Event takeaways: Putting words into action

Key takeaways

• Future-proof your team by honing next-generation capabilities that may be laying dormant. A panel on procurement talent – which included leaders from Heineken, Nokia and Proxima – identified challenging, influencing and persuading, and internal and external networking as vital future skills.

• Be deliberate and proactive in building diversity into your team. Research indicates diversity and inclusion fosters happier and higher-performing teams.

• Develop role specialisations within your teams to encourage a long-term focus. Len DeCandia, CPO at J&J, said specialisation may give staff a greater sense of accountability and purpose, encouraging excellent execution.

Key takeaways

• Focus on the longevity of stakeholder relationships and pick your battles wisely. Rather than debate mismatched savings figures, BT group CPO Hari Sundaresan sets and rewards his buyers on targets that may not align with those recognised by finance.

• Crowdsource answers to your biggest problems from business partners; staff throughout the business often have the answers to procurement’s challenges. Leaders such as Siemens CPO Klaus Staubitzer have used employee forums to share ideas and accelerate digitalisation.

• Invest in technology and empower staff to challenge the function’s business partners. Insights derived from spend analytics tools enable procurement professionals to ask strategic questions such as: “Does this help to grow the business or could we spend money more wisely?”

Key takeaways

• Establish a formal governance process by which to clean, process and format data but accept it will never be 100% accurate. This will enable the function to quickly use and act on the information.

• Develop a clear six- or 12-month plan for how your digital processes and activities will fit into the existing corporate strategy. This will help secure support and resources to enable these activities without the distraction and complexity of long-term roadmapping.

• Focus on describing the benefits of digital solutions that augment procurement teams to neutralise their fear of replacement. This will help staff embrace the digitalisation process faster.