A very interesting post, Guy, and quite relevant to the debate on boosting Procurement’s capability and raising its profile.
The comments by others on corporate management appreciating Procurement’s value-add and Procurement, itself, being proactive are useful points. We must take proactive efforts to make corporate management appreciate Procurement’s aggregate value potential, and, hence, shift their attitudes.
Being proactive with actions that will yield the outcomes we want is the essence of effectiveness. Procurement functions that understand this and embrace effectiveness tend to deliver sustainable performance success and enjoy greater kudos in their organizations.
Sadly, such functions are in the minority. Far too many Procurement functions and individual practitioners are locked in a savings-oriented mindset. Even when able to expand their thinking to consider “value” rather than “cost”, most folks’ perspective of value is still confined narrowly to economic or financial value.
Such shortcomings do little for Procurement’s PR in the wider enterprise, especially with corporate management, the most influential of stakeholders. To shift corporate management’s attitudes we must be able to engage and communicate with them persuasively.
Unfortunately, the overriding emphasis we place on technical skills, rather than developing Procurement people’s soft skills (e.g., effective communication, influencing, relationship building) mean that most purchasing folks tend to engage with corporate management and other stakeholders using language with too much technical jargon. You have to speak someone’s language, or at least try and think in their language, to be able to influence their attitude. As Aristotle said over two millennia ago, “The fool tells me his reasons. The wise man persuades me with my own.”
Persuasive communication, including leveraging actual results achieved, must be part of a broader effort to build the Procurement brand in the enterprise. And building the Procurement brand is one of the cornerstones of Procurement effectiveness.
I gave a series of keynote speeches for the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply (CIPS) a while ago on this theme, and my subsequent article in Supply Management provided several practical approaches for Procurement functions.
Importantly, the most critical requirement is to get an effective Procurement leader; because leadership is the glue that holds it all together.
If your Procurement function is headed by a “purchasing geek”, you will never be successful in shifting corporate management’s attitudes. An effective Procurement leader is a “business leader” who is organizationally savvy, and adept at tapping into the corporate buzz, aligning Procurement to the enterprise priorities, building lasting functional capability, delivering tangible business results, and nurturing corporate management as Procurement cheerleaders.
Of course, in reality, it takes a lot more than a few words to achieve success—I’ve got enough battle scars to remind me! But the question Guy asks is one of the first steps to finding the route to success.
