Category Archives: Training

Where is Procurement Headed?

Will Procurement ever graduate from the status of misfit toy to that of
one eyed one horned flying purple people eater?

Procurement is still the back room function in many organizations. The early achievers adopted new technology and new processes in the early to mid noughts. The leaders adopted new technology and new processes from the late noughts to the early teens. But the laggards are still on the fence. And not just because they are laggards — but because their organizations are laggards and not giving them the respect and support they deserve.

Let’s face it, with the vast majority of Procurement organizations not having a seat at the table, they are still being treated as a misfit toy. Graduating to the status of one eyed one horned flying purple people eater would be a grand accomplishment — if they could get there.

But first they need to be a rockin’ band. But in order to rock, they need instruments. Technology, which they don’t get budget for, processes, that they haven’t been trained on, and knowledge, that they don’t even know they need. And even if they could get the tools, processes, and knowledge that they needed, they still need to learn how to play in sync.

We’ll start with the second issue first. In order to learn to play in sync, they need training. Training that they never got, even when training was a top procurement survey issue for almost five years in a row. But this is not only hurting Procurement, it’s hurting the organization. Because if Procurement had the training, they would not only know how to play in sync, but they would have the knowledge. In particular, the knowledge they need to not only obtain great savings, and value, for the organization, but the knowledge they need to institute better processes, identify better technology, and convince the organization of the proper steps to achieve savings success.

Good training not only provides knowledge to execute, but knowledge to educate, and knowledge to entice the rest of the organization to follow your lead.

So if your Procurement organization wants to excel, it has to get training. If it can’t get it by hook (by getting it in the budget), then it has to get it by crook (PO now and take the consequences when the invoice come in later), or if there are no other options, with the personal check book (and replace the funds with the bonus you’ll get when the savings materialize). And only then will Procurement be a band of one eyed one horned flying purple people eaters.

We Don’t Need Licenses, We Need Knowledge!

There comes a time in every profession where someone goes beyond screaming the need for certification and starts screaming the need for licenses and self regulation, like Engineers, Lawyers, and Doctor’s have. It doesn’t always happen (and CIPS, no, not CIPS, CIPS failed when it tried to get ISP, no, not your ISP, the ISP certification a regulatory standard in Canada), but some people (either because they like the attention or, more commonly, want the dollars that will come their way as they already offer the certification that they want to see as the foundation for licensing) try anyway.

And while the dialogue is sometimes useful, because it usually results from a lack of appropriately skilled individuals to fill industry need, sometimes it isn’t. Where Procurement is concerned, it isn’t. The problem isn’t lack of regulation, it’s lack of knowledge. As implied by SI’s recent repost on Why Your Organization Can’t Find Top Supply Management Talent, it’s because there just aren’t enough talented individuals out there. And the reason, they just don’t know everything they need to know.

Why?

First of all, most people still see Global Supply Management as backroom Procurement, a function that is so unsexy that the only place in the organization that is worse is the mailroom. As a result, they don’t study Procurement or anything seen as related to it in College.

Secondly, even if they decide to retrain, they are looking at what they can train for quickly, easily through a plethora of courses, and be pretty much guaranteed of getting a placement. Most private colleges focussed on getting people to work quickly with 4 to 8 month programs focus on traditional accounting, IT support, medical transcription, physician / dentist office manager, etc. Procurement isn’t even on their radar. As a result, the (re)training (& certification) offerings are, with only a couple of exceptions, limited to the professional associations, which the average non-Procurement individual isn’t going to know about.

But third, and most critically, you don’t train your people! (And neither do your peers!) Year after year after year your organization will rank lack of talent as one of the three most critical Procurement issues, but year after year you will slash the training budget. If you want talented people, you need to start with knowledgeable people. And if you want the people to have the knowledge they need, you need to give it to them, because they’re not going to get it anywhere else.

And once they have the knowledge they need, they’ll have a much better chance at reaching the level of success you expect. So forget about licensing when the average individual doesn’t even have the knowledge to pass the most basic of certifications, and just give them the knowledge they need. And do it for free if you really want to effect a wide-spread change.

Procurement Trend #18. Improved Supply Management Skill Set

Fifteen anti-trends still remain but today we can take solace in the fact that we have finally finished with the “old news” anti-trends and have reached the “ongoing” blues anti-trends. While these anti-trends are still “old news”, most are only a few decades old, as opposed to some of the earlier trends we debunked which described situations encountered by many business centuries ago (which is when globalization really began).

So why do the modern historians continue to peg an improved supply management skill set as a future trend? Maybe it’s because they’ve only recently been expelled from an old-school Procurement organization into this brave new world, and this is as far as they’ve made it in their readings, but three likely reasons are:

  • technology is progressing rapidly

    and much faster than the average person can be reasonably expected to keep up with

  • the breadth of supply management continues to expand

    and new categories and responsibilities are often added to Supply Management’s (shared) purview on a regular basis

  • processes aren’t keeping up

    and Supply Managers are getting buried under an avalanche of tactical demands

So what does this mean?

