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Figure 11: WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING CAPABILITIES DO YOU BELIEVE NEED IMPROVEMENT IN THE PROCUREMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN TEAM OF YOUR ORGANISATION?
Market and commodity knowledge
46.2%
Negotiation skills
42.3%
eSourcing
41.3%
Supplier performance management
38.5%
Project management
35.6%
Supply chain risk management
31.7%
Contract management
30.8%
Category management
26%
Commercial awareness
25%
Supplier relationship management
23.1%
Sourcing skills
17.3%
Other
3.8%
0
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
Aside of the technical and process capability of a procurement function, we believe that interpersonal skills are equally important. Procurement professionals interact with multiple departments within an organisation and skills such as building trust and good relationships internally and with suppliers are essential. We also believe it is necessary to recognise the importance of context when delivering training. Skills should be taught using realistic day-in-the-life scenarios to make training relevant, meaningful and immediately transferable to the job. Procurement processes Procurement Governance is based on a set of policies and procedures that ensure consistency in the application of standard processes and provide guidance to internal users. Documented procurement policies can prove very useful in the event of staff turnover and for training purposes, as well as for reference. Furthermore, written policies provide the basis for mandating certain practices and behaviours and monitoring compliance against them. Procurement processes should not be restricted to the purchase of products and services, but include the management of spend and commodities, the management of contracts and risks and the through-life management of suppliers. The majority of the organisations in our survey have put in place the basic operational processes such as a spend approval policy (88.7%), a procurement policy (75.5%) and a procurement-to-pay process (71.7%).
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