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17 November 2011 | Adam Leach
In order to create new
opportunities and increase engagement from stakeholders procurement must
promote itself better, a panel of senior buyers concluded.
The point was made at a roundtable
debate to discuss the initial findings of The CPO Agenda KPMG Procurement Functional Excellence Benchmarking project. The survey, which will be published in
March, found the procurement function is viewed as leading, or an area of
excellence, in only a few companies. The results found it is well-placed to
deliver standard objectives, but struggling to grasp more strategic areas of
responsibility and spend.
Jason Smith, who leads the
procurement advisory team at KPMG, said: “I get a sense that we are not actually
marketing the function well enough.”
He suggested that while
procurement has become more important during the years of recession, it is
still known by other departments as the team that can save money. “Outside of
that there is almost a PR job needed to promote how and what procurement does
to deliver strategic value to the business,” he said.
Ian Sexton, director of contracts
and procurement at Network Rail, has already taken steps to promote the work
of purchasing. Members of the executive leadership team were impressed at the
team’s achievements when he presented them, he said. “I took the opportunity to
put a slide up and said, ‘This is what we have done over the past five years’,
and a number of people came up to me and said, ‘We had no idea. We didn’t know
that you had done all that. We didn’t realise what it was like before. Most of
us weren’t here five years ago’.”
Andrew Hill, procurement director
at Severn Trent Water, is also looking to improve the way his team
communicates its work, with a focus on limiting the use of purchasing jargon.
He said: “I have seen many change programmes fail because of the language used,
as the broader business and end users don’t get what procurement is about. Procurement
uses buzz words like, ‘strategic sourcing’ and ‘SRM’ and while purchasing teams
may get it, others won’t.”
The need for procurement to raise
its profile was raised at the CIPS 2011 Conference. During his keynote speech, Ellis Watson managing director of newspapers
at publisher DC Thomson and former CEO of Simon Cowell’s company SYCO told
buyers to ‘get out there’. Encouraging buyers to be more passionate, he
said: “If you can instil in your colleagues and more importantly your suppliers
that you are looking to work with passionate partners, you will reap the
benefits. Passion is the main ingredient.”
