Defining the role of "Head of Supplier Management"

Figure 1: Six pillars of successful Supplier Management

We often see a newly appointed Head of Supplier Management come in and focus on the Governance pillar, specifically segmentation and process. The challenge with this is that they haven’t taken their stakeholders (procurement/category managers, operational, executive and suppliers) with them on their journey. They also haven’t defined success or how to measure it and often they haven’t defined what supplier management means for their business; or explored what strategic drivers and challenges will motivate engagement. It's also very common that development of supplier management processes and supplier segmentation is done without business stakeholder input, and often written in ‘procurement speak’ rather than talking in the business’s language making it understandable and relatable for the very busy executive or operational stakeholder. Another common trap many fall into is that of running pilots or jumping straight to set up regular meetings with suppliers. ‘We just have to get something going’ or ‘I need a pilot to prove create the business case’. The challenge with this activity is it isn’t underpinned by proper, robust and formal supplier management practices. For example, the pilots are usually done in isolation, it is often bespoke to one supplier and does not follow a structured process. No 360° feedback is captured, and vary rarely is any joint account planning undertaken, and people are not trained in supplier management. Yes, there will be improvement in that relationship, but is it sustainable and repeatable across all strategic suppliers and do you have a strategy with the rest of the suppliers? We think the core focus for the Head of Supplier Management role should be on change management and ‘selling’. Yes, you heard that correctly, selling. Selling supplier management to the procurement team, selling to operational and executive

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