like working with a mid-sized company. You get to know people and it’s not that corporate. Sometimes you get lost in bigger companies and people don’t know who you are. You can be there for ten years and never get promoted and be stagnant. The fact this company is smaller is appealing and you can move up faster and be agile”, Small explains. 

Giving procurement a platform  

Aside from her career developments, Small describes herself as outspoken when it comes to procurement and sourcing. 

In 2018, she started her blog Ms. Category Management to give guidance for strategic sourcing, procurement professionals and business executives with content aiming to shed light and provide light-heartedness to the subject. 

It started with a couple of blogs requested by a client, and grew into a website of her work. “My mind went into overdrive. I thought if I could do one blog then I could do four.  I didn’t realise how much I enjoyed writing until I started doing it. It is very cathartic when you have a bad day. As long as you do it in a tongue in cheek way to share best practice, it is great”, she says.

Small continues, “I try to make it entertaining because most business stuff can be quite dry. There isn’t a lot of fun stuff out there and I hope that category management is a niche for people to learn”.

Aside from this, Small is also the co-host of the MarPro podcast, a show dedicated to asking the difficult questions in procurement. The hope is to bridge the gap between marketing and procurement. She runs the show alongside Rusty Pepper, a recognized sales and marketing professional, and their guests include procurement leads, esteemed authors and marketing experts. 

On this, Small sees that her desire to examine these problems comes from the notion that “procurement has always had a bad reputation, which I think goes back to the days where all they did was beat people over the head with prices”. 

She believes the role of marketing procurement has evolved to be more strategic, and is focused much more on quality and service levels. This is something she wants to educate marketing on.

Small says, “We [procurement] view ourselves as a support function or a third party, almost like consultants. We’re here to help you out and give brands the information that they need: not tell them how to run their business. My role in procurement is to help teams make the best choice”. 

Therefore, her blog and podcast are underpinned with a passion to change perceptions and ultimately make organisations more cohesive in wanting to work with procurement, as opposed to actively avoiding them where they can.

Small has also become a regular speaker at industry conferences including Procurement Foundry, ProcureCon Marketing and the ANA. She has also been a panellist at Procurement Leaders discussing ‘Building Your Brand (Women) and is currently a member of the board of advisors for Global Women Procurement Professionals (GWPP). 

Managing supplier relationships is like dating

A comparison that stood out when scrolling through Small’s blog is her link between dating and supplier relationships 

She explains, “I had always joked that finding suppliers is like dating. You meet someone, you look them up and find out what their interests and potential capabilities are. This will start as a short-term relationship until you continue to get to know each other”. 

Drawing parallels with an RFP, this is the stage where a couple, like an agency partner and brand, will establish the remit of the relationship and whether it will ultimately work.

“If you don’t like them, you can get rid of them at that point. It is very much akin to dating in that sense because any time you have a supplier relationship, you really need to get along with them. At RFP point it’s like you’re dating, and deciding whether to get engaged to be married. An agency will have to prove they are worth getting married to”, she explains. 

Following this metaphor, Small believes you need to work at the marriage and it needs to be built on a principle of trust and respect. This means transparency is an important element that Small believes needs to be built into partnerships.

During her time at Gilead, Small actually introduced a benchmarking tool to try and shed light on agency fees, and nurture stronger relations. 

On this, she says, “to be honest, I don’t think things have gotten more transparent because it’s in the agency’s benefit for it not to. I mean when I was implementing it at Gilead, it was like pulling teeth”. 

In many ways, there needs to be a cultural shift where agencies move away from trying to bury costs. The climate we live in demands that clients see what they are paying for. It is also crucial for procurement to know whether they are getting a good deal from their agency partner and actually build long-term relationships 

“Like in a relationship, if you have a partner who isn’t really sharing everything, then how much can you really trust them? Eventually you’re going to churn over. However, if you have a partner who is transparent, then it is going to be a long term relationship”, Small emphasises.

