As a procurement professional, you can add value to your organisation by bringing about procurement transformation. This refers to the management of existing resources so that they are realigned to offer better margins and results.
Even if you have just entered the field of procurement, you will be able to find ample opportunities to improve spend management and ensure that your organisation enjoys significant savings. Some of the things you can analyse and alter include:
Aggregate spend for higher savings
Many organisations have branches spread across the UK. In such circumstances, they tend to use many suppliers to cater to those branches. But it can complicate the procurement process as you would have to deal with several suppliers for the same products and services. If this is the case with your organisation, you should be looking to aggregate spend. It will improve procurement efficiency and also result in higher savings.
Understand suppliers’ strengths and weaknesses
To bring genuine procurement transformation, you need to know the strengths and weaknesses of each supplier. Then, you can use e-sourcing strategies to ensure that you optimise sourcing, while also helping your organisation save money. Sometimes, it may make sense to use hybrid sourcing where spend aggregation is not possible.
Make suppliers your partners
Consumer demand may change without warning, so you need to be prepared, and the best way is to share business requirements with suppliers. Once suppliers have access to your requirements, they can warn you of delays in the supply chain and also come up with creative ways to combat these and still meet your demands.
There are several different ways to bring about procurement transformation. These are some of the ways you can make a meaningful contribution to your organisation, even as a new procurement employee. Once you have mastered these, look at other avenues to transform and improve, thereby helping procurement become an efficient profit-making centre.