The Valuable Ties of Marketing and Procurement

Procurement professionals who have mastered the art of direct materials sourcing are now seeing the complexity of marketing procurement, but also realizing the unique opportunity it presents for savings. Since the marketing category can involve challenges like bundled/unbundled services, varying rate structures, and SLAs for unfamiliar services, professionals without a background in marketing can become overwhelmed in a buying scenario. This is where marketing departments’ cooperation plays a valuable role. Since marketing spend has such potential to impact bottom line, Next Level Purchasing Association and Source One Management Services have teamed up to release a marketing procurement online express course, “Adding Procurement Value to marketing Spend,”  educating professionals through the challenges.

The course is designed to navigate procurement professionals through the sourcing of marketing services, allowing participants to grow familiar with the category and sourcing best practices. The key objectives of the express course are to:

•  Establish the value that strategic sourcing can bring to marketing
• Address initial marketing categories for strategic sourcing to consider
• Familiarize participants with the five phases of strategic sourcing for marketing
• Outline the five best practices of sourcing marketing effectively

A unique portion of this lesson is that it only requires 30 to 60 minutes to complete and it is offered to both NLPA and non-NLPA members. To learn more about the course, visit http://nextlevelpurchasing.com/marketing-procurement.php. To learn more about Source One’s marketing expertise, visit marketing.sourceoneinc.com.

Photo  courtesy of www.b-pack.com