CM GROUP
Chief
Procurement Officer CM Group talks platforms and people
learned a lot from the company , she missed having more involvement in different areas of the organisation . “ I kind of missed the crazy fast paced world of tech startups and wanted to go back to it . I like getting involved in tech startups and building procurement , policies , processes and procedures . I ’ ve done it four times now .”
Hodson has a really hands-on approach to procurement . She likes working with all the CM Group departments and has an understanding of all those back-office sort of functions that a lot of CPOs simply do not have the time to learn . She considers procurement to be a largely customer service-related role .
“ I ’ m customer facing in the sense that my co-workers are my customers . The employees within the CM Group come to me about a wide range of issues ; everything from buying laptops and keyboards to making sure we ' re buying the right software and services to help us run our business . I also deal externally with all the different vendors that we engage with daily .”
“ I make sure that the relationship makes sense for both parties . We have multimillion dollar contracts , so it ’ s important to engage with the right vendors and really understand what the organisation needs to be able to run the business effectively .”
Centralised Purchasing System She first joined the CM Group as it was being formed . “ When I joined , we merged three companies together which was the beginning of the CM Group .”
Hodson immediately identified that it was necessary to establish a centralised purchasing system to avoid a situation where the marketing department buys their own software , and the sales department purchase their own software . “ I wanted to avoid a situation where different departments are purchasing the same services , from the same vendors and with two contracts . That really doesn ’ t make sense to me . It was imperative
116 November 2021