SIG University Certified Sourcing Professional (CSP) program graduate Angelica Gardner discusses how CSP modules on internal spend analysis and contract negotiation planning improved her approach to identifying cost efficiencies as a procurement buyer.

As everyone is aware, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected a large portion of the economy’s growth ability, especially in the automotive industry, with declining sales of more than 40%. Companies are having to develop strategic ways to cut costs and provide cost-saving solutions. As a buyer in the manufacturing plant, my responsibility is to identify these cost efficiencies.

To accomplish this task, SIG University's CSP program helped me recognize two areas to improve: internal spend analysis and contract negotiation planning. These areas are complementary skills that have helped me improve my approach these types of situations in the future as a procurement buyer.

INTERNAL SPEND ANALYSIS

As a new procurement agent, having followed industry market trends, company earnings and announcing changes within the organization has given me a leg up in my negotiation strategies. Assessing the environment is vital to understanding business requirements, the company’s vision and our department’s functional goals during this critical time.

In one particular situation, management did not agree with a supplier’s new budget proposal and wanted to reduce cost by an overall savings of $86,000. The lesson teaches us to gather as much data required and perform a spend analysis to determine leverage. After completing a spend analysis from the previous year, we discovered the total spend was consistent with what was done in the past.

What is your role and what are your day-to-day responsibilities?

As president of Real Sourcing Network (RSN), I oversee our growth, strategy and marketing. I strive to provide useful content and actionable tips to help companies better manage their print and marketing spend.

What is something that you wish more people knew about sourcing and procurement?

Procurement is invaluable. The COVID-19 crisis has shown the world that healthy supply chains are essential. Procurement is no longer a profession where people just cut costs and write POs. It now plays a strategic, visionary and creative role that is an essential part of a company’s (and our country's) success.

Procurement does not yet have a seat at the executive table in many organizations, but with the right leadership in place, it has the potential to become a more valued and revenue-generating function. Accomplishing this is a challenge and is a great reason for ambitious people to choose procurement over other more well-known careers. I have a bias toward marketing services procurement. I think it’s super challenging, fun and has the most potential for making an impact!

>>Read more: Sarah Scudder covers marketing services procurement on Future of Sourcing<<

What is your role and what are your day-to-day responsibilities? 

I am the Head of Procurement Solutions, Product and Strategy at Allegis Global Solutions. What that means is that I’m responsible for evolving our service offering and capabilities to ensure they are delivering optimal value to our customers. Day to day I spend time with our customers and internal teams to take in thoughts, perspectives and challenges, and in turn work to align those to what and how we’re delivering, all with a continuous eye on innovation.

What is something that you wish more people knew about sourcing and procurement? 

It’s so much more than just cost savings. Procurement has the potential to drive such strategic value – specifically in indirect/services spend, if organizations are willing to think differently about their approach. And to go a step further, it is possible as skills and technology have evolved to enable this.

In your opinion, what are 3 skills that sourcing and procurement professionals of tomorrow must have?

The first is an ability to understand and analyze data; the second is influencing skills; and the third is creativity.

What does the future of sourcing and procurement look like to you? 

Hopefully different from what it’s historically been. Far too many organizations still rely on antiquated processes and technologies that are not fit for purpose. In the future that I envision, there is an increased receptivity to challenge the way procurement has always been done and the role that procurement professionals play. Lots of organizations have already gone this route, but across the board I believe there is a high degree of immaturity toward the management of the total spend portfolio.

What is your role and what are your day-to-day responsibilities? 

I just transitioned into a new role as Managing Director of North America. We purposefully chose a nebulous title because every day looks different for me and my role is pretty much a catch-all! Some days I'm head-down on internal company strategy (I still lead our client and commercial teams from behind the scenes), other days I work directly with our clients on anything from technology selection projects to jointly running global CPO surveys.

What is something that you wish more people knew about sourcing and procurement? 

 That it touches EVERYTHING. When I started with Spend Matters 10 years ago, I had no idea that procurement was “a thing.” I wish people thought about how their everyday items from socks to cell phones are made, built, assembled and sourced. I also wish people understood how sophisticated the sourcing and procurement process has the potential to be. It’s so far beyond steak dinners with “key” suppliers and fiddling about with spreadsheets. There's some amazing stuff happening out there with technology and process, and people are thinking bigger to drive it.

In your opinion, what are 3 skills that sourcing and procurement professionals of tomorrow must have? 

 1) Sales – Hear me out. Procurement is a sales team for a lot of reasons: negotiations internally and externally, selling new internal processes, understanding pain points of teams and suppliers...the list is endless. Being able to “sell” an agenda, a tool, a process or an initiative is key.

There’s no question that companies are turning to technology to manage many facets of their operations, and procurement is no different. Adopting a technology platform to manage one business unit can result in positive changes, reducing costs and increasing efficiencies. But what happens when a company decides to go through a complete agile and digital transformation?

Our client, College Board, decided to undertake such a sweeping change, and while they’re still on their journey, they are seeing positive outcomes across the organization. About five years ago, College Board saw successive changes in leadership with a new CIO coming in, followed by a new CPO. When they joined the team, College Board had disjointed technology – no department could communicate with another. So, the decision was made to jump into the deep end and take on a complete agile and digital transformation.

Building a Movement

The agile transformation, which would ultimately lead to the digital transformation, required a culture change at College Board. They knew behaviors had to change, both individually and companywide. There was a serious need for collaboration and cross-functional teams to remove the silos each department was in, which could be fostered by new technologies.

And College Board’s 1,800 employees and 250 contractors had to be on board. So, it all started with leadership. The organization’s forward-thinking CIO and CPO laid out clearly defined goals and strategies. Setting the example that this would be successful went a long way in encouraging employee buy-in.