Читать книгу Profit from Procurement - Jose Oliveira Valentede - Страница 22

If setting the right ambition is important, then getting buy-in to that ambition from others is arguably even more so. That is because, as we say throughout this book, Procurement—almost more than any other department—must work cross-functionally in any organization to be successful. If you take the simple ambition of cost reduction, it's easy to see why.

Procurement hardly owns any of the third party spend in an organization, yet if it wants to have a serious impact on spend it must address a significant portion of it. And the ownership of that spend will likely sit across several functions, geographies, or business units. If Procurement wants to make any progress, it will need the buy-in from the key people in each of those areas. In addition, C-Suite buy-in and sponsorship is required to break down possible roadblocks along the way.

So, what do we mean by buy-in?

Unfortunately, it's more complicated than simply socializing your ambition or talking through it during a kick-off meeting. In many companies, and due to the reputation of Procurement working in a silo, we have found that other functions are generally suspicious of Procurement's ambition, even if it is the right one. Many times, Procurement has pursued initiatives that appear to only be focused on something narrow, such as savings at any cost.

To get other stakeholders to buy into your Procurement ambition, they need also to understand how it aligns to their own targets. And this means CPOs need to spend significant time understanding other functions' priorities and developing their own ambition in line with those. But it doesn't even stop there.

Because Procurement has to work cross-functionally, it will need significant time and input from other functions to achieve its ambition; in particular, through requirements definition, signing off on key decisions, and providing the mandate which Procurement requires in discussions with the supply base. So, it must also secure this commitment up front from other functions too.

As we are finding, getting buy-in is not just getting an empty nod from peers for an ambition. It is about identifying the people who will be required to help Procurement achieve it, to ensure it aligns with the priorities of those people and functions, and then to secure the commitment of those people to give the time and input required throughout the journey.

This is an incredibly difficult thing to do in most businesses, especially more complex ones, and requires a high level of leadership, empathy, and networking from the CPO. We talk in more detail about these skills in Chapter 4: People. But this step is so vitally important because without buy-in, Procurement can set any ambition it likes but will never get anywhere close to achieving it.