Procurement, or in other words, the acquisition of goods and services necessary for running a business is probably one of the most important business processes in today’s corporate landscape. Unlike simple one-time purchases, procurement takes a much more strategic approach to the whole matter, puts greater emphasis on the value of the products, and uses a series of steps like analytics and competitive bidding to get the necessary good.
If this process is conducted poorly or unnecessarily drags out, all other facets of your company will inevitably be brought to a halt.
So, it is in your best interest to make effective procurement one of your top priorities. And to do that, you can assemble a team of effective and highly skilled people. Let us take a look then at a couple of tips that should help you assemble and empower such a crew.
Put a strong emphasis on the hiring process
Setting up an effective team starts with the recruitment process, so be sure to get to know all candidates as much as possible before making a final decision. In order to do that, you will first need to avoid some of the common recruitment mistakes like looking for the perfect candidate and focusing too heavily on previous experience and professional chops. Procurement requires a lot of soft skills like focus, organization skills, negotiation skills, tenacity, and countless traits that are much harder to work out than traditional business techniques. In that case, be ready to fill in the knowledge gaps yourself.
Leverage onboarding and training
Most business owners look at these important processes as liability and something that should be, if possible, avoided. However, both onboarding and training sessions are a tremendous asset that makes sure your candidates have just the skills they need to perform the procurement process with the highest possible efficiency. These sessions also give you an opportunity to observe your employees as unique individuals with personal and professional traits you can decide to refocus, encourage, or discourage at your will. Skipping on this valuable process puts you and your organization at a serious disadvantage.
Provide your crew with the best tools
These asses should be introduced as early as the onboarding. Much like any other critical business sector, procurement now features a whole plethora of tools designed to make the employees’ lives easier. Providing them with the platforms like Robobai Managed Services that drastically speed up the handling of third-party data, analytics, and supply chain management will help your procurement team to approach their tasks with much greater confidence. As time goes on, this newfound conviction will also allow your crew to handle their tasks more proactively and engage in more effective decision-making.
Build connections between team members
In ideal circumstances, your team should be as diverse as possible and feature people from different age groups, backgrounds, and social circles. This diversity will open doors to creative thinking and different approaches. But, for that to be possible your team members need to have full confidence in each other and be able to communicate in a clear and effective manner. Solutions to this challenge can be found in team-building exercises, shared social activities, as well as clear and streamlined communication channels. Also, be sure to put the effort into nurturing cross-organizational collaboration in the same manner.
Set clear goals and rewards
Your procurement team will be able to score much stronger results if their efforts have some sense of direction. That is why you should set before them a very clear set of specific and measurable objectives and the milestones they need to pass to get there. Some sort of bonus or other forms of reward should help them pass this road faster, so be sure to utilize this strategy as well. Keep in mind though that the reward system you will set up needs to be transparent, and consistent, ask employees for feedback, and always offer recognition in front of the team. This way, you will motivate the whole crew to push harder.
Help employees keep up with global trends
Last but not least, we would like to remind you of one of the most common mistakes made by new procurement teams and that is focusing too heavily solely on local suppliers. In this day and age, we are living in a highly globalized world where peaking past your local boards and looking is not only possible but can also prove to be quite beneficial. Furthermore, disruptive events occurring on the global stage sooner than later send ripples through the local markets. Keeping track of these global trends will help your procurement staff to anticipate the subsequent local events and make more educated decisions.
So, there you have it – the top six strategies you can use to assemble your new procurement team and help these professionals to work with a high level of motivation, confidence, and engagement. The present-day business world is very fast-paced and competitive. With things as they are the success of your business may depend on its ability to get access to the goods it needs and do that in the most cost-effective manner. Keep then in mind everything we have talked about above – any mistake you make in this regard can cause severe issues further down the road.
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