LAS VEGAS. Experience BY SUE DOERFLER. Creating the. Procuring for attractions and shows requires putting quality, service and ambience before price.

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1 Creating the LAS VEGAS Experience BY SUE DOERFLER Procuring for attractions and shows requires putting quality, service and ambience before price. 24 MAY 2018

2 F or MGM Resorts International, sourcing goes beyond the typical hotel and hospitality fare of food, sheets, pillows, toiletries, cleaning supplies and the like. At its 13 Las Vegas properties, it means procuring such items and products as fresh fish flown in daily for dolphin food, commemorative drink glasses shaped like footballs and an impressive assortment of other unexpected goods. It also means looking at procurement in a different way a Vegas way. ISMMAGAZINE.ORG 25

3 Photo courtesy of MGM Resorts Photo by Kathryn Curreri, courtesy of MGM Resorts Photo courtesy of MGM Resorts Colorful flowers adorn peacocks in a 2017 harvest display at Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Gardens. A Japanese spring display highlights the north bed at Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Gardens in Three generations of dolphins swim at Siegfried & Roy s Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat at The Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas. People understand food and hotel supplies, says Paul Sinowitz, vice president, global sourcing at MGM Resorts International. But to run our shows and attractions, it s like running little cities. Every day, you come up with something that s a little unique. A VEGAS ATMOSPHERE The 42 million people who visit Las Vegas each year come for an experience, whether it s playing slot machines or shooting craps, attending shows, visiting attractions or relaxing poolside, drink in hand. The whole atmosphere of Vegas that s what we want to be known for, Sinowitz says. Gaming is a piece of entertainment, but it s not our sole focus. MGM Resorts other entertainment offerings include shows like the Tournament of Kings at Excalibur Hotel, which features jousting riders on horses performing in a King Arthur-like setting. And then there are attractions like Mandalay Bay s Shark Reef Aquarium, with more than 2,000 aquatic creatures, including 100 sharks, and Siegfried & Roy s Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat at the Mirage, showcasing lions, tigers, leopards and bottlenose dolphins. You don t think about all that it takes to provide for these kinds of operations, Sinowitz says. For example, he points out, buying food for dolphins and fish is more intricate than buying food for horses there are strict diets to adhere to. Price drives sourcing for many procurement professionals. But for Sinowitz s teams, quality, service, timeliness, availability or even the look of a product are drivers. It all goes back to creating an experience, he says. 26 MAY 2018

4 CREATING A LUXURIOUS AND COLORFUL LOOK The look and feel of a resort can contribute to the experience, and the décor from the flooring and furnishings to wall color and lights is certainly one way to achieve it. But ambience can be more subtle and unexpected. We had a team travel around the world to visit the 10 properties considered most outstanding to determine what makes them unique, Sinowitz says. The No. 1 thing was the amount of floral they have. At MGM Resorts Las Vegas properties, flowers create a luxurious and colorful look. When you walk into Bellagio or Aria, the properties feel first-class. You might not recognize why, but it s (because of) all the flowers, Sinowitz says. You get a different feeling when you re standing in a garden than when you re standing in a concrete box. The company annually spends US$10 million on flowers $3 million is dedicated to the resorts conservatories and $7 million is spread throughout the properties. An additional $10 million is spent on plants. MGM Resorts buys more than 500 different flowers each day, one of which is Agapanthus, also called lily of the Nile, which accounts for $100,000 in annual spend alone. WHEN YOU WALK INTO BELLAGIO OR ARIA, THE PROPERTIES FEEL FIRST-CLASS. YOU MIGHT NOT RECOGNIZE WHY, BUT IT S (BECAUSE OF) ALL THE FLOWERS. Paul Sinowitz MGM Resorts International Designers at each resort create new floral presentations daily, and flowers are continually changed out. Sourcing is coordinated across the 13 properties, with designers ordering from an electronic catalog of primary and secondary suppliers for each item. What you don t want is each property buying a cattail from different suppliers. So, we standardize by each item, Sinowitz says. We ve done the back end by negotiating the prices. Service and quality outweigh price in floral. The designers are ordering these flowers today for tomorrow. They have to be here tomorrow. And they have to be a certain quality, because you don t want the flowers dying in a day, Sinowitz says. THE QUALITY GUEST EXPERIENCE Quality figures in the sourcing of other items as well, particularly upscale ones like the caviar at Joel Robuchon, a three-star Michelinrated, five-star Forbes-rated restaurant at MGM Grand. I don t really care if I m going to pay $50 more for caviar, because the average check is $1,000, Sinowitz says. Again, it s that A DEEP DIVE INTO PROCUREMENT Procurement at MGM Resorts International s Las Vegas properties goes beyond food, spirits and products like goofy glasses. Because of its wide variety of shows and attractions, the company needs services and personnel like veterinarians, doctors, nutritionists and divers not typically procured by more traditional hotel chains. Veterinarians, for instance, are called as needed for the fish, horses and other animals, and MGM Resorts hires doctors to review and test divers who clean the resorts fish tanks. You don t want anyone to be carrying any kind of bacteria on them when they get into the tanks because it contaminates the fish, says Paul Sinowitz, vice president, global sourcing at MGM Resorts International. Services of divers also were required last year, when MGM Resorts decided to install LED lights at the Fountains of Bellagio, a choreographed water feature. Sourcing these lights was tricky they had to be waterproof and more than 4,500 were needed. Not only did it take time to find a supplier, it took the divers several months to complete the process, Sinowitz says. Creating an experience for customers is key at MGM Resorts Las Vegas resorts, attractions and shows, and procurement follows suit. While every item whether a flower, caviar or a football-shaped drink glass might be handled a bit differently, the premise for procuring it is the same: You have to know what your customer wants, Sinowitz says. And for MGM Resorts, that means making sure quality, service and other factors like availability and ambience drive the sourcing. Sue Doerfler ISMMAGAZINE.ORG 27

