Hi {{FIRST_NAME|readers}},
Tonight, a question that might sting a little given the email subject line... 😅
When was the last time you felt genuinely confident about your procurement function?
Not "we're making progress" confident.
Not "it's better than last year" confident.
I'm talking about that deep-down feeling that you've actually got this figured out.
There's always that nagging voice:
"We should be further along by now... Other companies must have this sorted out... I’m sure if we knew what they were doing we’d be more confident in our strategy… Gosh… Why does everything feel so hard?"
But what if I told you that voice is lying to you?
What if the thing holding your procurement function back isn't your processes, your systems, or your team...
It’s not having access to what everyone else is doing…
It's your mindset.
Onwards!
📰 In this week’s edition:
🦸♂️ Become a Superhero
📋 5 procurement jobs that caught my eye
🌙 Your Procurement Function Isn’t Broken (You Just Think It Is)
Note: Some of the content listed above is only available in the email version of this newsletter. Don’t miss out! Sign up for free to get the next edition.
👀 In Case You Missed It…
My Best Linkedin post this week:
Your Procurement Function Isn't Broken
(You Just Think It Is)
Something has been eating at me lately...
Everyone in procurement has the same damn problems.
Every. Single. Organization.
Yet somehow, everyone has convinced themselves that they’re the only ones struggling while everyone else has it figured out.
Sound familiar?
You think your supplier data is messier than everyone else's.
You think you're doing more manual work than you "should" be.
You think your function is less mature than your peer group...
Meanwhile, procurement professionals at Fortune 500 companies are having the exact same conversation about their "immature" function.
The truth? Your inferiority complex is costing you more than bad supplier data ever could.
The Grass Isn't Greener…
Think of this as the "Instagramification" of procurement.
Just like social media only shows you people's highlight reels, the procurement world only exposes you to polished case studies and bleeding-edge technologies at conferences and in magazines.
You see:
The glossy vendor presentation about AI-powered spend analytics.
You don't see:
The 3-month implementation that took 12 months, and the remaining bugs and warts that still require lots of manual rework.
You see:
The award-winning "digital transformation" case study.
You don't see:
The team still struggling with 20% of the spend because the business case wasn’t strong enough to deploy the solution to the 7 smallest business units in the company...
As a consultant, I get a privileged view into dozens of procurement organizations every year. Want to know what I see behind the Instagram filter?
The $10B manufacturer still doing RFPs in Excel
The tech unicorn with a CPO who can't get spend visibility beyond 60%
The "Big 4" consulting firm (yes, really) buying software without involving procurement
The difference isn't that some organizations have "solved" procurement.
The difference is that some have stopped apologizing for being a work in progress… They focus on the areas where they can significantly move the needle and try to minimize the impact of “hobbling on” with the others.
Here's what happens when you fall into the inferiority trap:
You start looking to competitors for answers.
You turn to "best practice" vendors who leverage your insecurities to sell products and services.
You implement solutions designed for someone else's problems instead of focusing on your own context, constraints and strategy…
The Real Procurement Playbook
Every organization is different. But they're all operating on the same basic principles with the same goal: increase maturity over time to increase business impact.
Start with your constraints:
How much budget do you have?
What's your current scope (categories/spend)?
What's your team size?
What are their skills?
Based on those constraints, you make strategic choices about how to allocate resources between people, process, and technology to maximize impact.
Limited scope, systems and budget? Your policy should enable decentralized procurement with the basics to maximize good outcomes while you personally focus on high-impact "special projects."
Bigger budget, systems and team? Your policy can lean toward more centralized procurement involvement and control, provided you can deliver great value without becoming a bottleneck for operations.
The key insight: There's no universal "right" answer. There's only what's right for your constraints and context.
You're Not in Procurement, You're in Sales
Here's the mindset shift that changes everything:
You're not managing a cost center. You're growing a business within your business.
Your customers are internal stakeholders. Your product is procurement services. Your “revenue” is measured in value delivered to the organization (as defined by them).
And just like any business, you grow by:
Demonstrating value with your current scope
Building a strong brand (no bottlenecks, great user experience)
Reinvesting wins into expanding your reach
Bad user experience = bad procurement brand = limited growth potential.
Good user experience = good procurement brand = budget for expansion = more impact.
The secret sauce? Stop trying to control all spend from the beginning and start focusing on creating exceptional experiences, impact and value in the areas you choose to control.
Then, seek out technology and partners that can turn the vision into reality.
The Maturity Framework That Actually Works
Forget the 47-slide "maturity assessment". Here's the real framework:
Stage 1: Survival
Get basic spend visibility
Create a simple procurement policy
Train decentralized “buyers” on the essentials to maximize value
Prove centralized procurement value on a few high-impact projects
Focus on both sowing (Strategic Sourcing) and harvesting value (Procure-to-Pay purchasing channels)… If you sow without helping reap, you just have an expensive field of moldy corn!
Promote your wins, groom champions in your business units
Stage 2: Growth
Expand scope methodically and systematically
Leverage your champions for social proof (“They did X for me! They can do it for you too.”)
Implement systems that will help scale your success
You can make the business case easily with a few wins under your belt!
Build your team’s “systems thinking” skills to get them thinking in playbooks, templates and repeatable processes
Stage 3: Optimization
Automate repeatable work (e.g. replenishment purchasing)
“Put your arms” around all spend (Spend Under Management)
Enhance focus on strategic, value-add, one-off projects
Become the go-to team for helping complex projects succeed
Most organizations end up flip-flopping between stages because doubt sets in… And a dangerous question starts to roam the halls of your business:
“Are we doing the right thing? I wonder what our competitors are doing?”
Answer: Most of your competitors are also wondering what you’re doing 😂
Now get back to work! 😅
Stop Looking Over the Fence
The procurement team you're envying probably envies someone else's setup. The "best practice" you're chasing might be completely wrong for your organization.
Instead of chasing imaginary perfect procurement functions:
Know your constraints and work within them
Seek support but adapted to your context/needs
Focus on incremental wins that demonstrate value in context
Build your brand by making procurement painless for users
Yes, check benchmarks but only as one of many data points
Reinvest success into controlled expansion
Start Over
Remember: you're not trying to build the world's best procurement function...
You're trying to build the best procurement function for your organization.
That's a completely different challenge! And, the good news is, it’s a much more achievable one.
What constraint is holding your procurement function back the most right now? Hit reply and let me know.
I’d love to tell you what your competitors are doing…
You’ll realize it doesn’t make much sense in your context and get back to doing the hard work of digital transformation!
👀 In Case You Missed It…
The Last 3 Sunday Night Notes:
1/ Turning $300 Into $55,000 Overnight
2/ Nobody Wants an "Amazon-Like" Buying Experience...
3/ 10 AI Subdomains That Actually Matter in Procurement
Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.
Need Help Building Your Digital Procurement Roadmap?
I’ve been helping global procurement teams digitalize their processes and practices for 12+ years. Reply to this email to get a conversation started.You have something to share with our 10,000+ readers?
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See you next week,
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