P@27 – The 10 Procurement Jobs of the future

Many buyers have worked hard in order to generate a bigger strategic impact within their organization. Those professionals have become experts and trusted business partners able to connect, on one side, a wide network of suppliers whose competencies and capabilities have been clearly identified, with, on the other side, internal customers whose needs have been revised, challenged and optimized. Instead of traditionally focusing on compliance, cost optimization, quality and delivery dates, they have developed and implemented more sophisticated supplier management and  integration achieving additional and highly valued benefits in term of spend efficiency, productivity, demand management, risk management, CSR, innovation.

With such constant on-going transformation, the role and daily work of the buyers have been evolving. In a near future, companies will be desperately looking for several (new) profiles in Procurement:

1.- Category Manager: we will only keep few highly specialized category managers. For example, strategic buyers experienced in IT, digital marketing, scarce and/or fully new raw materials, transport/warehousing/distribution will be in high demand in the Procurement job market.

2.- Outsourcing Manager: whatever the category may be, and in all complex cases of outsourcing, this profile is able to achieve a successful integration and management of the new partner by co-leading a large internal team through the numerous project steps.

3.- Lean Six Sigma (L6S) Proc. Manager: this expert co-leads process improvement initiatives inside and outside the company. He/she trains buyers and suppliers to L6S techniques and tools. He/she becomes a strong contributor to process efficiency/reliability and waste eradication.

4.- Supplier Performance & Innovation Manager: a small team of experts will guide and support tactical buyers and category managers in all activities related to supplier performance measurement and improvement as well as the capture and integration of innovations coming from the supply network.

5.- Collaborative Business Procurement Manager: is a highly skilled professional specialized in helping category managers in formalizing a new type in both relationship and contract between the company and its 10 to 20 most critical and strategic suppliers/partners. This will also include more and more startups. He/she helps his/her colleagues to move from a traditional “Win-Win” mentality (meaning negotiating optimal service levels, and trying to fairly share benefits and risks) to a “WE” approach (implying from both parties a common and joint focus  on the relationship and governance – and not so much on service level and economic conditions -  in order to know how to adjust activities and responsibilities of each party, depending on the constant changes that will arise all along the duration of the contractual relationship). This “WE” mindset does not only allow the parties to split benefits and risks but ensures that both parties can “increase the pie” in term of shared opportunities and results.

6.- Sustainability & RSC Proc. Manager: is in charge of defining and implementing a strong culture and a strategy of Sustainability & Corporate and Social Responsibility within the Procurement community, as well as in the rest of the organization. He/she supervises the supplier selection and evaluation process. He/she assists the key suppliers of the company in embracing the Sustainability & CSR (including sharing exonomy) challenge and journey. He/she works hard to align and integrate the Sustainability & CSR Procurement policy to the company global and competitive strategy.

7.- Risk Manager: by collaborating for example with the buyers and the SCM department, he/she supervises the process of analyzing the risks related to the company supplier panel and the extended supply chain. He/she follows the improvement action plans and reports progresses to top management.

It is quite common to combine the roles of CSR and risk Management.

8.- Communication and Social Network Proc. Manager: he/she pilots the whole process and flows of communication from the Procurement area to the company supplier network and supply markets. He/she mainly uses the social media networks to improve the image and positioning of the company in front of all other buying competitors.

9.- Operations & process Proc. Manager: considering 1.- the need for standardizing and simplifying Procurement policies and processes, 2.- the requisite to know the new actors and solutions available in the area of Procurement processes and systems including RPA, blockchain and 3.- the trend related to the outsourcing of the Procurement activities and the rise of  external procurement global service centers, this role will become more and more relevant within the big multinational corporations.

10.- Analytics, knowledge & Performance Proc. Manager: 1.- this professional looks for (inside and outside the company) and organizes all needed and required data in order for the Procurement teams to perform in their job. You include here all the topics about analytics, artificial intelligence. We will forecast more and more instead of analysing past datas. 2.- in big multinational organizations, with procurement teams located all over the world, and in front of an increasing rotation and turnover of the buyers, this expert captures, organizes and ensures an easy access to all the information generated by the buyers; encourages knowledge and experience sharing; 3.- He/she coordinates all activities related to calculation and validation of spending amount, savings, productivities and efficiencies generated by Procurement; he/she creates, updates and communicates the Procurement balance scorecard.

¿Among those 10 roles, can you state which would be the 2 or 3 most relevant roles in the future? ¿Do you see any other crucial Procurement role for the future?

The Spanish version of this post is accessible here