The world of technology is changing, and organizations want to move with speed and urgency to adopt, develop and implement solutions that will allow them to be competitive in the marketplace. In such an environment, procurement leaders need to be able to manage risk, optimize cost and deliver with speed and urgency. Their biggest challenge is creating differentiated process to allow for speed where it is necessary. The name of the game has changed — and it is not one of risk elimination but one of risk mitigation. Therefore, IT procurement leaders need to be able to move beyond risk aversion and support decision making and calculated risk taking.
Your world will never be the same again. The business is demanding you to be strategic, be able to support roadmaps and tight timelines while you keep your eye toward the market and understand the changes that are happening there. The procurement professional of the past, the one that was focusing only on sourcing process execution, is obsolete. Your role has changed and you need to embrace your new role as a sourcing accelerator, risk mitigator and business advisor.
Many procurement professionals continue to focus on cost savings and cost reduction as their primary objectives, and at a time when digital business calls for agility and flexibility, traditional procurement practices can prove inhibitive. So, to accelerate digital transformation, procurement professionals must now represent the critical link between their organization’s internal capabilities and the external digital business ecosystem.
I’d summarize the top 3 best practices as follows:
Most important, I’d encourage all procurement professionals to be strategic — in their practices, their processes and their thinking!