The relationship between procurement and sales teams has always been something of a power struggle. Here, Harvey Dunham and Christopher Jensen of the Strategic Account Management Association, give the sales slant on how procurement can genuinely become a customer of choice.
For the past 15 years, State of Flux — a leading procurement and supply chain consultancy headquartered in London — says it has gathered and analyzed more insight and data about global supplier management than anyone else in the field.
Their latest installment, Extended Enterprise: The 2023 Global SRM Research Report, delves “into the ever-evolving landscape of supplier relationships and strategies shaping the future of global business” while also providing insights on the six pillars of supplier management.
“Procurement’s got a problem on its hands, and it (mostly) doesn’t even know it,” wrote Alan Day, Chairman & Founder of State of Flux. “But procurement could be and should be so much more.”
To help shed light on the ‘how,’ the ‘why,’ and the skepticism of procurement becoming a “customer of choice,” State of Flux tapped SAMA’s own Harvey Dunham, Managing Director of Strategy and Marketing, and Christopher Jensen, Director of Customer Solutions for their expert perspectives.
“Everybody wants that; that’s why strategic account management programs exist for those big customers who want to partner with a trusted supplier. But it very much depends on the customer’s view of which suppliers are strategic to them and their procurement strategy,” said Dunham. “Some companies have a procurement strategy where they look at their suppliers, or at least some of their critical suppliers, as partners who can really help them. These suppliers are not just selling goods and services. They are bringing insights and helping their customer implement productivity improvements, cost reductions, and innovation.”
According to Jensen, such relationships need to be carefully nurtured by both procurement and sales teams if they are to thrive. “The companies that do this well use joint scorecards, looking at things like gainsharing, cost-plus scenarios, and different schemes that they can adjust themselves to, such as the economy or environment,” he said.
Both Dunham and Jensen go on to offer more insights on procurement in the post-pandemic landscape, highlighting disruptive influences, warnings, and how quickly things can change for procurement organizations that become a customer of choice.
“Suppliers that have strategic account programs for their top customers typically review them each year,” said Jensen. “They literally ask themselves whether or not the relationship is still mutually beneficial with each of their strategic accounts. This isn’t a case of becoming a customer of choice and staying there forever; it’s being a customer of choice for now.”
Read the full article here, as a free download from SAMA’s Resource Library.
