Oh the great and mighty reference

Sitting in on a call today with The Client while we make a reference call to a current customer of a supplier we are considering using for a REALLY big project.

I think everyone would agree a reference check is a good idea, but then again, would any supplier ever give a reference name of someone they thought *wouldn’t* say anything but nice things?

So what kind of questions do you ask to see what is the real story behind all of this?

I can’t answer that. Or the answer is “it depends”. It’s a lot of listening close to what is being said and tuning in to what is NOT being said.

Ye old “read between the lines”.

I think the best tool a Procurement person has is both ears. Listen to what your suppliers say. Question what doesn’t “feel” right.

Second best tool? A calculator. No really. When a supplier hands you a quote, add up the numbers.

I have found MORE mistakes that way. And even if the numbers add up, it sets suppliers back on their heels. Lets them know Procurement is watching.

But back to the point. This call isn’t with the supplier. It is with another customer. Less on my guard but more inquisitive. And listening a lot more closely.

When they say things like, “The relationship has been pretty good over the years,” you could just let that go.

Or you could ask, “Pretty good? What would have made it really good?” or something like that.

All about listening. And not being afraid to ask the hard questions.

Ah well, back to it.

They zig. I zag.

It’s a never ending dance. As soon as I think I got all the Procurement stuff down, the suppliers toss another curveball my way.

I’ve spent most of this morning reviewing a software license agreement. No problem, right? This is what I do for a living. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all.

Nope.

Today I got a new licensing model on my hands and I’m not sure how to deal with it…or even negotiate it.

Nine times out of ten, software gets licensed on a perpetuity basis. Meaning I buy it and can use it as long as I buy maintenance. Or if I don’t buy maintenance, I can use it at the last version I had under maintenance for, well, ever.

This has always been an appealing model for The Company. Especially on some of our dog servers running small but critical applications. We have one server that is so unstable, NO ONE wants to bounce it in order to put a new version of a particular software on it. And the software helps run an application that, while not business critical, matters. So we use that “perpetuity” thing to the fullest extent. The version on there is about five years old. Well past end of life but still, it works, so no one wants to kick over a rock. So we don’t. The uptime stats on that machine are phenomenal.

Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of annual licensing deals. Meaning you have license to the software for the sum total of one year. And at the end of the year, you owe not just maintenance but also more licensing fees.

Let me be blunt: I hate this model. It is, truly, a blatant attempt to churn more annual revenue stream for suppliers who didn’t do a good job pricing maintenance in the first place. They know they can’t just arbitrarily up the cost of maintenance. Nope, now you have to relicense it every year. And if you don’t re-up, you lose your rights to use the software.

But I’ve seen this one plenty. I know the dance and all the steps.

Today, however, I am sitting here astounded. I read the contract presented by The Client yesterday. And as I did, I furrowed my brow. I called the supplier. They explained it to me three times.

Here’s the model: Software license for five years with annual maintenance. Then, at the end of five years, if you wish to keep using the software, you pay annual licensing fees.

What?!?! Is that dipping a little from column A and a little from column B?

I don’t have any sort of basis for reference on this. Where do I even begin on all the ways this is wrong.

AND they want 22% maintenance every year! This is not rocket launching software!

Shocked! Appalled!

Not even sure where to begin.

Anyone else seen this kind of thing? Ping me, I’m listening.

I’m off to call my colleagues. Someone’s gotta have a good idea.

Oh those tricky suppliers, they have more moves than Fred Astaire. And my job as a responsible, respectable and concerned Procurement person? Just keep dancing.

Ah one ah and ah two ah………

Chaos

I am out of the office one day. ONE DAY!! And all hell breaks loose.

Back in the saddle today and it’s going to be a doozy.

Legal is fighting with one of my contracting folks. It’s a ridiculous issue. And I get to mediate. I can tell you right now who I’ll back. I’d pick my employee to negotiate a contract the penalty for which was my life. I would not use my legal person to negotiate the purchase of a stick of gum. Not all lawyers are created equal. The Company has some of the best, bar none. But not this one. So it’s game on.

It might get ugly.

