THE PURCHASING GUIDELINES
Do you know the purchasing guidelines of your company? Are they helpful, simple and understandable for “normal” people? Are they properly communicated to the team?
I am asking because I was surprised by several companies in regards to the complexity of their purchasing guidelines, lack of purchaser’s knowledge about their existence, and the negative feedback of the few purchasers that knew about them: difficult to follow and without clear objectives.
From my understanding this is a big mistake of lot of organizations, resulting on an unclear picture about what is right or wrong for the team, and especially during the onboarding process of new purchasers.
Definition of roles and responsibilities, vendor set ups and sourcing procedures, signing and purchasing authority, conflict of interest and ethical purchasing… all basics, but basics that must be clearly defined and communicated to the entire team.
And, by ‘clearly defined’ I mean simple and concrete guidelines to support the team, because I also hate the typical complicated, long and unintelligible documents that nobody even reads in the end.
So, I would kindly like to propose to all Purchasing Managers reading this post to have a look to your own guidelines and ask yourself:
- Are they clear and easy for the team to understand?
- Are they helpful to the team in terms of comprehending how to work correctly?
- Are they properly communicated to the team?
If the answer is «No», please take note and invest some time in changing them. You will be surprised by the improvement in the working atmosphere, increased self-confidence of the team throughout the processes and consequently significantly better results…which in turn mean: profits for the company.
If you are interested in investing in an exceptional team and increasing your company’s profitability, we encourage you to consider our next training focused on improving strategic purchasing skills. Additionally, please feel free to contact us for more information.
Comments are closed.