Stephanie Laurent is an experienced procurement and sourcing professional who has shaped her knowledge across various industries. Having learnt to deal with the instability and volatility of supply and how to take advantage of these challenges in fast-paced environments she is well placed to offer a thought or two on the perception and evolution of procurement.
Over to Stephanie to tell us more…
Stephanie, how did you get into Procurement?
I got into Procurement by accident. It was my first job after university. I applied for a position in the export department and they gave me a position in the multimedia Purchasing department. The company Avenir Telecom had just acquired a retail chain of 180 stores across the French territory and was rebranding it. They were only a mobile phones and accessories distributor but with that acquisition, they had to quickly put together a multimedia department. Everything had to go pretty fast and it was a wonderful experience as I got to deal with so many aspects of procurement: supplier management, negotiation, category management, private label, supply chain, demand planning etc….
I knew nothing about procurement back then, and it was still called purchasing…but I discovered what was going on behind the curtains of a retail operation and I loved it. If you had asked me at the time if I wanted to work in purchasing I would have probably told you no, It sounded boring and very administrative. But it was the opposite in reality. I got to be in contact with suppliers, talk to all the store managers, organise the supply, contact the logistics, talk to finance etc… procurement people will be in contact with everybody and the way they handle all these relationships is crucial to their success.
Procurement is evolving at pace. The pace of change often calls for new skill sets and disciplines within a team. What value can Procurement source from adding non-procurement skilled staff to their teams?
I think Procurement is finally getting the recognition it deserves and that is really good news. There are now forums, magazines, networking events or even certifications like CIPS where we can improve our knowledge, exchange ideas, and meet new people. But as the profession becomes more specialised there is a temptation to only hire people with a certain profile. We are already aware of the importance of diversity and inclusion: Companies that actively promote diversity and inclusion tend to have better financial performance, be more innovative, and better meet their customers’ needs.
We also know that emotional intelligence has been placed at the top of the list of competencies that companies should focus on. Everything is evolving way too fast to stay focused on certain skill sets.
Adding to procurement team atypical candidates who have their careers made up of diverse and varied experiences is a way to get new ideas or learn new processes. An atypical profile will bring both fresh blood and a new perspective, literally “out of the box”, these candidates will learn fast, be highly motivated and have versatility. We need to avoid the “cloning” of collaborators who will all have the same background.
One major problem remains though, to do that companies will need to invest TIME, and with the pace of change currently happening it seems time is a commodity no one can afford these days 🙂
Since we are talking about skills and the change happening in Procurement, when I was looking for a job, I was happy to see that there were a lot more procurement jobs being advertised and that it was professionalising itself. I also realised that more and more offers were looking for “specialists”, whether it was in Supplier Management, Contract Management or Demand planning, the trend is to get people with a lot of expertise in one particular area (and ideally in one particular industry).
We are looking for experts everywhere because it is a guarantee of quality and, in recruiting specialists, companies are looking to gain efficiency and cut costs.
But it comes with downsides and a few questions :
1) it goes against the principle of diversity we have talked about previously and that is being advocated everywhere.
2) As an employee, how long until I get bored of focusing on the same thing? Can we keep people engaged and motivated in the long run?