And then it would appear one of my suppliers has lost their mind. Due to budget cuts, we had to pare down the scope of the work we require they perform. And said supplier has now taken to blanketing The Company with petulant emails. CC’ing every executive he can think of.

This must stop. This will be less ugly, but more energy draining.

Evidently I’m not allowed to leave, not even for a day.

That ain’t right. Must be time for me to think more sincerely about my succession planning. Someone to crack the whip when I can’t be there to apply the pain personally.

Until then…let the beatings begin.

Benchmarking

Ah yes. That. The big buzzword and the current rallying cry of my VP.

I have been at The Company for almost ten years. I think I forgot how the other guys did it. Mainly because they did it badly.

Forgettably.

Tomorrow is about networking (hard for a crusty Procurement guy like me) and seeing if somebody at a company somewhat like The Company is willing to help. I can come back with a handful of business cards and email addresses I can ping to ask how to get ‘er done.

And with that I can check off my annual goal of “benchmarking”.

It still won’t get me a big raise. The Company doesn’t believe in such things.

Oh well. It’s good meeting I’m attending. This old dog can always learn something.

Threat Level: Ba-KAA!

Ah the insanity of a fiscal quarter end. Heck, this isn’t even the “busy” quarter, and yet, the ramp up is in full swing.

Every PR I review is marked *hot* with more or less asterisks depending on how flipped out the client is…or how much their boss is yelling at them.

Does a ****hot**** get placed twice as fast as a **hot**? Good question. One I can’t answer. I just click “approve” and let the buyers deal with it.

Then I hit “refresh” and ten more PRs magically appear in my inbox. Long afternoon.

You’d think after all these years I’d be used to this. But it still wearies me, this the last minute freakout. The chickens with head’s cut off running around taxes my already hardworking team on a Friday afternoon. But it’s what we do. Heroic feats of contractual success.

Another day, more proof of the Value of Procurement.

Shrewd?

Was on the commute shuttle the other afternoon talking to one of my team’s newest clients. He’s been at the company a couple years. His team used to sit near us, but he’s not had occasion until recently to interact with Procurement on an official basis.

He needs a pretty big software package and one of my contract folks is working her you-know-what off for to get it for him.

So The Client says to me “Oh, Jane Doe works for you, right?”

“Yes,” I replied, “Is she doing a good job for you?”

“Oh YES!” he said enthusiastically. “She’s great. She’s really in there negotiating with the supplier. I can’t believe what she says to them!”

I just smiled the proud smile of a happy manager.

“Jeez, I don’t know how you guys do that, I mean, you are such shrews. I just can’t do that.”

So my brain stumbled. Did he just call my team of take no prisoner, rock star, contracting women a bunch of shrews? Geez, they scare ME…but I’d never let ‘em know it!

So I chose to reinterpret it as “shrewd” and said,

“Well, that’s why you work with Procurement. Negotiating is our job.”

“Really?” he replied, seemingly surprised.

Now I was surprised. Did he NOT know that?

“Yeah, see, our job is to negotiate the best deal for you so you don’t have to. That’s what we do.”

“Well, I’m glad you do. I just don’t have the stomach for it.”

And once again, the Value of Procurement.

Dog and cats, living together*!

Can Sales Weasels and Procurement ever really be friends? Is that possible? Or is it a sign of the pending apocalypse?

That is a question that’s been on my mind since late last week.

I had occasion to sit in on a meeting with an up-and-coming supplier we are considering working with. They really have something going for them, to be sure. Post-IPO stock price is a bit low, however, due to some recent legal issues.

And those issues were why the folks were in the room, including one of their founders and C-level guys and their Sales VP. They were filling the room full of fluff and smoke about how “everything is juuuuuust fine”. Uh huh.

The Client seemed to be buying it. Along with our management. Hook. Line. Sinker.

So being who I am and doing what I do, I piped up.

“Ok, what you are saying is all well and good, but as the Procurement person in the room, I’ve got some concerns. How are you going to account for this if we end up doing a contract and you lose your court battle?”

VP Sales Weasel brightened and said, “Ah, Procurement! I love working with Procurement!”

To which I, appropriately, scowled.

“Nobody likes working with Procurement” I snapped, full of skepticism.

“No, truly! We enjoy working with Procurement. They are the people who get things done. They help us.”

Either this guy is REALLY good at blowing smoke up my pants leg, or he’s a rare breed of cat who actually gets it.

And as I’ve said before, when you have a Sales Weasel who gets it, it makes ALL the difference.

Whether this is smoke or reality remains to be seen.

Just in case it’s reality, better plan now for the plagues of locusts…..

*Yes, I’m quoting Ghostbusters and I’m not ashamed.

Exponential

Oh, good times today at The Company.

Came in to work this morning to a flurry of emails.

You know it’s not going to be a good day when you see twenty emails with “re:” preceding the same title over and over. The list grows exponentially as the minutes pass.

Being as how we’re a global company, there was a little telco trouble overnight. The UK boys tipped us off and filed a trouble ticket somewhere during the time early this morning when I was having a crazy dream about being lost in a corn maze, but that’s another story for another time.

The telco company tripped, and failed to reply to a critical outage…for, uh, eight hours.

That’s bad.

But what does that mean for me, the Procurement Person?

Emails are flying my direction demanding I turn to the Service Level Agreement (SLA) section of the contract and tell them how much pain we can inflict on this neglectful carrier.

Now any good Procurement Person knows…SLA’s are really only to make the customer “feel good”, rarely do they have actual teeth. And Gods of Procurement help you if you actually have to invoke them.

So I have to find some way to strike a balance. Make my angry client feel better like there is some retribution for this poor performance, but set their expectations very *low* as to what that might actually be.

‘Tis gonna be a long day.

Oh, there goes my email chime again.

When do I get my arrogant stripes?

Ok, maybe “arrogant” is too harsh, but go with me here.

There is a manger at the company who is really impressed by his own title. He’s angling for the title that belongs to his boss and isn’t shy about it.

He runs his team with an iron fist and a raised voice.

To be fair, he gets results, but at the cost of burning out good people.

His team is considered clients of my team and as such, I’m invited to attend his staff meetings. Which, as a procurement person, is a HUGE accomplishment. So I’m grateful.

Right now I’m sitting in said staff.

And here’s my gripe.

Senior Executive Guy, Captain Holler, Mister Type A Drive You Crazy isn’t here today.

Has a scheduled day off.

But he *insists* that we, his devoted minions, have his staff meeting anyway, in his absence.

Now, these staff meetings aren’t for US. They are for HIM…to yell at us…publicly.

It’s the height of arrogance. “I won’t be there but I demand you meet anyway.”

So we do.

How high does my title have to get to command this kind of ridiculousness?

At what level of The Company are frivolous demands met?

I wanna know. Cuz it sure ain’t where I’m at…

Bad dog!

I am a bad, bad Procurement professional. Naughty.

I was invited to a demo today with a supplier and many, many techie clients.

They were all giddy about this new technology. It’s used by Big Time Competitor of The Company, so thus we must have it too.

So I sat through interminable slides. Breathless descriptions of the whatsits and thing-a-ma-bobs.

The techie boys asked questions. Posed situational queries. Gave opinions. Geeked out.

What did I do? I counted ceiling tiles. Checked email, repeatedly, on my data device. Sighed. Tried to follow the conversation, got bored again, then checked personal email.

I truly am grateful that I got invited to this, the first meeting with the supplier. I’m so often left off until it’s as good as bought, so I tried not to be too obvious in my boredom.

My job at that point is to 1) Give my clients the stink eye if they become *too* giddy…sales weasels sniff that like a shark smells blood, 2) Smack down the supplier when they start making offers I know we can’t take (golf? tickets to the game? trip to Cancun?), and 3) take a few notes because if the client wants the stuff being shilled, I’ve got my work cut out for me.

I am not the kind of Procurement person who needs to know a lot about what I’m buying. I have clients to help me if I get stuck. I just need to know what it does, why we need it and how much is it going to cost.

This was a rare invite to sit at the table, so I probably should have made a better showing. End of the day, when the sales weasel leaves and the clients tug at my garments like kids at Christmas, I’ll go out and get them the best deal in town.

It’s what I do. And that gets me invited back to the table.