The Chicken or The Egg

Or, the obfuscation perpetrated by consulting companies.

So, the folks over at AT Kearney put together a study, ostensibly, “What Makes Procurement Leaders Different?“

Ok, good. What is the difference between a rock solid procurement organization and a weak group?

Here we go:

Leaders control more spend, and save more money.

: crickets chirping :

Oh really?

So…you are saying that…by controlling more of their company’s spend, that makes you a leader?

Or are you saying that once you are a leader, you then control more company’s spend?

Which is it? You can’t have it both ways!

There’s even a fancy graph! (because a consultant can’t write a report without one)

The article goes on to talk about collaboration, sustainability, risk management and other factors, but the chicken and egg situation is never really addressed. And I’m hung up on it.

This is another consultant driven article, sadly, that I’ll ignore. All these types of things are really sales and marketing pieces.

They say “leaders” manage 70% of a company’s spend. As a procurement manager, I’ll look at my own percentage, see that it’s well below 70%, freak out, and then hire AT Kearney at exorbitant rates to come tell me why I’m not a procurement leader.

And thus a free market was born. Fair enough.

But I’m not buying it, sorry. Cold call the next guy.