{"id":13828,"date":"2021-11-15T18:10:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-15T18:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/enable.local\/?p=13828"},"modified":"2026-03-03T12:33:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T17:33:42","slug":"5-priorities-procurement-professionals-cant-ignore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enable.com\/resources\/articles\/5-priorities-procurement-professionals-cant-ignore\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Priorities Procurement Professionals Can&#8217;t Ignore"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.prod.website-files.com\/61eee558e613794aa8a7f70c\/655738d4cbe7f99f96278784_5-priorities-procurement-professionals-cant-ignore.avif\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As a procurement professional, you make dozens of decisions every day concerning vendor selection, contractual terms, supply chain risk, technology implementation, and stakeholder management.&nbsp;You\u2019re often forced to manage conflicting objectives and make important choices under pressure, while always being cautious to balance risk.&nbsp;With this in mind, here&nbsp;are 5 priorities procurement can\u2019t ignore as they navigate the &#8216;new normal&#8217;.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Delivering value&nbsp;<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>The primary goal for a procurement professional is to deliver value. They effectively&nbsp;lower&nbsp;operational costs by purchasing supplies and services at the best available price.&nbsp;&nbsp;To drive continued value in the digital age and build resilience against market disruptions, procurement needs to reimagine itself. This requires moving away from being a largely rigid, cost focussed and often siloed function toward a more flexible, collaborative, and lean capability.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Procurement professionals must focus on shaping the image of their function to maintain influence as priorities change during economic recovery.&nbsp;They&nbsp;should teach their&nbsp;team&nbsp;how to organize their proposals and sell them to business partners effectively, so they&nbsp;can show their value and not&nbsp;get brushed aside.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. Operational efficiency&nbsp;<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>According to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www2.deloitte.com\/us\/en\/insights\/topics\/operations\/chief-procurement-officer-cpo-survey.html?blaid=1775331\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2021 Global Chief Procurement Officer Survey<\/a>&nbsp;from Deloitte, 78%&nbsp;of people&nbsp;rate&nbsp;operational efficiency as a top priority&nbsp;due to the fact they are always busy, juggling multiple projects and communicating across&nbsp;different&nbsp;departments.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first step in accessing how efficient&nbsp;your&nbsp;procurement department&nbsp;is&nbsp;starts with&nbsp;looking at the&nbsp;bottlenecks&nbsp;in&nbsp;their processes&nbsp;and how can they be improved.&nbsp;When an organization has an effective procurement process, procurement can eliminate redundancies in the operation, promote collaboration and distinguish between good and underperforming suppliers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">3. Finding reliable&nbsp;and stable&nbsp;suppliers&nbsp;<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Today\u2019s bottlenecked supply chains are causing delays and shortages like we\u2019ve never seen before and it\u2019s harder than ever to find reliable suppliers. With complexity at an all-time high,&nbsp;procurement&nbsp;professionals&nbsp;must have the ability to make quick sourcing decisions to ensure continuity and resiliency.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are several key factors that determine the selection of&nbsp;suppliers. Some of them are price or affordability, location,&nbsp;reliability and&nbsp;most importantly stability. The right&nbsp;suppliers&nbsp;provide the most appropriate products or\/and services in order to meet business needs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You have no doubt found that there are some suppliers you can always count on to get every order and shipment right, while others aren&#8217;t quite so dependable. Even if your group of most reliable suppliers have long served you well, it&#8217;s never a bad idea to find new options.&nbsp;Even if&nbsp;reliable suppliers are more expensive, it may make sense to split a company\u2019s order between two suppliers. When the cheap supplier fails to deliver, the reliable supplier keeps the company in business.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Through sourcing the right suppliers, procurement professionals actively help reduce their company\u2019s outgoing costs and operational risks.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">4. Contingency planning&nbsp;<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>With the aftershocks of COVID-19 still being felt throughout supply chains around the world, risk mitigation and contingency planning will remain a top focus for procurement professionals throughout 2022.&nbsp;For example, if you\u2019re dependent on a few key suppliers, have you thought about what happens if they become compromised? Bottlenecks in the supply chain are ticking time bombs&nbsp;and procurement&nbsp;teams&nbsp;need to have a plan in place to act fast and mitigate any risks&nbsp;to their deals.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">5. Investing&nbsp;in automation&nbsp;<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Deloitte found in their&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www2.deloitte.com\/us\/en\/insights\/topics\/operations\/chief-procurement-officer-cpo-survey.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2021 CPO Survey<\/a>&nbsp;that 76% of respondents said digital transformation was a priority over the next 12 months, 20% more than the previous year. &nbsp;Now is the right time to reassess outdated technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By tightening up your procurement department with automation you can gain a competitive edge in today\u2019s market and support ongoing objectives. Not only will you operate more effectively as a department, but you&#8217;ll also manage contract renewals proactively, generate transparent and trustworthy data, and get full visibility of your deals. Procurement will also be able to keep a closer eye on the risks and responsibilities associated with the entire&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.enable.com\/rebate-management-platform\">rebate management<\/a>&nbsp;process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a procurement professional, you make dozens of decisions every day concerning vendor selection, contractual terms, supply chain risk, technology implementation, and stakeholder management.&nbsp;You\u2019re often forced to manage conflicting objectives and make important choices under pressure, while always being cautious to balance risk.&nbsp;With this in mind, here&nbsp;are 5 priorities procurement can\u2019t ignore as they navigate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":13106,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[474],"class_list":["post-13828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-procurement"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>5 priorities procurement professionals can&#039;t ignore | Enable<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Procurement will also be able to keep a closer eye on the risks and responsibilities associated with the entire rebate management process.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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