Procurement in a VUCA World

In this episode of Procurement Reimagined, host Daniel is joined by Dave Jones, Co-Founder of Procmentum Limited. Dave shares his insights on managing procurement in the current VUCA environment and how the role of procurement is evolving in these uncertain times.

He also shares tips on how procurement team members can optimise their career paths by carefully selecting the CPOs they choose to work with. 

Dave has over sixteen years of leadership in the procurement space across retail, telecom, media, and consultancy. He is an MCIPS and passionate about technology procurement and the pace that drives it.  He runs his own procurement consultancy firm and is also the co-founder of the Proctopus Community.

Key Highlights:

• 02:32 - 05:28 - Challenges of 2022 - Dave shares that 2022 was a year characterised by inflationary challenges from the supplier side and cost reduction from the organisational stakeholders. At the heart of this dichotomy was the issue of availability. Supply chain disruptions led to a shortage of critical components within the EU, as 70% of the gas required to make these components comes from Russia and Ukraine. It, therefore, became essential to do a fact check on which suppliers had ownership in the region, and it was equally essential to identify alternative suppliers for the critical components.
• 07:48 - 09:08 - Evolution of Procurement in 2022 - The scope of procurement gained additional breadth in 2022. The role evolved from just running the procurement process to a broader range of functions, including risk management and governance. Contract management across business functions came to the forefront, and the change gave procurement a chance to demonstrate its value to organisations.  It was also a time to identify the vendors who would go the extra mile to sustain the relationship.
• 10:23 - 12:24 - Advice for Procurement Professionals - Dave offers two pieces of advice for procurement professionals in 2023. The first is for them to conduct an internal audit to establish their sphere of influence based on the outcomes they can affect directly. The next is to evaluate their CPOs to see how effective they are. Are they willing to take risks for long-term gains, and are they forward-focused? According to Dave, only twenty to thirty percent of CPOs meet these criteria, and these are the leaders procurement professionals should seek to work for.

Quotes:

• “Supplier Relationship management is key today; building close relationships with suppliers is critical because it’s a suppliers market”. 
• “Only twenty to thirty percent of CPOs are risk takers, and their teams show the best results for the organisation and individual team members”.
• “The breadth of procurement has increased to include processes like risk management and governance”.