Procurement & Career Guidance
Communication in the business world is difficult. It is usually the root cause of most major issues.
For Procurement Professionals, it is our job to convene and communicate. In an imperfect world this is a perfect recipe for frustration.
I take the perspective of procurement customers in this video and try to address identify their frustrations and explain why sourcing departments act the way they do.
Kate Vitasek is an influential figure in procurement and outsourcing who developed a better way to approach outsourcing. This method is commonly called Vested Outsourcing which focuses on outcomes instead of micro-managing vendors.
I am on a journey to learn more about the people who made procurement what it is today and Kate was at the top of my list. This video covers the “5 Vested Rules” and gives some history on Kate.
Kate’s Books:
Though they reiterated that no one can know for certain what Brexit’s impact might be, Botteri raised a handful of things that have the firm worried, beginning with “immigration and hiring talent and the movement of talent,” which could be meaningfully hampered by Brexit. “Even companies that don’t move their headquarters to London will often at some point begin to build a team,” he noted, questioning whether that will continue to happen.
There’s also the nontrivial issue of what happens to fintech companies, which have been thriving in London as a gateway between the U.S. and Europe and that have easily operated across all of Europe. Asked Botteri, “What about that?” post Brexit.
https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/30/yes-do-worry-about-brexit-says-accel/
It’s procurement’s fault to a degree that agencies have shifted their income model. That’s basically a result of forcing down margins. It shouldn’t be that way. The team I work in is more advertising and marketing-focused than others I’ve worked at, so we’re able to draw up contracts with partners that aren’t always trying to secure the cheapest price and are more about how we get value and better return on investment. We don’t want to overpay our agencies and ad tech vendors, but we really don’t want to do the opposite because we see them as partners and if those businesses aren’t profitable then they will not work with us.
https://digiday.com/marketing/confessions-procurement-director-dont-want-overpay-agencies/
Empowerment is often interpreted as giving people control over daily details like what hours they work or what kinds of snacks they find in the break room. While those things certainly make day-to-day living more comfortable, they don’t give employees an overarching sense of ownership over the work they do.
Empowered employees are given the opportunity to do work they value or work that fuels their growth. Anything less feels like lip service, and companies that want to keep their employees genuinely empowered — and engaged — have to keep this mind. Empowerment isn’t necessarily about making work more enjoyable; it’s about making it more meaningful.
You can be the best at something, but if no one knows, no one cares. Work on making friends in your field, especially with people more successful than you. That means having people skills, introducing yourself at parties, going to events, and throwing out favors.
It kind of sucks that just being extremely good isn’t enough, but a lot of skills don’t have a “best of” category. An athlete may consistently win, thus establishing themselves as the best, but most of us do stuff that is much harder to measure. That’s why who you know (and who likes you) matters so much.
https://lifehacker.com/how-to-become-the-best-of-the-best-1830571441
Photo by Mantas Hesthaven on Unsplash