“Autonomous Procurement” Is A Really Dumb Idea (II)
Part II: The people side of things…
In the 1st part of these two series, I explored why autonomous Procurement is a dumb idea when looking at it as if it meant that machines should be replacing people.
In this 2nd part, I want to focus on another potential aspect of autonomous Procurement by looking at it through the “isolationism” lens.
Anyone who has worked or working in Procurement knows that the job requires daily interactions with many business partners within or outside of the organization/company. B2B is H2H (Human-to-Human).
However, the experience of interacting with Procurement is not always a great one. Internal customers/stakeholders often see Procurement as a hindrance, as illustrated by Dilbert and a quote from Forrester’s Bartels:
If they aren’t using the preferred vendors, it’s mostly because those vendors don’t offer products or services they need, don’t support locations where they work […]. Moreover, employees often have good reasons for choosing products or vendors they pick. CPOs need to respect that.
And the same applies to suppliers! The way many procurement organizations work with suppliers could actually be called “supplier management” — not “supplier relationship management.”
Procurement is S(supplier)RM x S(stakeholders)RM = SRM² because it sits between the inside and the outside, a unique space that is a great opportunity. It means it can be (and has to be) a platform for growth focusing on outcomes. Procurement-as-a-platform is about that:
And, if Procurement fails to deliver a great experience, they won’t be the partner of choice for both suppliers and internal customers, which can jeopardize its own existence as it is not providing a great service to stakeholders (i.e., not making them successful):
By nurturing relationships, Procurement can also unlock access to privileged information, means, and resources. On the internal customer side of things, it can be related to Procurement's early involvement for new projects/products/services, the ability to increase the spend under management, etc. On the supplier side of things, it can mean getting access priority access to inventory, production means, raw materials, etc… and much more:
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