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10 October 2011 | Steve Bagshaw
“What keeps senior executives awake at
night and what affects their bonuses,” are the two things that should occupy
buyers’ thoughts according to Larry Beard, director of business transformation
at Tate & Lyle.
During the panel discussion at the CIPS
Conference last week he added, purchasers should “stop talking about purchasing
and start talking the language of business. You won’t get anything by talking
about procurement-to-pay systems to senior executives,” he said.
In his view there are two measures of the
seriousness with which an organisation takes procurement: is it on the agenda for
board members (for the right reasons) and is it mentioned in the corporate
report?
Sarah Ellis, procurement director at BAA
said it is vital to have alignment with stakeholders, which falls into three
areas. First, how to contribute to efficiencies across the business, having
management information so procurement can add to the overall strategy. This relies
on “being clear what value is – and not just metrics that relate to savings;
establishing what is value to the business. It is key for procurement to work
with stakeholders much more closely and to add to the overall value of an
organisation”. Secondly purchasing
must make itself “better as customers - more innovation to reduce barriers and
make it easier for organisations to do business with us”. And thirdly,
“positioning ourselves to create new revenue streams that were previously
ignored by the organisation”.
According to Steve Shirley, head of
business development, commercial payment solutions at MasterCard, economic development
is a supply chain initiative with three major issues: adopting an inclusive
strategy with supplier diversity, promoting innovation in the supply chain and
balancing capacity with demand using technology more to improve process. And he
said: “Smarter payments are critical to both behaviour as well as processes.”
And for David Loseby, non-executive director
at Westminster Business Council, members of the profession need to blow their
own trumpet a little more. “We should be saying ‘look what we did’. We are too
reserved and should be more front of house. We make the savings but we also do
all this other stuff.”
