Survival of the fittest — The Procurement Professional Saga
Why do some companies thrive, while others perish? What is the secret to success? What is the secret to survival? Charles Darwin pondered these very questions during the 19th Century as related to the survival and extinction of biological species. Did he discover anything that might be relevant to business and procurement in the 21st Century?
The naturalist and geologist, who gave the theory of “Survival of the fittest”, quoted — “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, or the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
Let’s try to interpret the Darwin in our procurement scenario.
The world of procurement in an organization is evolving.
As organizations seek to drive out cost, control spend and create competitive advantage, procurement is quickly evolving. Earlier, procurement mostly included process management, negotiation and numerical analysis. But now more focus is on strategic relationship, creating value, data & analysis. And, with the advent of the internet and big data in the recent years, the pace has accelerated. With first generation solutions, businesses took the ways they had transacted for centuries and automated them.
This transformation has bought about a change in the business processes. The business environment has become more complex. And so to adapt to the changes and shifts in these global markets; the responsibility of each procurement professional across the organization is increasing, which holds true for Chief Procurement Officer too.
If you are in an organization working for a while, you’ve probably noticed an evolution of the procurement processes over the past few years. Maybe you have participated in these changes each step of the way, maybe you started and didn’t continue or maybe you are still trying to catch up.
So ask yourself again, where you are in this process and where you want to be? How much you can incorporate the changes to become a successful procurement professional?
DOWNLOAD our latest whitepaper on “The Evolution of Chief Procurement Officer” to know more interesting insights about the topic, CPO best practices and the personality trait of a strategic CPO.
