Procurement fashion

Procurement fashion

Today I was triggered by a Twitter contact (thanks @RuudOlthof) on the suject of trends in Procurement. As it is with all other subjects, the last weeks of the year inspire all kinds of (self-proclaimed?) guru's to pick up their christall ball and predict the future based on trends. But what is a trend in Procurement?

Any business function is prone to trending and fashions. Where for instance in "sales" these trends tend  to be (wauw, say that 15 times in a row: "trends that tend...";-)) supported by a somewhat objectifyable base in market analyses, within "procurement" trends appear to come from nowhere other than these guru's. Procurement has a firm basis in the area of Logistics where the common ground seems to be the explainable flowing of goods, money and information. Then why is it that we implement high-value P2P tools only because our competitor does, or that we talk about Social Return in Procurement when we do not even master the KPI management of a simple outsourcing deal on a callcenter service? No logic at all in flowing of information, but just over-eagerly copycatting where someone else was having succes. Marketing is everything, not only in "sales", but also within "procurement"!

Procurement departments should be more into marketing techniques, also in their trends of execution. Where a sales department does a thourough study on the demographics and culture of a target audience before picking up on a trend, procurement should do so too. What is their internal market thinking, doing, expecting of them? What is the maturity of the organization, what can it handle and what cultural fits are there or are there not? And only in the end ask yourself "How to mix these with trending successes in the world or procurement?"

Still too often we are asked to help implement solutions that are basically only chosen because it is trendy, not because it is supported and really helping this organization to reach for the next level... Hopefully 2014 brings the trend of breaking with trends...

Doede van Haperen
www.lakran.com
www.postulit.com