While category expertise and strategies help procurement deliver specific business outcomes, sometimes it is the cross-category fundamentals that make the biggest difference of all.
Case in point: stakeholder expectation setting.
How fast will a project move and why? What might need to be changed to deliver the results the business is looking for? How should stakeholders think about savings and cost avoidance? These are important topics for procurement to address before a sourcing project ever gets underway.
In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Richard Campbell to the show. Richard has deep experience in procurement, specifically in sourcing and managing spend related to the fleet, transportation, and logistics categories.
Highlights
Richard shares his perspective on why setting stakeholder expectations early and often is critical to procurement’s success:
- How to kick off a new project with the best chances for sustained alignment between procurement and the business
- Why procurement may need to educate stakeholders about cost avoidance and TCO in addition to sourcing strategy
- The importance of being present and listening closely before ever speaking to set an expectation
