Get Rid of Departmental Clashing Once and For All

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.

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