Rapid Technology Progression

Your organization, and in particular, your talent, needs to keep up. Regular training is going to be required for your talent, and thus your organization to keep up. You will have to fight for this though, because despite the fact that it has been among the top three or top five concerns of most CPOs and CXOs for the past five years, the training budget is always the first budget to get cut.

Expanding Supply Management Breadth

This is a good thing, but you your Supply Management organization needs to keep up, not fall behind. The tech progression is a good starting point, the training is a good continuation, but you need to also learn other areas of the business – their language, processes, and goals so that you can collaborate with them, learn their wisdom, and, if possible, share the workload.

Processes Need to Move Out of the Past

Processes need to continually progress forward — that’s why SI is all about Transition management and not just focussed on the classic people-product-technology triangle (as it’s actually talent-technology-transition management). You will have to conduct process reviews not only on all Procurement processes, but on all related operational processes to determine if they can be made more efficient, reliable, or better, identify what new processes would look like, determine if the current technology platforms can support these new processes or if new platforms are needed, and create, and then execute on, appropriate transition plans.

What’s the Easiest Way to Save Another 220K or Even 498K per Person?

Get Certified!

According to the most recent Next Level Purchasing Association Purchasing & Supply Management Career & Skills Report, 2014 Edition, the average cost savings and avoidance per person per supply management department among the survey respondents was:

  • $1,175,319 per person if they were not certified
  • $1,396,972 per person if they were certified
      with a certification other than the SPSM
  • $1,673,096 per person if they were certified with the SPSM

The fact of the matter is simple. Certified people are trained people. Trained people have the knowledge and skills needed to apply the tools and resources they have at their disposal to the greatest extent possible. And, because they are trained, they get results.

But don’t take my word for it. Download the 2014 Purchasing & Supply Management Career and Skills Report today!

To download the 2014 Purchasing & Supply Management Career and Skills Report,

  1. Login to the NLPA,
  2. select the library tab, and
  3. the 2014 Purchasing & Supply Management Career and Skills Report is the 2nd report available for download.

Sourcing Innovation Welcomes Back Next Level Purchasing!

Sourcing Innovation is thrilled to welcome back Next Level Purchasing (NLP) as a lead sponsor. Next Level Purchasing, which has been offering on-line purchasing training since 2001, and purchasing / supply management certifications since 2004, is one of the few companies that shares SI’s passion for the continued education of Supply Management Professionals everywhere and that’s why it’s great to see NLP back on SI.

Plus, it’s SPSM (Senior Professional in Supply Management) certification is a groundbreaking offering in the Supply Management space. While the original SPSM certification, launched nine years ago, is fairly basic by today’s standards, it still defines the baseline skill set required by every Supply Management professional, a skill set that is not taught in most business programs and a skill set that didn’t even exist in the curriculums of the big Purchasing Associations, including the ISM, until five years ago (as the ISM did not launch it’s CPSM certification until 2008, four years after NLP introduced the SPSM)! Furthermore, since then, Next Level Purchasing, which recognizes that the Supply Management function has been in continuous change over the last two decades, has launched the SPSM2 and SPSM3 certifications (which are still unmatched in the big associations) which are designed to help a Supply Management Professional advance in her knowledge, skill sets, and career once she has mastered the basics. (And even though the SPSM3 was just launched, they are already in the early planning phases for the SPSM4 and when the need is there, they will be ready.)

Today is a great day to be welcoming back Next Level Purchasing as a lead sponsor. Today, Next Level Purchasing launches its 3rd annual salary survey. The survey, which is sponsored by Sourcing Innovation and which can be downloaded for free on Next Level Purchasing’s website, contains a lot of useful data on salaries by continent, education, years of experience, and certification for everyone in the purchasing profession. Some key findings include:

  • Managers in North America make almost 30% more than Buyers,
  • Purchasing Professionals with Bachelor’s or Master’s Degrees make, on average, 45% more than those with an Associate’s Degree or less, and
  • Purchasing Professionals WITH a certification make $12,250 more than those without a certification, and Purchasing Professionals with a SPSM certification make $15,549 than those without a certification!

In other words, when SI told you to train thyself because it would be worth it, if you train thyself (and get certified), you’re adding, on average, another $1,000 a month to your salary! (Considering that the basic SPSM Certification is only $1,149, this is definitely worth your time!)

To download the Free Salary Survey, log into the Next Level Purchasing Association (NLPA) member’s area and download the report from the What’s New tab. (Membership is free for all Supply Management professionals, so sign up if you are not a member!)

Plus, this year Next Level Purchasing, always looking to add to their educational offerings, launches the first Next Level Purchasing Association Conference. Being held this September, this conference, which will feature keynotes by leading analysts (including Andrew Bartolini of Ardent Partners and CPO Rising and Chris Provines of Value Vantage Partners and ChrisProvines.com), will be centered around a number of workshops designed to increase your Supply Management skills. Instead of the same-old same-old conference where you sit around all day listening to the same people speak over and over, this conference will focus on teaching you, which should put it on your short list as not many conferences these days seem to have that objective.*

Welcome back Next Level Purchasing!

That’s why you don’t find the doctor at many conferences these days!