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
The Spanish version of this post is accessible here