In-house agency growth 

Small notes how in-house agency involvement has really “ramped up” in recent times. She says, “Why would you want to pay an agency top dollar for something that you could bring in-house with FTE? They can do it cheaper and you have more control over it with reworks”. 

“It is a lot easier to walk over to their desk and ask for something than spend time with an agency working on a brief”, she continues. This is particularly useful when it comes to more day-to-day work that isn’t as strategic.

Nonetheless, she does note that this is not the case for all companies and some will completely outsource: “it depends on the industry and who they are working with and how they are set up”. 

As such, she urges brands to think strategically about their work with agencies, and believes an issue in the past decade has been agencies not delivering in their execution. She expands on this: “you have great agencies who can pitch and offer great creative ideas, but when it comes down to it, they simply can’t execute them…that’s when the in-house team has more insight into what the brand really wants and may be able to be more efficient and effective in that manner”. 

In this way, she sees that there is a time and place for outsourcing and in-housing and it is all very much an “it depends” scenario. 

“Sometimes you do get external agencies who are fully vested and want to see the business work. Sometimes you don’t. The good thing about in-house agencies is that they are going for the same goal and want the product and brand to be successful. This helps drive quality and timing”, she says. 

Category management looking forward

A key point of contention for Small is the ongoing confusion surrounding category management. 

Whilst the bigger corporations have specific and robust training around category management, which Small personally enjoyed at Amgen, she admits a lot of people in sourcing, procurement and category management have no formal training or support. Not only does this cause a chasm between procurement professionals, but it also means that there are inconsistencies across organisations. 

“So for me, just getting that category management for people all on the same page is truly the next step. It is all over the place at the moment and there is no consistency, especially in the USA”, Small says. 

In Europe, there is The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS), which is a professional body that provides a wide range of services for the benefit of members and the wider business community, including qualifications, education and training and thought leadership in procurement and supply and which has the Marketing Procurement Special Knowledge Group (SKG) chaired by marketing procurement consultant Tina Fegent.

Whilst CIPS has a presence in the US, and there are companies such as ISM (Institute for Supply Management) that aim to educate and inform, Small believes that the training isn’t as robust or formal as is needed, and envisages a degree equivalent program to provide the level of rigour needed to educate. 

For her, this makes category management a crucial area that needs some educational foundations. This underpins the work she does with her podcast and blog and also with how she continues to work at BioMarin. 

Dana Small is passionate about driving change in procurement. As a powerful voice and woman in this space, she also sees it as her responsibility to support other women to also drive conversations.

Dana Small is Associate Director, Global Strategic Sourcing at BioMarin Pharmaceuticals.

The Masters in Procurement insight series is published in partnership with RightSpend.

Thank you for your support in helping to inform our industry.

Dana Small: Passionate about marketing procurement – blogger, podcaster, speaker

Effective Execution

“You have great agencies who can pitch and offer great creative ideas, but when it comes down to it, they simply can’t execute them…that’s when the in-house team has more insight into what the brand really wants and may be able to be more efficient and effective in that manner“

Dana Small has spent nineteen years in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, fifteen as a Strategic Sourcing Professional with experience in Finance and the last twelve of those supporting the Global Sales and Marketing (Commercial) Function. 

Using her undergraduate degree in biology from Eastern Illinois University, Small started her career in a quality control lab at Eli Lilly and Company, the US-based pharmaceuticals company. 

However, Small soon found that the control lab wasn’t enough for her and although she enjoyed the scientific element of the work, which she explains “is still very interesting to me”, she knew she could translate her skills into something more fulfilling.

After completing her MBA, where Small was the youngest graduate on the executive program, she moved into FP&A (Financial Planning and Analysis) as an Associate Finance Analyst at Eli Lilly. During this time, she managed expenses including planning, forecasting, reporting, and analysis of internal business customers. It was here that she realised the potential in procurement. “I realised it could influence business partners and be involved at all stages of a decision”, she says. 

