Despite the fact that procurement’s role in the business has taken on a deeper and more strategic scope in recent years, they’re still often seen as a department focused on cost savings and driven by process-heavy practices. In many organizations, these outdated perceptions don’t do procurement any favors when it comes to their internal reputation or their perceived value and potential for impact.
But these perceptions are starting to shift. Just how much and how fast this shift happens depends, in large part, on how well procurement can cultivate and leverage strong stakeholder relationships to strengthen their internal brand and drive more value for their organizations.
In a recent episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, host Kelly Barner spoke with Barry Kull from AstraZeneca about how procurement should manage their brand identity, build stronger relationships, and level up the way they communicate.
Understand Your Stakeholder, and They’ll Understand You
Before Barry transitioned into procurement, he worked in sales, an experience that, he said, uniquely shaped his approach to procurement.
“It's really around communication," Barry explained. "With sales, you have to communicate your value proposition. Even before that, you need to communicate what you are selling or what you're offering. Putting myself on the opposite side of that, on the procurement side, you need to understand what it is you want to buy and what's important to you or the customer or stakeholder."
Understanding the needs, challenges, and goals of their individual stakeholders not only helps procurement align their sourcing and purchasing strategies with the business, but it also builds a bridge between procurement and other areas of the business, connecting procurement’s value with the stakeholder’s specific needs.
For example, a sales force manager and a head of a technology project will have vastly different objectives. It is procurement’s job to understand those differences and align their strategies accordingly. Taking this stakeholder-first approach, says Barry, will inevitably lead to better outcomes, stronger relationships, and, as a result, a better reputation for procurement.
“You have to understand what that person needs and what their motivations to buy are,” said Barry. “This becomes your brand identity, not the old trope that procurement is all about the pennies, the dollars, how much we're spending, or how much we're going to save.
Give the Business What It Wants: Speed and Flexibility
Once procurement has demonstrated that they understand the needs and expectations of their stakeholders, the goal post becomes about delivery. Procurement, sometimes unfairly, is perceived as rigid and process-driven, but they can dismantle these notions by prioritizing speed and flexibility.
“Moving at speed is highly important, and you have to know how to maneuver your internal processes to keep pace with the business and how fast they need to move,” said Barry.
It’s one thing to simply speed up processes, he says, but creating a truly flexible approach that will benefit stakeholders requires something deeper from procurement – perhaps an entire mindset shift.
“Procurement is often saddled with the reputation that we’re the ‘no’ people, and to change that is a huge mindset shift,” said Barry. “We have to be flexible and say ‘whatever you need, let’s figure out a way to make it happen.’ This is a huge competitive advantage for any procurement professional these days.”
But, Barry points out, prioritizing speed and flexibility doesn’t mean sacrificing process. It’s about balancing the need for governance with the reality of business demands. It’s a solutions-oriented approach: “For me, it’s about figuring out how to make it happen. Compliance and process are important, but we need to find a way to meet the business’s needs.”
You Can’t Have Strong Relationships Without Trust
“Procurement’s relationships are everything,” said Barry. Transforming procurement’s reputation and brand identity so that their entire stakeholder network truly understands the scope and breadth of the value they bring rests on one core tenet: trust.
“Having good, solid relationships and pulling through when your stakeholder needs something is hugely important,” said Barry. “What it boils down to is having trust in the other person and building their trust in you so that when they come to you with a problem. they know they’ll get the solution they need quickly.”
This is especially important, he says, in large organizations where processes can be complicated and stakeholders might not always know how to navigate the system. By building the kind of trust-based relationships where stakeholders feel comfortable reaching out for help, procurement can position themselves as problem-solvers who add clear, tangible value beyond savings.
As Barry said, “Having those relationships is super critical, and I pride myself and my team on the fact that, when we get those calls that say, ‘hey, how do I solve this problem?’ we move at pact to figure it out. We get it done for the stakeholder.”
For more on procurement relationship building, listen to Barry's full episode here:
