Oh, you’re in Procurement…so what do you do exactly?

eye glasses sitting on a mouse pad

Have you ever told someone you’re a Procurement Professional, and then spent the next 20 minutes explaining what a Procurement Professional does?

 

Why is it that doctors and lawyers can simply say they’re doctors or lawyers and leave it at that…but as Procurement Professionals we turn ourselves into pretzels trying to justify our reason for existence?

 

One of the reasons is because the procurement industry, and we ourselves as Procurement Professionals, haven’t done a good job of defining our role in an organization

 

Remember, if you don’t define your role then somebody else will do it for you

 

So if your internal clients think your job is to get quotes, cut POs and make sure invoices get paid…those are the only things they’ll want your help with

 

But if you can articulate and, more importantly, demonstrate your understanding of your organizations competitive market positioning

 

And how you’re responsible for aligning the supply chain with the organizations goals and objectives

 

Then getting quotes and cutting POs isn’t who you are, it’s just some of the MANY things you do as a Procurement Professional

 

No here’s the catch…saying and doing are two very different things

 

So before you start telling your colleagues about secondary sourcing strategies to mitigate offshore supply chain risk

 

Or why it’s important to implement formal vendor management and category management programs in your organization

 

You should also have the skillset to do actually these things

 

And to help with that, we just launched new Strategic Sourcing Essentials eLearning course I co-developed with my friend and colleague, Mark Morrissey

 

Mark and I cover 6 modules in the course:

 

  1. Aligning Strategic Sourcing with corporate goals and objective
  2. Competitive Positioning and Supply Chain Risk
  3. Leading Class Practices
  4. Vendor Management
  5. Negotiation Strategies
  6. Case Study – Process Transformation

 

You can go through the course at your own pace, and when you’ve completed it and submitted your responses to the final case study, you’ll receive a digital certificate of completion

 

You’ll also have access to the course for 1 year so you can always go back and review any of the modules or chat with your peers that are also taking the course

 

And if you’re in a team of 3 or more people, you can take advantage of our corporate rates

 

2020’s been a tough year and many people didn’t get a chance for any meaningful professional development

 

Well this is a chance to, not only tick a box on your year-end review, but actually build on your skillset as a procurement professional

 

For more information you can visit our website

 

Thanks and hope to see you in the course,

Mohammed 

 

 

 

 

 

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