One of the best exercises you can do as a procurement practitioner is to reduce the number of steps it takes to make a purchase. If you can help the business buy with less friction you’ve helped it save time and money.
When there’s less inherent friction to getting the goods and services a company needs to be in business it’s a competitive advantage. So make it smooth.
Where to start
Try rewriting your procurement policy (and hopefully, by now, you’ve thought about changing the name to ‘guidelines’). Find places where you can decrease the number of things it contains.
Buying guidelines (okay, “procurement policies") have usually been written by someone for a particular place and time. Too often the person who wrote them is no longer with the company and when they were created (years ago) they reflected what things looked like then, not now. If you’re lucky, there’s a ‘last modified date’ on the document and more likely than not whomever updated it was just doing a checkbox exercise. Sad, but true. And guess what, that ain’t it.
What to do
So, where do you start or what can you do? Well, elimination is always a great way to make things easier.
Eliminate fluff. When people write they often get wordy. Eliminate unnecessary words and keep it concise. Like this. (Bulleted lists help, too).
Reduce steps. Look to decrease or remove steps in workflows, whether that’s a spending limit approval or the number of hierarchy sign-offs.
Combine sections. Find ways to consolidate areas that have significant overlap. Many times the same thing is said in multiple places.
Visual aids. If you can substitute a picture or diagram instead of using words, it’ll help reduce word count. Pictures really are worth a 1,000 words.
Simplify language. Use simple, easily digestible and less confusing language. And skip the acronyms, please. Iykyk.
Build strength over time
The goal here is to incrementally make things easier when buying. No need for a massive overhaul as that, in and of itself, can add complexity. Rather, see it as an opportunity to help the organization, within reason, spend company money more seamlessly. The faster employees get what they need to do their jobs the quicker the impact and innovation.
More innovation. More growth. More revenue.
Build the business.
See you next week,
Mat
ps. Takes me back to my military days, we have a phrase… “Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.”
