BravoSolution Offers 10 Ideas to Make Procurement Departments More Strategic

March 29, 2011

Tools

New Report Shows Cost Cutting is Tip of the Iceberg for Procurement Teams

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- As procurement professionals fight to justify their value by cutting costs and producing hard-dollar savings, BravoSolution, the spend analysis company, just released a new report – “Ten Ideas to Make Your Procurement Department More Strategic” – offering interesting ways to drive even greater organizational value, and long-lasting impact.

Authored by procurement and logistics expert Sean Devine, the report creates a compelling call-to-action for chief procurement officers to enhance collaboration on an enterprise-wide scale.

“While all procurement teams want to be the drivers of change and value within their companies, most are stuck focusing on hard-dollar savings to earn their keep,” said Sean Devine. “The good news is that there are simple strategies that will help procurement teams more definitively contribute to the strategic mission of their organizations.”

Increasing collaboration with all key business parties internally and externally - from the sales, finance and marketing teams to suppliers, manufacturers and customers - can help procurement professionals go beyond cost savings, and contribute more strategically to their organizations.

Here are a few tips on how to do it:

Educate suppliers on how you make money. Effective supplier performance management requires collaboration. To give suppliers the greatest opportunity to generate savings while still making money, provide them with insight on the non-cost factors that are most important to your business, what profit margins are most critical, and where you can be flexible on contractual items.
Share supplier and product development insights with the marketing team. When premium components and top suppliers are used in the manufacturing of products and services, the items can be sold and marketed at a premium price. Enhance your value by providing the marketing team with the value propositions behind the suppliers you select, and sharing a competitive analysis of your competitor’s top suppliers – and the advantages you can market.
Provide visibility into where your company spends money. Spend analysis is a key driver of costs savings, and the results should be leveraged company-wide, not just by procurement. By providing the entire organization with visibility into where and how money is spent, and the outcomes, you increase your team’s willingness to improve purchasing behaviors.

Available free of charge at BravoSolution.com, the report outlines seven additional strategic procurement initiatives.

“The strategic function of procurement goes well beyond cost cutting,” said Paul Martyn, VP of Global Marketing at BravoSolution. “Procurement teams are privy to a wealth of information that’s vital to a product’s and company’s life; sharing that insight with the entire organization will help the company save money, improve efficiency and accelerate growth, while changing the organizational perception of procurement from a tactical operation to a strategic initiative.” BravoSolution, the high definition sourcing company, provides the tools and expertise procurement executives need to save money and improve profitability. BravoSolution offers innovative tools for every aspect of the global supply chain, including eSourcing, supplier relationship management and spend analysis.

About BravoSolution

Your company spends money across multiple categories of items and in many different ways. As procurement professionals, you are accountable for delivering demonstrable improvements to your company's financial performance. To achieve your performance goals, your entire team - sourcing, vendor, contract, and production managers - needs to work together to determine the best way to manage every single category to maximize its contribution to your company’s bottom line.

Analysts have seen that the right blend of skills, process, and technology improves a company's financial performance by 30 cents on every dollar spent. In their search for a partner that can help them achieve this level of excellence, companies turn to BravoSolution.