Well, I should really term it 3-6 months in the life of… The day I am referring to is the time when I moved from being a Procurement Professional to becoming an Internal Sales Person for a supplier. The remit I had was to find the best solution for our organizational challenge of having too many suppliers, shoddy products, costs all over the place and too many people doing purchasing roles when they were supposed to be running and managing marketing campaigns. The project went off without a hitch (almost), chosen supplier signed on the dotted line after negotiations etc were completed and away we went. Then came the in-bedding of the supplier into the organization.
Now in most organization this would be where Procurement hands over the reins and day to day operations to the Operations Team. However, because I was so invested in the betterment of my own organization, I wanted to be involved post supplier on-boarding and because I knew about the challenges faced by other parts of the organization that this supplier could address, I became the supplier’s in-house sales person. I opened doors to the affected departments, introduced the supplier, their capabilities, how they have delivered to other areas already, etc. The reasons I could do this was a) I believed in the supplier and that they were the best supplier for our organization, b) I applied the idea from sales that it cost more money to recruit new customers than it would to broaden the usage of the current supplier and c) I made it my business to become acutely aware of my own colleagues’ challenges so that I was able to bring them solutions that could be implemented immediately and less costly d) because I had negotiated the deal, I was able to extend the same benefits to the new department rather than starting from scratch. I am proud to say that the contract is still in place and more than half a decade later, my ex-organization and colleagues are still benefiting from this excellent supplier.
The point here is to be a true Procurement Professional looking outside (supplier focus) is important, but of more importance is looking inside (my own organization). Identify what are my colleagues' unidentified challenges and bring a solution to them, not just for today, but for the long-term. An engineering colleague once said my contribution to them was 'they are fighting the war with bayonets and I bring them a machine gun'. Aaaah - a job well done!
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