EP 60 - Novant Health's Mark Welch On Preparing His Supply Chain Team To Operate At $20 Billion Scale

Mark Welch has led Novant Health's supply chain for 21 years, helping scale the system to $12 billion in revenue. Working without a dedicated medical director in supply chain, he built a model where sourcing managers facilitate clinical conversations directly with physicians across orthopedics and heart and vascular. Mark tells Eric how his distribution center runs its own price index, why he trains his team to think like a $20 billion operation, and how an AI chatbot called Aubrey generates variation analysis in minutes. Topics discussed: - Sustaining supply chain leadership over two decades of growth - Building physician engagement without a dedicated medical director - Turning the CSC into an opportunity center - Three team members went on to become CSCOs elsewhere - Embedding sourcing managers directly within pharmacy and IT - Creating a QSOC with distribution-level price index accountability - Launching no PO, no purchase for indirect spend data capture - Using an AI chatbot to run sourcing variation scenarios Get in touch with Mark Welch:   LinkedIn  Get in touch with your host, Eric:  LinkedIn Listen to more episodes:  Listen on Smarter Sourcing Listen on Apple Listen on Spotify Watch on YouTube