Challenges Voiced by Procurement Professionals

James Doyle, founder of JAMSO, began last month requesting procurement professionals what they faced at their companies as the biggest lack of understanding by leadership. Here is a sampling of the responses:

Gerald (Jerry) Rasmussen:  Many internal management and non-management people think there is a giant warehouse out there with every part for every application just sitting there and all we need to do is pick up the phone and order the part. And this is in an environment with fairly complex finished products.

Robert Eddington: The expectation of others that the job is very quick and simplistic. In some cases I have to agree with them, but that can't be counted on in every case and all the time. They generally have no idea into all the background work or the problem solving that goes into the process. Reading the comments above it seems we all have the same problems. I don't think other will ever grasp the amount we do, usually because we make it happen so regularly that they just expect it that way all the time.

Christine Langford, CPSM:  There is a stereotype that Procurement are penny pincher whose favorite line is "sharpen your pencil." There's so much more value we drive other than purchase price. Understanding the costs in the marketplace and knowing your suppliers costs is so much more effective than just telling someone to generally cost reduce.   I've found the most effective way to "sell" procurements capabilities is to have cross-functional needs and wants meeting before a negotiation. After, have a recap and let them team know what you've achieved. You can even assign costs to these items to show how much value Procurement achieves.

Mark McKitrick: Communicating to the client what their true needs are versus what they think they want, and arriving at a solution that can be culture changing.

Tyron Pirrie: Getting your colleagues to understand what procurement is and the benefit of the department to a company. Learn more.