The soul of the procurement organization

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the July-August 2016 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

July-August 2016

What’s the difference between us and our competitors? Our people!” I can’t think of an organization that doesn’t publicly state that its people are its most important asset. Yet, anyone who has been in the workforce for any length of time knows that when the rubber hits the road—or something else hits the fan—people are usually the first casualty of cost cutting. It’s far easier to free up your talent for “other opportunities” than it is to close a plant or sell a fleet of trucks.

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Seasoned business leaders repeatedly affirm that people-related levers are the bedrock of creating and sustaining organizational success. These “soft” levers—like effective leadership, culture, employee engagement and talent management—can rarely be applied in isolation for optimal results. Like notes from a symphony, they must be harmonized in a holistic approach to unleash the magic of the human spirit for organizational benefit.

This applies to the whole enterprise, but in particular to functional areas like procurement.

For any procurement function seeking its mojo, the search will become like the pursuit of a mirage without enhanced people capability. You can never achieve sustainable procurement success without developing your people capability, even with best-in-class processes, systems and a sound strategy.

Effective talent management is one of the key conduits to nurture people capability. Your procurement function must have the appropriate talent to achieve its goals. If your procurement organization is staffed with “procurement assassins” focused on obtaining the cheapest price rather than “procurement ambassadors”—who I describe as individuals who exhibit positive attitudes, behaviors and performance—then success will remain elusive.

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