6 Questions With … Autumn Bayles

Autumn Bayles is the senior vice president of global supply chain & group purchasing organizations at Aramark. She is responsible for the company’s managed services global supply chain and GPO network including Avendra International, overseeing the enterprise’s $20B in annual spend.

Bayles was previously the VP of global operational excellence at Aramark, responsible for implementing large-scale productivity, process optimization, and innovative technology initiatives across the company’s client portfolio. She started her career at Aramark in 2011 as the VP of strategic development, leading initiatives such as growth strategies, M&A projects, and other strategic assessments across the various business units.

Prior to her employment at Aramark, Bayles held various roles at Flowers Foods/Tastykake, Safeguard Scientifics/Align, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. 

She joined Supply Chain Management Review to answer our 6 Questions on procurement processes. (Answers have been edited for length and clarity)

SCMR: How does procurement for hospitality differ from traditional procurement?

BAYLES: There are many similarities between hospitality procurement and traditional procurement. In both cases, a procurement professional seeks the best value for the products and services its stakeholders need. Also in both cases, there should be a value proposition for the supplier, with a competitive process to earn it.

In hospitality procurement, the focus is on enhancing the guest experience by sourcing high-quality products and services, from textiles to food to maintenance and other services. It requires flexible strategies to handle dynamic and seasonal needs. The range of products is diverse, covering everything from food and beverages to room supplies, and different segments, from economy to luxury.

Building strong supplier relationships is crucial for consistent quality, reliability, and securing competitive prices. Compliance with strict health, safety, and quality standards and brand standards is essential.  Finally, we partner with our clients to identify diverse suppliers that play a key role in our business.

SCMR: What are the biggest challenges facing hospitality procurement and how are you solving these?

BAYLES: In hospitality procurement, challenges like dynamic pricing, supply chain volatility, and high-quality requirements are common. We manage these through robust processes and proactive supplier management.

Maintaining consistent quality involves building solid supplier relationships and enforcing strict quality control measures. We conduct regular audits to meet health, safety, and brand standards. Balancing cost with quality is achieved through strategic sourcing and competitive bidding.

Our 700 global supply chain experts work on our clients’ behalf to secure the best prices by leveraging competitive bidding, benchmarking, and robust supplier negotiations. To thoroughly support our clients, no matter where they’re geographically located, we have field support representatives and regional sourcing leaders who advise on local best practices.

To drive transparency, our proprietary AI-powered platform delivers precise, real-time analytics, empowering our team and clients with the insights they need to make informed business decisions.

Additionally, guests are increasingly seeking sustainable practices, prompting hotels to source eco-friendly products. Our Responsible Sourcing Team builds relationships with sustainable suppliers to give our clients flexibility in their choices.

SCMR: In hospitality, the supply chain is front and center in many cases. What processes should businesses have in place to ensure consistent quality of items and service metric compliance?

BAYLES: Iron-clad contracts, and a trusted team of supply chain experts by your side are crucial in ensuring consistent quality of items and services. Our suppliers undergo a rigorous vetting process to guarantee we are only partnering with businesses that can fulfill orders in the quantity and timeline our partners require. We continuously strive for quality assurance with innovative programming, like our ‘Meet The Trucks’ program, which involves our associates handling all the quality assurance involved in product delivery.

Also critical to our business is the notion of a supplier value proposition. While we negotiate assertively with our suppliers and expect high-performance levels from them, we want them to be better off by being in business with us—that aspect is important to us and is critical to making the model work.

SCMR: Some items in hospitality such as food items offer variability in pricing. Because of that, what a company sources one month could be significantly more or less expensive in another. Are there any ways to smooth out this process and create a more uniform spending plan for budgetary purposes?

BAYLES: During the past few years with inflation being at historic highs, navigating this challenge became part of our daily routine.   

We take a comprehensive approach, offering everything from trend forecasting to hands-on consulting, reporting, and recommendations on how to reduce the impact of price fluctuations. We also produce webinars with timely, action-oriented advice for our clients.  These reports and webinars cover key macro trends impacting the hospitality industry, like inflation, employment, fuel costs, and food demand.

In short, we do everything we can to ensure supplier reliability and help our clients mitigate the impact of inflation.  We are happy to see the markets moderating and settling down recently. 

SCMR: With the large amount of data now being collected throughout the supply chain, the management of this can be daunting. Are you finding clients are becoming more interested in you handling the management/analysis of this data for them?

BAYLES: Yes, absolutely. Timely information is key. Our clients want the ability to access the reports they need, on their own, in an organized way, and easily extract insights without being met with an overwhelming mass of data. We’ve developed proprietary AI-driven reports to assist in this and are eager to arm our clients with information so they can make informed decisions and further drive operational efficiencies throughout their portfolios.

SCMR: How would you like to see Avendra evolve in the next 10 years?

BAYLES: We recently rebranded as Avendra International to enhance our position as a leading global strategic procurement and supply chain services provider to a wide range of interests including hotels, hospitality and leisure resorts, healthcare, and educational institutions worldwide.   

Our new organization combines Avendra’s North American business with Aramark’s global supply chain footprint in 15 countries and the resources of Pelican Procurement, Services, Expert Cost Control, Trinity Purchasing, and First Choice Purchasing.

We will operate with the same successful Avendra procurement services model built in North America but optimized for geographic differences through dedicated in-country teams that have expertise with local supply chains and client preferences. The new organization is positioned to grow with an infrastructure and training team that is already supporting initiatives in new geographies such as Asia, Europe, and South America.

SCMR: Thank you.

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