"Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."
So said Sun Tzu, an ancient Chinese general writing about the art of war.
The art of procurement is a far cry from a military clash, but Sun Tzu's words point out the necessity of strategy to success in a large endeavor. In procurement, we often hear that being strategic is critical, but what does that mean and how does procurement get there?
As the former Procurement Manager at the Indianapolis Airport Authority and the Indianapolis Zoo, a not-for-profit organization, Doreen Cherry defines being strategic in procurement as being involved in the upfront discussion and planning of a future purchase or project (a long-range goal). Tactics, or the tangible actions needed to reach the goal, are often determined by others outside of procurement.
We have all been there. It is especially frustrating when other departments' expectations conflict with reality, best business practices, regulations, laws, or policies.
Procurement professionals understand what it takes to get to the end goal efficiently and legally. But with low headcount in procurement compared to other departments, how do you get in front the requests? Cherry provides some options:
- First Step: Eliminate, then automate, tactical tasks
- Simplify your processes and documents. Do solicitation templates from 10 years ago request information that is no longer needed? Is that report produced monthly even reviewed by anyone?
- Automate as many of the tactical tasks as possible with an eProcurement solution. Technology is your friend – embrace it! Who enjoys creating bid tabulations or manually entering contract and insurance certificate information in an Excel spreadsheet?
- Next Step: Become strategic by building influence
- Look at the budget by department. Often there are support documents that will detail the upcoming projects, services, and goods planned.
- Target the departments that spend the most and/or have the largest impact to your organization.
- Schedule a meeting with the department director to discuss procurement's involvement, and explain how you can benefit them by being involved from the beginning. With an eProcurement system, you can show how to maximize vendor outreach, increase cost savings with more competition, and track diverse vendors' interest and participation.
- Ask for feedback on your department. What do you do well? What needs improvement? How can procurement be part of the strategy to help your department achieve success? An agile and robust eProcurement system will be able to provide additional data or streamline additional processes if needed.
- Better yet, get involved next year with their annual budgeting process. An eProcurement solution will have the data for you to provide historical cost for future purchases and tracking trends.
Making these adjustments will make leadership start inviting procurement to the planning table. Including procurement early on will help you contract with top-performing suppliers and contractors. Not only will your internal customers value procurement, but your staff will become higher performance and influence more successful results.
PlanetBids, the preferred eProcurement software of governmental agencies, can get you to a more strategic level by helping you automate the procurement process, providing an A-to-Z platform that manages suppliers and contractors, solicitations, electronic bidding, response evaluation, contracting, certifications, bonds, insurance, and more.
Our SaaS solution is a game-changer, automating your tactical tasks and providing critical data to help you make more strategic decisions.
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