What Does It Take to Succeed at the Purchasing Profession, Part One
Robert Menard
Certified Purchasing Professional,
Certified Professional Purchasing Consultant, Certified Green Purchasing Professional, Certified Professional Purchasing Manager
Editor’s Note: This is the first in a six part series on how to succeed in the purchasing profession. Part One explores the overall view. Part Two explains the legal requirements. Part Three focuses on negotiation, communication, and interpersonal skills. Part Four (link) plumbs the general business knowledge needed to excel, lead, and advance into executive management. Part Five (link) explores the character traits and Part Six wraps up lose ends.(link)
Over the course of many years of training , consulting, writing, speaking and practicing in the purchasing profession, I have observed many oddities. One of the most curious is the path that many folks have trodden to arrive at purchasing.
In some companies, including the unsophisticated to global operators, virtually everyone has purchasing authority; therefore, there is no maverick spend. This sounds unbelievable, but it is true. In others, accounts payable and inventory clerks, even volunteers are appointed to the purchasing department. I used to joke in my public seminar days of the 1990s that most of us were promoted to purchasing because we succeeded at something else. Expressed differently, “Your reward for prior success was a sentence to purchasing.”
Organizations that neglect purchasing’s contribution to profitability are bound and condemned to mediocrity or failure as they lack basic understanding of the enormous contribution (indeed, the largest single component) to profitability exercised by professional purchasing. No more needs be said about this crowd.
Successful businesses are careful to select the best talent
Top purchasing talent comprises a variety of traits. When helping clients to select high level personnel, my interview follows the second round of HR screening. My interests center on leadership, integrity, education, and training. Accomplishments are a function of and depend upon these qualities.
Good management skills are necessary but not sufficient. Being able to skillfully turn the same cranks is important. Knowing where to look for new cranks is more important.
Top level purchasing personnel must be more than technocrats. Mastery of the tools of the profession is again, necessary but not sufficient. In general, purchasing pros tend to be left brained, logical, scientific, and more rational than emotional in decision making. Call these process skills. Those are good but they must be supplemented by the people skills of communication, personality management, even body language. We all deal with other people. Sales pros, which tend to be right brained, have excellent people skills.
The union of people and process skills is the single most essential quality for purchasing talent. The epitome of people and process skills is one’s mastery of negotiation . If you are not superb at negotiation, your other efforts will always fall short. We’ll address this vital requirement in more detail in Part Three (link)
How do you become the best talent, at any level of the purchasing profession?
The answers are a matter of degree, not kind. We must have a hunger for knowledge, a passion for excellence, and an unshakeable belief in hard work. Advocates of this trite but true adage almost always rise to the top, not via bestowal of others, but by dint of your own force and presence. Whether you are a junior buyer or Chief Purchasing Officer, it matters if you accept new assignments, volunteer for challenges, and demonstrate devotion to duty and profession.
So far, this is all about what to do. Plenty of folks will tell you that. Very few can or will tell you how. Part Two (link) begins that examination with legal requirements.