In fact, she is incredibly grateful for her time in the labs, saying “a lot of the skills translate really well into the procurement space”. They gave her analytics and attention to detail, and embedded a scientific rigour into the way she approaches problems.

After five years at Eli Lilly, Small moved to the biotech company Amgen, where she embarked on her strategic sourcing career in 2007. As Category Manager for Global Strategic Sourcing for NACO (North American Commercial Operations) at Amgen, Small developed and managed the overall sourcing and supplier management processes for the Fleet category, providing opportunity analysis. Particular highlights include delivering $1 million in hard savings in the first nine months and $8.5 million in her second year, exceeding the target goal for a Category Manager by over 200%. 

Since then, Small has also worked at Gilead Sciences in a similar sourcing role, now working at BioMarin Pharmaceuticals as Associate Director, Global Strategic Sourcing, where her primary focus is supporting Global Commercial, Professional Services and HR Organizations.

Having worked in various sized organisations from large to small in the US, Small believes that she has found a sweet spot with BioMarin. 

“I have found I really like working with a mid-sized company. You get to know people and it’s not that corporate. Sometimes you get lost in bigger companies and people don’t know who you are. You can be there for ten years and never get promoted and be stagnant. The fact this company is smaller is appealing and you can move up faster and be agile”, Small explains. 

Giving procurement a platform  

Aside from her career developments, Small describes herself as outspoken when it comes to procurement and sourcing. 

In 2018, she started her blog Ms. Category Management to give guidance for strategic sourcing, procurement professionals and business executives with content aiming to shed light and provide light-heartedness to the subject. 

It started with a couple of blogs requested by a client, and grew into a website of her work. “My mind went into overdrive. I thought if I could do one blog then I could do four.  I didn’t realise how much I enjoyed writing until I started doing it. It is very cathartic when you have a bad day. As long as you do it in a tongue in cheek way to share best practice, it is great”, she says.

Small continues, “I try to make it entertaining because most business stuff can be quite dry. There isn’t a lot of fun stuff out there and I hope that category management is a niche for people to learn”.

Aside from this, Small is also the co-host of the MarPro podcast, a show dedicated to asking the difficult questions in procurement. The hope is to bridge the gap between marketing and procurement. She runs the show alongside Rusty Pepper, a recognized sales and marketing professional, and their guests include procurement leads, esteemed authors and marketing experts. 

On this, Small sees that her desire to examine these problems comes from the notion that “procurement has always had a bad reputation, which I think goes back to the days where all they did was beat people over the head with prices”. 

She believes the role of marketing procurement has evolved to be more strategic, and is focused much more on quality and service levels. This is something she wants to educate marketing on.

Small says, “We [procurement] view ourselves as a support function or a third party, almost like consultants. We’re here to help you out and give brands the information that they need: not tell them how to run their business. My role in procurement is to help teams make the best choice”. 

Therefore, her blog and podcast are underpinned with a passion to change perceptions and ultimately make organisations more cohesive in wanting to work with procurement, as opposed to actively avoiding them where they can.

Small has also become a regular speaker at industry conferences including Procurement Foundry, ProcureCon Marketing and the ANA. She has also been a panellist at Procurement Leaders discussing ‘Building Your Brand (Women) and is currently a member of the board of advisors for Global Women Procurement Professionals (GWPP). 

Managing supplier relationships is like dating

A comparison that stood out when scrolling through Small’s blog is her link between dating and supplier relationships 

She explains, “I had always joked that finding suppliers is like dating. You meet someone, you look them up and find out what their interests and potential capabilities are. This will start as a short-term relationship until you continue to get to know each other”. 

Drawing parallels with an RFP, this is the stage where a couple, like an agency partner and brand, will establish the remit of the relationship and whether it will ultimately work.

