PROCUREMENT STRATEGY
PRACTICAL GUIDANCE FOR PROCUREMENT TRANSFORMATION
For procurement leaders beginning their own transformation journeys, Iris offered three bits of advice.
First, accept that transformation takes time.“ Take it step by step and try to find your internal stakeholders,” she advised.“ You cannot do it alone and don’ t try to do it in one year, it is going to take you a bit of a time.”
Second, acknowledge difficult factors: data limitations and budget constraints.“ Budget’ s always tied to procurement and especially for these kinds of initiatives,” she noted. Work within constraints whilst pushing for progress.
Third, identify allies who can help maintain focus. Internal stakeholders in sustainability, commercial and operations functions can all play crucial roles. Customer pressure provides powerful ammunition for keeping strategic procurement initiatives resourced and prioritised.
Driving innovation through procurement Strategic procurement increasingly means stimulating market innovation rather than selecting from existing options.
When a customer sought recyclable solar panels for a car park project, EQUANS did not have an existing supplier which could deliver this solution.
“ They wanted to have solar panels that could be recyclable because that’ s the problem with solar panels is that they are really hard to recycle,” Iris explained. The procurement team sourced a new local Dutch supplier capable of providing this innovation.
The project was not cheap –“ it was really six figures a month” – but the customer wanted to pay for it, while it enabled EQUANS to meet a specific customer requirement and differentiate its offering.
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