Читать книгу Profit from Procurement - Jose Oliveira Valentede - Страница 14

But you may ask, what's new in all this? Procurement? That's been around for decades. Why this book, and why now?

The answer to this question is that, while this book was written during the global COVID-19 pandemic, its content and messages go well beyond this and are just the accumulated “wisdom” of three Procurement professionals. On the other hand, COVID-19 has clearly put a spotlight on Procurement. As we watched supply chains grind to a halt across the globe, it was easy to spot those who were prepared, those who had their supply chains in order…and the many others who were not prepared, and who were blind-sided by the crisis.

From a Procurement perspective, COVID-19 puts into partial question some of the core supply chain concepts companies have worked hard to implement over the last four decades: JIT (just-in-time) delivery, single sourcing, “best cost country sourcing” from geographically far-flung locations…these concepts drive cost out of the supply chain, but at the expense of increasing exposure to risk. A global disruption like COVID-19 is likely to then test those tightly strung supply chains to the limit.

What the pandemic showed again is that Procurement sits at the heart of the company, it's the interface between the company and its suppliers and service providers—and as companies outsource more and more, the number and scale of service providers grows. Now, the COVID-19 pandemic has made us ask questions like “Do we have enough control over all our key supplier relationships and contracts?,” “Do we have contingency suppliers who can rapidly ramp up capacity for us?” and “Do we have a strong Logistics partner?”

It's commonly accepted now that there will be more global pandemics to come, so let's be sure to learn our lessons from the current one. But also, why not use the post-COVID-19 era to revisit our Procurement cost base? Now is a time for everyone to look at their costs, so why not combine it with a review of our supply chain resilience in the face of a global crisis.

So now does seem like a good time to revisit Procurement, and maybe ask “How far have we really come?” How big is the opportunity, where does it lie, and how do we capture it? These are the questions this book seeks to answer.

But while the pandemic partly provided the impetus for writing this book, at the end of the day, none of the messages in this book are “COVID-specific.” The pandemic has shone a light on Procurement, but what it has revealed was already there. This is not a “COVID-era book,” and we will not be discussing the pandemic further.