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Consulting careers in procurement offer some of the most interesting and well remunerated roles in the procurement world.  But what does it take to become a "Rockstar Procurement Consultant"?

We shared some of our secrets of Disruptive Procurement at our recent webinar.  If you missed it, here's you opportunity to catch up....

A lot has been written about how the Internet of Things (IOT) and other innovations will impact supply chains. In recent times we've seen some significant supply chain innovations that help reduce cost, increase velocity and generally smooth logistical aspects of the supply chain.

But what about innovation in the supply chain?  Harnessing innovation in the supply chain can lead to all kinds of possibilities from highly competitive new product offerings through to business growth.

Work uniforms by their very nature are not redesigned very often. The upfront costs mean that uniform designs remain in place for considerable time, and whilst procurement teams can look at alternative sources, there is often little room for any creative adjustments.

Often, the only choice a buyer feels they have is to look for alternative sources of the same thing and manage to squeeze some cost reduction.  But there are better ways.....

If you think that your chocolate bar is smaller than when you were a kid then you are probably right. In November 2016, Mondelez the makers of Toblerone increased the spacing between the famous triangular chunks in order to reduce the weight by 10%, and at the same time Mars made a whopping 15% reduction in Maltesers. That’s considerably fewer round balls of chocolatey joy in each pack!

Then, in September 2017, there was a twitter storm when McVities reduced the size of packs of Jaffa Cakes from 12 to 10.

Cultural fit is something that is talked about and widely understood in the context of human resources.  According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) the impact of a poor cultural fit on turnover can cost an organisation between 50-60% of the person’s annual salary.

1 – If you know you can get better margins and maintain or improve supplier performance easily

Of course, if you know how and where to get better margins without compromising on specification, quality or delivery then there is little point asking for outside help.

But to truly ‘know’ margin or performance can’t be improved is a high standard of proof. How sure can you be that there isn’t a better option and that your competition is already ahead of the game?

In recent years there has been a plethora of digital tools to help procurement teams be more productive – eProcurement software to enable all employees to make requests and even place their own orders against pre-agreed contracts; eTendering solutions to reduce administration and simplify the process of gathering and analysing tenders and more.