Procurement on the sales radar
David Rae
3 Comments
You know that procurement is making waves when the sales guys start getting worried. And that’s just what’s happening over on Pipeline; a blog written by sales consultancy, Renbor.
“Let’s face it procurement or purchasing specialists, not people sales professionals want to deal with,” blog author Tibor Shanto writes. “There is no minimising the impact they have on sales and the success of sales professionals.”
Of that, there is no doubt, but Shanto has a lot to learn when it comes to getting the best out of procurement. “Trying to sell to them using conventional means is analogous to one trying to inflict pain to an inanimate object like say a stump, or someone with no nerves in their body,” he rants. “Since they are immune to value, your value prop will fall on deaf ears.”
Essentially, he claims that the best solution is to circumvent procurement entirely and find a more suitable person within the company who could then sell the product to procurement on their behalf.
Rather a complicated process, one can’t help think. Perhaps if sales professionals worked with procurement professionals on how their products or services can help both organisations grow, rather than trying to sell them something, they’d have a little more luck.
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Reader Comments (3)
First let me thank you for reading and commenting on my blog posting, always welcome. But I think you are misreading things, perhaps the quality of my writing, or perhaps indicative of the opportunity for better communications between sales and procurement.
The focus is that as a sales professional my objective is to deliver quality and value to my clients. The procurement professionals’ role is (I believe) to source quality and value for their organizations. That can only happen if all stakeholders are part of the process. That is not “circumventing” but being inclusive by engaging with the users and direct beneficiaries of the right decision. Unless you think procurement or a sales rep can make that decision without that input? Nor is it complicated, it may be work, but that’s what we get paid for, and frankly done well, we get paid well, so there is every incentive to do things right, rather than depend on luck.
Sadly the post was trying to highlight the futility of fighting one another and working towards a similar goal, hence the reference to the futility of conventional practices by sales people. I guess it also speaks to conventional practices of some procurement pros.
So I invite you to respond with specific tips as to how you we can work to the benefit of all without one being subservient to the process.
Just to clarify one other point, Renbor is not a sales software provider, I invite you to revisit and read a bit more or visit our main site at www.sellbetter.ca.
Tibor
Saying that, I couldn't help but take away a sense of negativity towards procurement, which, in many ways, is understandable. Procurement professionals can be short with any stakeholder they don't believe brings value. But that value can come in many forms.
One thing to understand about procurement is that the profession is gaining increasing influence in the business. They are being listened to more and more, and their role is becoming more strategic. If you speak to senior procurement execs, you will soon learn that cross-functional activity is increasingly active; whether this be procurement's presence in other functions or other functions' presence in the procurement department.
The relationship with suppliers is also absolutely key and is where the real cost savings and innovations come from; not from beating down a supplier on upfront cost. In fact, an increasing number of procurement execs speak directly to their suppliers' procurement departments to determine how they can help to better improve efficiencies.
In a recent interview with a procurement exec at Heinz, I was told how conversations with suppliers led to a real innovation in packaging (okay, it was the new plastic used by tomato sauce bottles). But the development, which gives Heinz a real competitive advantage, could only have come about with real collaboration between suppliers, procurement and production.
That, to me, is real collaboration and is the key to working well and selling more products. Not by going around the "chumpion" to the chumpion's boss.
I think you'll find a healthy argument between well trained sales professionals and well trained procurement professionals.
We get recognized and compensated to have you pay more for something and you get paid and compensated to pay less for something.
How can that environment NOT create conflict.
Now when I sell to a CEO who is in charge of maximizing shareholder value and when I can show them ways to greatly increase that value they are willing to share a reasonable portion of that increase in value with me.
That's an environment that creates alignment.
If you were a sales professional where would you spend more of your time?
Regards,
Craig Elias
Creator of Trigger Event Selling
Chief Catalyst at Shift Selling Inc.