“If you don’t like them, you can get rid of them at that point. It is very much akin to dating in that sense because any time you have a supplier relationship, you really need to get along with them. At RFP point it’s like you’re dating, and deciding whether to get engaged to be married. An agency will have to prove they are worth getting married to”, she explains. 

Following this metaphor, Small believes you need to work at the marriage and it needs to be built on a principle of trust and respect. This means transparency is an important element that Small believes needs to be built into partnerships.

During her time at Gilead, Small actually introduced a benchmarking tool to try and shed light on agency fees, and nurture stronger relations. 

On this, she says, “to be honest, I don’t think things have gotten more transparent because it’s in the agency’s benefit for it not to. I mean when I was implementing it at Gilead, it was like pulling teeth”. 

In many ways, there needs to be a cultural shift where agencies move away from trying to bury costs. The climate we live in demands that clients see what they are paying for. It is also crucial for procurement to know whether they are getting a good deal from their agency partner and actually build long-term relationships 

“Like in a relationship, if you have a partner who isn’t really sharing everything, then how much can you really trust them? Eventually you’re going to churn over. However, if you have a partner who is transparent, then it is going to be a long term relationship”, Small emphasises.

In-house agency growth 

Small notes how in-house agency involvement has really “ramped up” in recent times. She says, “Why would you want to pay an agency top dollar for something that you could bring in-house with FTE? They can do it cheaper and you have more control over it with reworks”. 

“It is a lot easier to walk over to their desk and ask for something than spend time with an agency working on a brief”, she continues. This is particularly useful when it comes to more day-to-day work that isn’t as strategic.

Nonetheless, she does note that this is not the case for all companies and some will completely outsource: “it depends on the industry and who they are working with and how they are set up”. 

As such, she urges brands to think strategically about their work with agencies, and believes an issue in the past decade has been agencies not delivering in their execution. She expands on this: “you have great agencies who can pitch and offer great creative ideas, but when it comes down to it, they simply can’t execute them…that’s when the in-house team has more insight into what the brand really wants and may be able to be more efficient and effective in that manner”. 

In this way, she sees that there is a time and place for outsourcing and in-housing and it is all very much an “it depends” scenario. 

“Sometimes you do get external agencies who are fully vested and want to see the business work. Sometimes you don’t. The good thing about in-house agencies is that they are going for the same goal and want the product and brand to be successful. This helps drive quality and timing”, she says. 

Category management looking forward

A key point of contention for Small is the ongoing confusion surrounding category management. 

Whilst the bigger corporations have specific and robust training around category management, which Small personally enjoyed at Amgen, she admits a lot of people in sourcing, procurement and category management have no formal training or support. Not only does this cause a chasm between procurement professionals, but it also means that there are inconsistencies across organisations. 

“So for me, just getting that category management for people all on the same page is truly the next step. It is all over the place at the moment and there is no consistency, especially in the USA”, Small says. 

In Europe, there is The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS), which is a professional body that provides a wide range of services for the benefit of members and the wider business community, including qualifications, education and training and thought leadership in procurement and supply and which has the Marketing Procurement Special Knowledge Group (SKG) chaired by marketing procurement consultant Tina Fegent.

Whilst CIPS has a presence in the US, and there are companies such as ISM (Institute for Supply Management) that aim to educate and inform, Small believes that the training isn’t as robust or formal as is needed, and envisages a degree equivalent program to provide the level of rigour needed to educate. 

For her, this makes category management a crucial area that needs some educational foundations. This underpins the work she does with her podcast and blog and also with how she continues to work at BioMarin. 

Dana Small is passionate about driving change in procurement. As a powerful voice and woman in this space, she also sees it as her responsibility to support other women to also drive conversations.

Dana Small is Associate Director, Global Strategic Sourcing at BioMarin Pharmaceuticals.

The Masters in Procurement insight series is published in partnership with RightSpend.

Thank you for your support in helping to inform our industry.