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Tuesday
21Oct

Procurement Transplants Make Great Category Leaders

DateTuesday, October 21, 2008 at 09:16PM

According to a recent survey of CPO's conducted by the Procurement Strategy Council (PSC), 82% of procurement executives polled said they have prior experience outside procurement or supply chain. This is great... but how about procurement executives that have industry experience in their purchasing category?

For example, how about a Procurement Travel Manager who comes from the hotel industry? Maybe a print buyer who was an operations manager at a graphics plant?

Procurement transplants with industry experience are less focused on functional expertise and more focused on category management, quality and anticipating industry dynamics. They know how to speak the language of their industry and are viewed as procurement experts by the organization. IMHO industry experts make better procurement executives than functional experts.

Other updates to share:

  • Bernanke says U.S. economy facing big threat. (All he has to do is read the ISM index.)
  • In a survey earlier this year, supply chain execs said they would like new college grads in SCM that are better able to "connect the dots," "acquire the leadership skills" and "balance specific IT skills with business acumen.
  • Emerging markets suffer as foreigners withdraw. They always take the worst hit. Procurement likes to keep their supplier's close when scared.
  • September (CPI) was unchanged, up 4.9% versus a year ago. Commodity price pressure is definitely going the other way.
  • The price per mbps of Gigabit Ethernet transit has dropped 38 percent in the past 12 months. Costs for high speed data transfer are declining.
  • $3 gas back if anyone cares. Make sure carriers have removed surcharges and adjust prices due to lower fuel costs.
AuthorDaveM | Comment1 Comment | Reference2 References |
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References (2)

References allow you to track sources for this article, as well as articles that were written in response to this article.
  • Response
    Response: The Ink Bottle
    at The Ink Bottle on October 28, 2008
    An interesting quote by Warren Bennis on the difference between a Leader and a Manager: The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.
  • Response
    Response: quality improvement
    at quality improvement on November 21, 2008
    To assess the cost of developing a quality manual for ISO 9001 standard, I surveyed about three dozen of my customers to estimate the time they spent preparing their quality manuals. All surveyed personnel reported average to high levels of expertise in quality management systems. Responses indicated that the time span ...

Reader Comments (1)

Yes, Procurement executives must have prior experience outside procurement or supply chain.

You must know complete details about the products which they are going procure(Ex: If you want to purchase a plastic toy you need know about Raw material,color used,packing etc...)

You should also notice the market trends and Internet is the best option to do this.

And use IT services(Like SRM, eRFx, Reverse Auction,Vendor management etc.... ) instead of Xl and Pdf files.

By using these softwares you can easily search or generate report.
October 23, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterRajesh

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