The Struggle is Real, and It Continues

After over two decades working in this profession we call procurement, I have seen a lot of change.

And the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Today I found a very read-worthy article. Here it is:

Leaders Can No Longer Afford to Downplay Procurement

As I read the very on-point piece from the Harvard Business Review, I also had to sigh heavily.

This issue of recognizing the importance of procurement to the overall health of any business, both for profit and not for profit, is a real struggle and it’s still an uphill battle.

Sarbanes Oxley did much to force some recognition of the value of Procurement’s rigor. The recent recession did much to help executive leadership understand how Procurement can stretch budget dollars.

So the needle has moved on the dial a little bit. This article dated last month shows me that there is still much work to do.

This sentence hit me particularly hard (emphasis added):

Today’s corporations are directing more and more of their budgets toward a complex web of global specialist providers and suppliers to help deliver on their businesses’ core strategies. A recently released global study of nearly 2,000 publicly traded companies found that 69.9% of corporate revenue is directed toward externalized, supplier-driven costs.

69%! Wow. In my own company the Procurement organization runs just over 50% of the total institution budget. That is an eye-opening amount. And yet we are still working on our newest customer outreach program and still battling with rogue procurements and still begging our largest spenders to talk to us before they talk to any supplier.

Some get it. Some don’t.

We’re all still pushing that rock up a hill.

Don’t lose faith, fellow Procurement Heroes.

Image found here.