A recent article over on Material Handling & Logistics on Key Elements of Sustainable Procurement Strategy outlined for key strategies for sustainable procurement that were on point:

• A Holistic Approach
• Data Integration
• Pay it Forward
• Stakeholder Engagement

But meaningless if you don’t have the basics in place:

• trained talent
• well defined processes
• solution-oriented systems

Trained Talent

All of the above, and all of the other key elements of a strategic procurement strategy not listed, require talent to execute. Talent that is appropriately educated, experienced, and trained on all of the key elements appropriate to your organization. With respect to the above:

• talent needs to define the right holistic approach
• talent needs to identify the critical data, formats, and integration strategy — and make sure it is done effectively
• only talent can handle delicate supplier relationships to make sure it is truly paid forward
• shareholders need to be engaged effectively, and that requires real talent

Well Defined Processes

Statements, directions, and mandates don’t accomplish anything. Neither do people without an appropriately designed and detailed plan — which goes well beyond we’re going to engage supplier S or buy product P. Procurement success rates are high when there are well thought out and appropriately defined processes that can be followed by all those involved in a project or process, and generally low otherwise. Moreover, without well defined processes:

• there is no holistic approach, it’s just a buzz phrase
• data integration is just a one time pull into a system or push into a warehouse, and it gets outdated faster than fashion on Melmac
• it takes more than smooth talk to pay it forward, it takes processes that ensure knowledge is transferred to, effort is minimized for, and real collaboration takes place with suppliers — it takes processes to make sure nothing critical is overlooked that could hamper the organization’s goals
• while talent is the most critical to stakeholder engagement, good processes are critical to ensuring requirements and data is efficiently collected and retained (as a stakeholder should never have to make the same request or provide the same input twice) and no concern is overlooked

Solution Oriented Platforms

Sustainable Procurement ultimately relies on appropriately trained talent executing well designed processes with the help of platforms that help them do the jobs they need to do on a daily basis. Platforms that automate the tasks and solve the problems the organization has, not platforms that do nothing but act as fancy middleware or slap roll-the-bones AI-assisted conversational interfaces on top of software that never worked in the first place. Sustainable Procurement requires that the procurement department be able to get stuff done. That will rarely be AI, or spend orchestration, or the buzzword of the day.

• orchestration may sound like it supports a holistic approach, but all those systems do is tie systems together that actually do the work through a common interface, which, in its attempt to homogenize everything, often weakens the solutions for the individuals that need to use them the most; a holistic approach is about getting things done with systems that get things done
• you can’t integrate data without the right platforms that collect, process, and normalize the right data the right way
• it’s a lot easier to pay it forward when you have the right platforms that support the processes and the people who need to pay it forward
• it’s easier to manage stakeholder engagement on systems designed to support the stakeholders in question, in contrast to one-size-fits-all (but serves no one) “orchestration” systems

In other words, if you truly want sustainable procurement, start with making sure the foundations are in order. The rest will follow in a straight-forward manner once you have the basics right.