STATE OF FLUX
2014 GLOBAL SRM RESEARCH REPORT
ARTICLE 87
SO WHY IN PROCUREMENT ARE WE OFTEN FORGETTING THE GOLDEN RULE AND ITS SIMPLE GUIDING PRINCIPLE?
Procurement organisations are busier than ever before. Just look at your organisation’s simple statistics like the number of spend categories, or suppliers allocated to a single buyer, or the range of projects and stakeholders, and this tells you there is a lot to do in the ‘day job’. Then add in meeting prospective suppliers; stakeholder meetings; running RFIs, RFQs, RFPs and eAuctions; and don’t forget continuous improvement or process improvement projects. Procurement might have good reason to complain about being busy, but is that good enough reason to forget the simple guiding principles for a successful relationship? Howwould you react if your supplier didn’t return your calls or reply to your emails? Ignored your attempt to discuss improvement or innovation? Failed to give you feedback when requested to do so? Failed to do what they have promised to do? Had you working through the night or your holiday without a thank you? Cancelled an important meeting at
the last minute, or got up and left half way through?
Being sold to can be tiresome and over time it is easy to become cynical about supplier intentions. We would therefore coach suppliers to change behaviours as well. Indeed, having recently attended a conference of strategic account managers, I know that this shift from selling to creating value is high on their professional agenda. When I worked at a major appliance manufacturer, we used to have a saying that ‘you never know who is going to walk through the door with the next big thing’. And because of that there was a focus on listening, understanding the supplier’s story and treating themwell to get them to share these updates. Even if it amounted to nothing, we at least got a market update from the supplier.
SUPPLIER EXPERIENCES THAT SHOUT ‘WE DON’T CARE’
Below are a few examples of the types of behaviour suppliers are often subjected to:
Another supplier CEO flew eight hours for a meeting with amajor bank’s procurement representative, only to receive a request for a change of date half an hour before the meeting. When the CEO explained that he was in the car from the airport heading towards them for the original meeting, the procurement
The CEOs of a supplier and their agent were visiting the CPO of a large retail chain. At the end of the meeting both were put into the service lift! If that wasn’t bad enough
the man with the rubbish trolley also entered the lift, squashing each CEO on their respective sides of the lift. A supplier CEO tried for over six months to arrange a meeting with the CPO of a large food producer. When the CEO finally got to sit down with the CPO and one of his team dialled in on a call, the CPO (who had
representative grudgingly agreed to meet him, only then to keep him waiting an hour before coming down. Having been invited to lunch inwhat seemed like a consolatory gesture, the
supplier CEOwas then leftwith the bill and without a thank you.
These examples might seem a bit extreme, but they are real and not as uncommon as you might think. They
been on his Blackberry) announced after five minutes he had an urgent requirement to deal with. He promptly got up and left, leaving the supplier CEO to finish the call with the random staff member and then see himself out. To add insult to injury, there was never any apology or even message from the CPO.
highlight just some of the negative behavioural experiences that suppliers have to put up with (and I haven’t delved into the realm of unethical behaviour that some endure). I’m not saying suppliers are perfect, far from it, and I’m sure we can all come up with examples to highlight this. However, it’s our own behaviours we have the ability to change.
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