Ray Slayford, Partner, KPMG in Australia: I think corporate departments and procurement departments and CPOs have an opportunity to elevate their profile. We often talk about becoming a strategic procurement function versus a tactical cost reduction procurement function. Some of the ways they can go about that is raising their profile internally within the organisation across other executives. It’s taking a broader value based approach versus a traditional cost based approach. And it’s also demonstrating the skills to do analytics; to do change management and project management which allow them to participate and operate at the more strategic initiative level versus a tactical operational level.
Charlie Whitworth, Senior Manager, KPMG in Canada: So, the advice I give to procurement functions who want to enhance their profile internally is to get out and talk to the rest of the business. And, understand the rest of the business’ requirements, constraints, issues, problems, and then find solutions, procurement solutions, to help them with those problems.
Richard Nixon, Partner, KPMG in the UK: Number one, understand what is the business strategy and what’s the role I’ve got to play within that. It’s going to be about much more than cost. It’s going to be about capability; it’s going to be about value; it’s going to be about what’s the right target operating model I should have. Is it centralised or decentralised? And, it’s also about doing the day-to-day operational stuff really well. So, how effective is my purchase to pay process; how well am I handling supplier problems and that kind of thing.
Oliver Klein, Senior Manager, KPMG in Germany: And in the end, you have to demonstrate that you’re adding value and once you do, do good and talk about it, and use the positive examples from the past to create confidence in the organisation.
Our global Procurement professionals discuss key themes from the survey:
