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There’s a problem in procurement.  The wrong people are getting recognized.  Sure, there’s the people who are nailing their results and moving mountains.  They’re getting promotions and pay raises, which they should.  But then ask yourself, who are the people who are viewed as being veterans.  Savvy.  Able to tackle the toughest situations.  The ones […]

If you missed Part 1 of this series, go here: https://pscminstitute.com/the-3-procurement-contract-deadly-sins-part-1/ Procurement pros in my experience tend to not like 2 things, pretty consistently:  cost models and contracts. They would prefer that finance leads cost modeling efforts and legal leads contract negotiation efforts – the remaining Ts and Cs after price, warranty, inventory model, leadtime,

Procurement has some pretty bad habits with their contracts.  Most of them are results killers and career killers actually, and people aren’t even aware of it.  Let’s go through the Procurement Contract Deadly Sins, one at a time.  This blog will focus just on the first one: Procurement Contract Deadly Sin #1 – Leaving Contract

I just finished reading a Big 4 consulting report on Procurement Organization Performance, based on surveys from a range of Chief Procurement Officers in different industries and countries. One of the 6 drivers used to measure Procurement department success was “Customer Satisfaction”.  “Customer” was defined as the people inside of the business units who were

Let’s not talk about why procurement doesn’t have a seat at the table.  I want to talk about why procurement is on the menu for lunch.  CEOs in the end distill simple messages from big complex sets of data.   One thing they really pay attention to is whether your department is a Cost Center or

Peter Grant was the manager for the British Powerhouse Led Zeppelin.   He was an untrained negotiator. In fact, he was a former wrestler and bouncer.  And at 6’5” and over 300lbs, he was a behemoth. But where he really excelled was as the group manager for Led Zeppelin.  And he changed the music industry forever

Let me be bold and pull no punches: The procurement function has possibly the least experience with driving influence of any major organizational function in large companies.  And you may find this counterintuitive, thinking “but all we do is negotiate huge high stakes deals, more than any other function, so how can this be true?”

Both procurement and sales organizations have been suffering from the same fatal flaw since the invention of currency.   And It’s killing us.  Our profession is leaving money on the table in every single deal. It starts really early.  When you were a kid in the playground, fighting over a toy in the sandbox.  Only one

If you are a procurement leader, the onus is on you to make a difference.  I’m seeing a lot of CPOs getting better results at traditional activities, but is that what we really want?  Just meeting and exceeding cost savings goals is a very 1990’s accomplishment.  Here’s a quick questionnaire (Yes = 3 points, Sometimes/Maybe