Internal customer resistances

Will stakeholders be able to interfere with your sourcing work?

“You can sign a contract with whomever you want. But we won't use your supplier.”

Have you ever heard this type of statement?
A lot of Purchasing departments have heard it. Their work is a constant struggle with their internal customers.

As a reaction to resistance, many procurement departments are looking for ways to force internal customers to support their choice of suppliers.
But the best way to reduce non-compliant spending is proactive, thus preventing internal resistance.

How can you prevent internal resistance to initiatives of strategic procurement ? You need to involve your stakeholders.
And their involvement can't be superficial — they need to have a say in key decisions.

To implement this practice, all you need to do is schedule speakers present during each of the following questions, which will be answered in the procurement process.

What are our specifications?
What are our supplier performance requirements?
Which suppliers are we going to invite to make an offer?
How do you differentiate suppliers and what is the measurable value of their difference?
What criteria are we going to use to assess proposals and suppliers?
What are the relative weights of these criteria?
What are the hidden and tangential costs?
What are the costs of poor performance that we can accept?
Who makes the final supplier selection decision?
What is the process for dealing with the poor performance of the selected supplier?

Stakeholders' suggestions do not always match the final decisions. These decisions will require internal negotiation; collaboration.
But using this practice will help you avoid the “we're not going to use this provider.”

The transformation of Purchasing into a profit center
The Purchasing function tends to be considered more and more as a strategic function.
The growing recognition of Purchasing is transforming the function: it is seen as one of the “reasons for being” of the company.

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