Imagine this scenario… You’ve made a decision on bringing in a Procurement Consultancy to review your procurement function, inject new ideas, drive change and positively impact your department.
Now for your team’s reaction… How do you guard against a threatened, defensive position and instead foster a collaborative, opportunity-focused response?
This white paper argues that how your team and stakeholders feel about the engagement stems from your selection of the performance objectives, how they are prioritised and how they are communicated. Success therefore comes from challenging yourself to think through why the business needs a procurement consultancy and what is it you want them to achieve.
Before engaging a consultancy, consider the Performance Objective Model and assess what you need.
Pappianou and Spencer (2019, paragraph 25) regard compliance as high for any procurement department and experienced practitioners will normally expect a savings target (Struthers, 2020) so these have been added. It is not possible to achieve all of the objectives at the same time, so a compromise needs to be made.
The objectives you prioritise drive behaviour
If you prioritise and value Savings and Speed are you willing to possibly compromise on Quality, Compliance and Flexibility to achieve this?
An aggressive, fast paced cost reduction programme led by a consultancy working on that brief could leave your team feeling alienated, stakeholders disengaged and not getting the solutions they need. You will make Savings quickly, but at what Cost? Or do you need a high Quality, Flexible service that drives Compliance where a symptom of that is Savings?
To achieve this, the pace of delivery will inevitably be slower as a result. But you will establish a stronger, long-term positive climate with stakeholders and your team and create sustainable solutions. Is that what you want instead?
Clairity here will reap dividends later.