Continuously enhancing procurement operations should be a priority in many industries. Procurement and supply operations are critical to an organization’s mission and competitive advantage.

It is essential to have the ability to make a persuasive pitch as this is essential to procurement success. Your ability to make a meaningful change will be severely limited if you are unable to convince management to support your ideas or invest in your initiatives.

The procurement professional needs to put together a plan that describes how their organization can benefit from conducting its procurement activities similar to leading organizations and presents this plan to management.

Management reviews and approves the plan and provides the procurement professional with the resources to implement changes. The procurement professional implements those changes, measures the value of the improvements, shares the results with management, and gets rewarded with higher pay or a promotion.

NLPA’s 7-Step Process for Building your Case for Better Procurement

Do you want to get the attention of your CEO? Present a better-built case to management to get the attention of your CEO. The framework below describes how to use metrics for baselining procurement performance. They are the best ways to express the value of enhancing procurement operations.

1. Have a clear idea of what you want to change
2. Identify the problem with the current state of affairs
3. Baseline where your organization is today
4. Estimate the value of your proposed improvements
5. Choose a presentation strategy
6. Prepare your presentation
7. Conduct your presentation expertly

Attention-Getting Statements

The following statements are all examples of issues that could get the attention of an executive. They identify issues with your current situation and present to mitigate these situations. Review these and avoid any statement that does not apply to your organization or your situation.

What are good indicators that determine whether you have selected the right project to address? If one of the following statements is true for your organization.

• The cost of this problem will result in the organization losing money this year
• The cost of this problem will significantly erode profits
• Employee or customer safety will be compromised if the problem is not solved
• Customer satisfaction will decrease
• The organization will be exposed to risk

Become a member of one of the world’s largest procurement associations today.

Recommended Reading

• Expert Procurement Operations Management
• Are your Procurement Operations Goals SMART?
• NPLA’s Strategic Procurement Operations Transformational Model (SPOT)
• Organizing Procurement Department Operations
• Are Your Procurement Operations Dashboarded?
• Supply Risk Checklist
• Vendor Risk Management
• Understanding Your Supply Landscape
• How to Benefit and Reduce Cost by Improving Your Risk & Disruption Processes
• Keys to Negotiation Success: Assessing Leverage and Issue Identification
• Do You Conduct an Annual Procurement Strategy Review?
• Case Study: An Auto Manufacturer’s Supply Chain Goes From 0 to 60 (in less than a year)

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