It’s official: “An organization cannot survive without its supply chain. Procurement has always had a central role to corporate success.” This is a critical conclusion of a new survey from KPMG LLC.

But it also creates a challenge for you.

Many businesses are more worried about costs than how you can flex your muscles and help. Some Purchasing and Procurement pros say their biggest hurdle is overcoming indifference by certain key decision makers.

But here are the facts:

• As Procurement becomes more centralized, its control over a company’s Purchasing is steadily growing.
• Day-to-day purchasing decisions are increasingly becoming a fundamental Procurement function at 54% of businesses, compared with recent estimates of 45%, and
• Procurement pros are grabbing a growing piece of spending control for businesses, increasing their decisionmaking power from half to two-thirds.

What can you do to secure the place you deserve at your company’s table?

First, it helps that 75% of execs say procurement issues are a high or very high priority for their company.

But at the same time, there’s a perception among “other” departments that Procurement doesn’t have a clear understanding of how the rest of the company operates.

Fortunately, there are three areas targeted by the survey that can help you focus efforts to improve your profile. Procurement’s managers offered advice behind their answers:

• Sell yourself and your abilities. A lack of interest in the insights Procurement can bring to the table was cited by 54% of survey respondents.
• Offer your expertise. Show ‘em you’re the real pro when it comes to making major purchases for your company. Procurement experts said they were left in the cold on big buys 44% of the time.
• Show ‘em your open-minded. Procurement pros – 41% — worry that other departments accuse them of being balky when it comes to making changes.

One success story cited by the survey report:

Procurement demonstrated its ability to be a big player in developing innovations that helped the company. How did they do it? Supply managers took the initiative to further develop their relationships with critical suppliers to improve products and processes. 

Tags: procurement, procurement issues, purchasing