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Over the years, I have observed many different procurement teams across a range of industries.  Whilst most do a good job, only a handful do a GREAT job.  The team at Insider have spent some time researching this and would like to share with you our take on what those top performing procurement teams have in common.

If your procurement team took steps to reduce the total cost of ownership for a piece of equipment, they’d probably deserve a pat on the back (at least!).

But what if they took a further step and looked at the function of that piece of equipment and determined a better way?

Procurement teams are generally assessed on their ability to meet budgets.  But if they hit their target every time, does that mean they are really good at their job, or that the spend target is too easy to achieve?

Should you be asking your procurement team to cut costs even more, or should their success be more closely aligned with company goals and driving shareholder value?

Clearly, when margins have been cut back several times there comes a point where simple cost cutting cannot be achieved.  As a consequence, the more astute procurement teams focus instead on ways to impact total cost of ownership, overall profitability, business competitiveness, risk reduction and other elements that drive enterprise value.

To test whether your team has made that leap and moved away from the traditional procurement role into the more dynamic, mission-critical role that your business needs, try this simple checklist:

Most consulting firms work like this:

Everyone knows that for a business or function to be successful they need to hire great people. Unfortunately, the vast majority of managers and executives will also know the pain and angst created from a bad hire. From having someone in the business who didn’t fit the culture, couldn’t deliver and/or negatively impacted on those around them.

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.