P@38 – 10 recommendations to become a great strategic buyer

Recently a colleague asked me what I would suggest to a tactical buyer who would like to become more strategic. It’s not an easy question. I finally answered with 10 recommendations.

Before jumping to the 10-point checklist, it makes sense to align on what great tactical buyers do. Those strong individuals:

- Perfectly understand, manage and optimize the famous Req-To-Pay process

- Look for clear specifications and in parallel also work on defining the real business needs

- Analyze the supplier market and know in detail the capabilities of the current preferred vendors

- Manage complex RFQs

- Regularly use e-auctions

- Negotiate good commercial conditions, basic legal aspects and more complex Service Level Agreements

- Deal with supply and quality improvement action plans

- Have some experience in managing productivity initiatives jointly with their stakeholders.

In front of such strong tactical buyers, here would be my 10 recommendations:

1.- Be Self-aware

- Regularly update their personal SWOT so that they can explain who they are in 5 minutes in a very convincing way. They can also work on their personal brand.

- Able to explain to anyone in 2 minutes their Procurement role, mission and key contribution

- Remarkably present the unique value proposition of Procurement to their stakeholders

2.- Audit the function

- Perfectly understand the different maturity levels of Procurement
- Manage all Procurement levers (Supply, Process, Demand and Value mgmt.)

- Make the difference between transactional, tactical and strategic Procurement activities

- By interviewing their stakeholders, they know their past accomplishments and what their future successes look like.

3.- Build relationships and network

- Have an up-to-date stakeholder map and action plan

- Show strong business acumen

- Ask and listen. They control their “little voice”. They make regular ‘Voice of the Customer’ surveys.

- They are credible and generate positive impact. They know their job. They do prepare all their internal or external meetings.

- Build productive and trustful relationships inside and outside the company. They are assertive. They influence, they challenge others. They are committed to make things happening.

- Become a trusted advisor for their stakeholders

4.- Align Procurement strategy

- Know the company/stakeholder strategic imperatives, priorities, challenges and issues.

- Think like a CFO

- Think like the business in term of value creation – SPIRit (Supply, Productivity, Innovation, Responsibility)

- Know the strategy of their vendors

- They are brilliant at aligning the Procurement/category strategy to company/stakeholder priorities and defining the corresponding action plan

5.- Manage a team

- Build a High Performance Team environment

- Create a sexy and meaningful vision for/with the team

- Reward positive/open attitude of mind and pro-activity

- Share mistakes and lessons learned

- Set ambitious objectives and go for bold ideas

- Constantly celebrate successes

6.- Priorize

- Analyse the spend on a regular basis and share results with their stakeholders

- Analyse category or supplier portfolio matrix

- Work on a list of potential initiatives (jointly with the business)

- Rigorously apply strategic sourcing and category management processes

7.- Mead

- Involve Finance to create strong baselines to calculate savings, productivity or even better value contribution

- Mead the impact in the P&L and communicate any kind of value beyond savings

- Progress from a simple monthly report to a robust Procurement dashboard including more and more Business KPIs

8.- Self-manage

- Manage their time: eliminate, optimize, automate, delegate

- Only do one thing at a time

- Understand and get comfortable with constant change

- Manage their boss

- Pilot their personal development and growth

9.- Advise

- Look for a mentor and learn from him/her

- Look for a mentee and learn from him/her

- Participate to benchmark exercises inside and outside the company

10.- Enjoy

- Before all, they enjoy what they do

- Learn and grow in the face of adversity

Differences between tactical and strategic buyers are clear:

-The first ones master all Procurement technical or “hard” skills whereas, the second ones grow their “soft” skills.

-Tactical buyers are Procurement people who happen to be in Business whereas Strategic buyers are Business people who happen to be in Procurement.

Could you share any other great piece of advice?