5 Visitors can get an underwater view in the tunnel at Shark Reef Aquarium at MGM Resorts Mandalay Bay. Photo courtesy of MGM Resorts experience and quality. When you re sourcing upper-end items, you re not as concerned about price. These customers are willing to pay for quality. Quality also can mean durability. Goofy glasses plastic drink glasses that range from football-shaped containers with handles to yard-long glasses that hold 100 ounces are popular among MGM Resorts customers, who, after drinking the contents, often keep them as souvenirs. Sourcing drink glasses that will hold up is important, Sinowitz says: They can get beat up if they re made of cheap plastic. Customers spend $30 or $40 on these glasses, so if they break, it s not a good experience. Also, if they re not durable, they can melt from the heat of the Las Vegas sun. Determined to ensure glasses of the highest durability, MGM Resorts has focused on quality instead of price. When first ordering the glasses, the company had them flown in from China at tremendous cost rather than shipped by boat, a lengthy but less-expensive process. Once the supply chain leveled out, the company switched to ocean freight. When you have an issue like that, you re fixing it however you can, Sinowitz says. Some people might say, Get rid of the football glass or the yard glass; who cares? We don t think that way because that experience is important to that guest. So, we make sure we have it. FISH, WINES AND SPIRITS Making sure we have it is inherent in MGM Resorts sourcing. Besides goofy glasses, it pertains to other sourced necessities like dolphin food the fresh fish that s often flown in daily. We set up the flight, the container delivery, and a company to meet those planes and bring the goods to us. As soon as that plane lands, as soon as that container clears, it s on its way to Mirage, Sinowitz says. If the regular supplier is out of a certain type of fish, you don t just skip a feeding, he says. We ve set up backups for every item. If one supplier is out, we move to the next. Finding suppliers that offer the quality that MGM Resorts requires can be difficult: It s not uncommon for suppliers in this realm to go out of business because of low demand for the items they sell. As you can imagine, there isn t a big need for smelt. If a smelt supplier goes out of business, finding one that meets our standards is hard, Sinowitz says. Zoos, he notes, have been a valuable information source on finding some of these products. Making sure we have it also pertains to the human clientele s wine requests. Whatever wine the customer wants, we ll get it, Sinowitz says. And we will have it that s what is crazy. You might ask for a Petrus at Aria, where we don t stock it, but we have it at Bellagio or another resort, and we ll go get it for you. The Las Vegas properties, which spend about $40 million a year on wine, stock more than 16,000 wine SKUs. Some are limited-release wines, which can be difficult to source but critical to have. Strong supplier relationships have enhanced MGM Resorts ability to buy such wines, Sinowitz says: We spend a lot of time developing supplier relationships. We want them to think of us first. If you don t have those relationships, you won t get that brand. Being able to offer customers unique brands adds to the experience quotient, he says. When it comes to spirits, however, brand awareness and recognition are more important, and cost to the customer is a primary consideration. In Las Vegas, drinks are $18, $20, even $30 each, Sinowitz says. Most consumers aren t willing to spend $20 on the latest drink trend, he adds: They want a drink they re familiar with or have heard about from a friend who liked it. They won t take a risk that, at $20, they re not going to like it. New brands of spirits are usually launched in California, New York or Texas, he says. By the time they gain recognition and customers start requesting those drinks, Sinowitz s team is prepared. In sourcing spirits, we re watching; we re not necessarily placing, he says. But I know to begin building up my supply chain. That s because in a couple of years, everybody s going to know what it is and ask for it. And I ll have it. ISM Sue Doerfler is senior writer for Inside Supply Management. 28 MAY 2018

6 Supply/Management Apple Inc. has multiple positions available for the following job opportunities in Cupertino, CA: Technical Program Coordinator (Req#AQH29T) Estblsh mnfctring process for new prdcts. Travel req d 30%. Apple Inc. has multiple positions available for the following job opportunities in Austin, TX: Supply Demand Planner (Req#ACEPE3) Forecast demand, inventory, and multi-channel sell through. Refer to Req# & mail resume to Apple Inc., ATTN: D.W., 1 Infinite Loop 104-1GM, Cupertino, CA Apple is an EOE/AA m/f/disability/vets. We re waiting for your story. Your magazine. Your knowledge. Your stories. Contact the staff at Inside Supply Management : Gregory Sharpless, gsharpless@instituteforsupplymanagement.org; Sue Doerfler, sdoerfler@instituteforsupplymanagement.org or Dan Zeiger, dzeiger@instituteforsupplymanagement.org. ISMMAGAZINE.ORG 29