The Future Purchasing Blog

Revising your Category Management Playbook

One of the great opportunities in Category Management is the way we can use a well-constructed category strategy, which is thoughtful, insightful, well-founded and socialised across our stakeholders, to understand what might happen if there are changes in the fundamentals on which the strategy is based.

Mark Webb explains the benefits of completing our Category Management survey

Seasonal Reflections on Procurement

At this time of year, it’s good to reflect on how the year has gone and what lessons seem to come out of it. After a busy year with a range of clients, and working in a number of different environments, a few recurring themes stand out.

Category Management - Critical Success Factors

We’ve been busy this year undertaking category management training programmes with a number of global and European clients.

Creating Legitimacy in Negotiation

Facing the other party in a negotiation always has one common theme running throughout it: do I trust what they say? Do I have legitimacy supporting my position?

Negotiation: I’ll Tell You What We Want..What We Really Really Want

Right at the heart of procurement negotiation is having a really good idea of what it is we need to achieve. And herein lies a problem. Building a comprehensive picture of what we want to achieve is often a challenge as we will need to knit together a broad set of requirements from the overall business, and make sure we have a good understanding of the boundaries we need to remain inside.

Sustainable Learning – Is It Possible To Get Training To Stick?

There is a real challenge in the world of adult education, even when it relates to the ambrosia that is Procurement training. How do we get the training to stick?

Sustainable Learning - The Similarities Between Parenting And Category Management

I was channel hopping the other day and came across Supernanny. If you’ve not watched it, and I forgive you if you’ve never seen it, Supernanny is Jo Frost, who is a British nanny. She is considered “one of America’s foremost authorities on child care”.

Why Procurement Teams Often Fail To Deliver On Their Transformation Promises

Only 30% of procurement teams invest sufficiently to deliver on their own vision. We’ve all seen it – the new broom CPO sweeps in to the organisation, listens carefully to the business objectives, the current plans and trajectory and the people and creates the new 3-5 year plan to ‘get the house in order’, and build on it towards (hopefully) some inspiring vision the team and the business can rally behind. But my experience is that many of these deliver reasonably well in the first 12 months but often fail to secure the step change necessary to actually achieve the vision. As a result the new broom loses its shine, they become discouraged and c. 3-4 years later the new CPO sweeps in, listens carefully to the business objectives, the current plans and…..the rest is history.

Have You Taken Your Eye Off The Ball On Coaching Of Category Management?

There’s many disciplines where coaches are seen as a necessity – sports being a popular one.

Why Having Price Down As A Measure Causes A Lack Of Ambition

Our regular reviews of strategies for clients suggests that there are a whole host of challenges being faced by Category Managers. One of the most noticeable is an internal constraint placed by the organisation, the consequences of which are both material and significant.

The Top 4 Strategic KPIs To Measure, Beyond Savings, For Procurement Teams

Plus, an insight into why many organisations fail to deliver strategic procurement.