Today, we’re previewing the first report in a series of reports entitled CPO Game Changers – Volume 1: Early Engagement, sponsored by Zycus and available for download here (registration required).
Within the past five years, Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) and procurement organizations have seen their involvement and responsibilities expand across the enterprise. This expansion has many CPOs and their procurement teams managing new initiatives and engaging with a wider range of stakeholders – including human resources, legal, manufacturing, operations, and product teams – on projects of mutual interest. Ardent Partners research has shown that when a strong procurement team is engaged on a sourcing project, the opportunities for it to add value are immense, all to the benefit of the stakeholders and the enterprise. But, there is more to it than this.
In a survey of 318 CPOs and other procurement leaders, Ardent Partners found that the top strategy for elevating procurement’s performance to the next level is earlier engagement in sourcing events. When CPOs and their staff are given enough lead time to engage properly on a sourcing project, they can bring expertise on sourcing, requirements gathering, supplier discovery, bidding and proposal development, and others to the table. For example, they can work with their partners in manufacturing and/or product development to get clarity and finality on sourcing requirements, and rationalize them so that they purchase the optimal quantity and quality of goods and services to fill the business need. Procurement can investigate supply markets, and conduct supplier discovery for new suppliers in the event of a greenfield opportunity, or if current suppliers cannot meet enterprise requirements.
Because they sit at the juncture of an enterprise’s business units and its suppliers, sourcing teams can help to communicate with all parties and ensure that they are on the same page. They can also help to facilitate the sourcing process by structuring the bid proposal or sourcing event, and offering rigor and a clear criteria on how to evaluate bids. Conversely, when these teams are brought into the process too late, or are instructed to simply purchase a good or service, no matter the cost or rationale, they go from being a value-added partner and strategic advisor to an expensive and bureaucratic order-taker.
In short, CPOs and procurement teams can bring rigor to the sourcing process that one-off buyers simply cannot. And the sooner that they engage with stakeholders on their projects, the more that they can influence the sourcing process and drive greater savings, quality, risk management, and value to all stakeholders. For CPOs, this is the top game-changing strategy and it has the potential to elevate a procurement operation and the enterprise it serves to the next level of performance. But in order for CPOs and procurement teams to engage earlier, they must be able to collaborate and communicate with key partners, and then execute successfully.
We’re just getting started with how CPOs and their teams can engage sooner and more effectively. Download this insightful research report and arm yourself with the strategies and processes to do just that. Click here for the full report.
And if you’re free on Thursday, November 19th at 2 PM EST, attend this free webinar on the second installment in the series: New and Improved Technology: The Key to Next Level Procurement Performance, sponsored by Zycus. Register here!
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