By Teresa Torres · producttalk.org · @ttorres on X · LinkedIn
Teresa Torres and Petra Wille rant about how absurd corporate procurement has become for outside experts like speakers and consultants. Torres describes contracts with 80-page ethics policies, 800-question security forms, and repeated multi-factor authentication questions, while the one client that paid by credit card finished in two weeks. The conversation argues that broken vendor processes do more than annoy consultants; they keep organizations from getting the expertise they need. They tie procurement friction to culture, note that CEO buy-in can collapse months of legal review into days, and frame the vendor experience as a brand experience product people should care about.
01Key takeaways
- A company's procurement process usually mirrors its internal culture; if vendors struggle, employees probably do too.
- Vendor experience is brand experience, so product people should evaluate procurement the way they evaluate any customer-facing process.
- CEO sponsorship can compress months of procurement into days, exposing what the organization truly prioritizes.
- Simple, low-friction vendor terms attract the best speakers and consultants, while excessive friction makes top experts decline.
- Bureaucracy compounds over time through adverse events, so reducing friction early keeps an organization competitive.
02Key sections
- The procurement burden on speakers
- Torres juggles several speaking contracts, and the paperwork for some has become a part-time job. Excessive security and ethics requirements make the process far heavier than the engagement itself.
- Vendor-friendly versus bureaucratic companies
- The hosts observe that company size does not determine how easy procurement is. Some large organizations are simple to work with while some smaller ones are painful.
- Hidden costs of procurement theater
- Repetitive forms, scope creep, and enormous security reviews waste time on all sides. These costs accumulate quietly and rarely get measured.
- CEO buy-in and organizational priorities
- When a CEO prioritizes an engagement, a months-long legal review can finish in about ten days. The speed reveals how much the organization actually values what it is buying.
- Torres's new policy and bureaucracy over time
- Torres now requires her own paperwork, credit card payment, and no vendor setup. The discussion closes on how bureaucracy compounds through repeated adverse events, which is why startups tend to win by moving fast.
03From the post
“Listen to this episode on: Spotify | Apple Podcasts Teresa is cranky — and honestly? She has every right to be. In this episode, Teresa and Petra go on a deeply relatable rant about the absurdity of modern corporate procurement processes. Teresa is simultaneously juggling seven speaking engagement contracts, and six of”
Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.