What Is Procurement_IO

What is Procurement_IO

Procurement_IO is, at current phase, a procurement focused blog that educates into procurement definitions and process. It also includes real situations where the procurement process has either failed or succeeded and why. IO is a representation of inputs and outputs. Our profession of procurement is that of the in-between. That of "The Process" and Procurement_IO will help guide those interested in this profession, just starting out, or well into their career. You'll see processes define, templates explored, or an shoulder to cry on.

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An Overview of My Experience

My procurement career began working for a chemical company in East Tennessee. My title was Procurement Specialist and I was assigned the spend areas of "Spare Parts". This was everything and anything that involved supporting maintenance through inventoried parts. Pipes, vales, compressors, motors, pipe material, etc. With growing success, my responsibilities expanded to include the plants raw materials, utilities, and engineering services. None of these were items I had experience in managing or previous experience working with. 

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After years of a growing portfolio of spend responsibilities, I was fortunate enough to join a transportation company efforts to build a procurement department from the ground up. This was a $1 billion dollar company in a phase that many companies are in today. They've reached this level of revenue where, in parallel, their spend has grown to a point that it can't be managed by stakeholders. Employees forced to do dual duties of their primary role and the spend management. Being able to come in, evaluate spend, implement process, control spend, and leverage it for savings was an immensely rewarding experience. This is an experience most are not afforded in their career. One that forces you into the depths of procurement fundamentals, with few systems, and stakeholders that have no clue what procurement is. 

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This building of a procurement department is never really over. It's an ever changing role and development of not only process but people. However, it was time to move on and my wanted to understand how the big companies did it. Luckily, I was presented with the opportunity to join the procurement team at a major automaker. Unlike my last stop, process wasn't a problem. Neither were systems tied to processes. In fact, there may have been too much. So much so that I saw buyers without skills to actually analyze spend, develop strategies for category management.

Everything at this auto manufacturer was about making pretty presentations for leadership, cost comparisons of individual pieces of the car, spending weeks and months just building presentations. This came to a peak with the pandemic and the need to manage suppliers closer and the associated spend. No one knew how to do it. There isn't a system to save you there and there definitely wasn't a process established to bail them out. Sadly there wasn't much experience either. 

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My current stop is at a manufacturer for the truck transportation segment. I'v found, through these past experiences, my sweet spot. To focus on these companies of roughly $1 billion in revenue and help them get better. This stop is a bit tricky: not much procurement process established, some systems and reports but not organized appropriately, the thought that if we just have constant communication with supplier we will be okay. It's normal where they are, and it can be improved.

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In all, I have years of experience in these frustrating situations of procurement process improvement. The frustrating can be deceiving. It's frustrating because you can see the opportunity available. However, we are professionals and must keep emphasizing the process. I hope the content I provide helps you with that and as always, feel free to reach out to me to discuss at DerekThompson@ProcurementIO.Com