All professionals long for a seamless collaboration when
projects require participation outside of one department. The unfortunate
reality is that different groups have contrasting goals. In certain
circumstances, these end visions clash and executives are left to dread the
prospect of having to work with groups who don’t share their exact intention. There
is good news: it doesn’t have to be this way. More good news: there are
countless ways differing groups are helping each other optimize performance
through serving as an additional resource.
At the ISM Philadelphia
Chapter January 2015 Dinner, Source One will discuss the power of aligning
unique indirect spend categories such as Marketing and IT with Strategic
Sourcing to uncover hidden value. In addition to the previously discussed
IT/Procurement Collaboration piece, Source One will be adjusting their speaking
lineup for the dinner to involve another trending category in sourcing: Marketing.
Source One’s own Kathleen Jordan will cover Marketing/Sourcing Collaboration
and outline the ways that Strategic Sourcing and Marketing are now delivering
results for each other in unexpected ways.
For those who missed the previous overview of the IT/Procurement
Collaboration discussion, this presentation will expand on the benefits of
supplementing internal IT resources with Procurement’s expertise to solve both
sides’ challenges. Following a Source One survey in 2012, we were able to gather
that 40% of procurement professionals believed they offered “Little to no
value” to their organization’s IT department. Contrary to the thoughts of these
40% polled, strategic sourcing’s role in IT departments allows the maximum
value achieved from IT budgets. With the often unclear software packages and
complex maintenance terms, IT experts can inform Sourcing of the intricacies of
technical portions of buying decisions while Sourcing can use that information
to best analyze agreements and pricing structure.
The same subject matter expertise becomes an advantage in
the Marketing space when these groups collaborate with Strategic Sourcing. With
the help of the Sourcing department, companies are looking to unbundle tactical
services used throughout the organization, increase spend visibility, identify
and remove duplicate services, establish competitive supplier rates and
evaluate ongoing vendor performance in support of Marketing needs. As other
departments begin to operate more effectively with Strategic Sourcing’s
influence and as Marketing budgets continue to increase while providing the
same return on investments, corporations feel compelled to get Strategic
Sourcing involved. The results being seen are impressive.
Rather than simply processing invoices for IT and Marketing
after buying decisions have already been made, Strategic Sourcing is getting
involved at the onset; providing decision support, benchmarking and contracting
services to stakeholders in these previously untouched departments. During the
ISM Philadelphia Chapter January 2015 Dinner Meeting, Source One looks forward
to expanding on these concepts and providing members some best practices for
sourcing these indirect spend categories. If you’d like to extend the conversation,
Source One’s strategic
sourcing experts are always happy to schedule meetings and time for
interested professionals. Please contact hgrossmuller@sourceoneinc.com
if you’d like to meet up at the event or during another convenient time.
Image
courtesy of: www.paulkeijzer.com
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