Common Sense: Marketing the Value of Procurement: Part II

Marketing the Value of Procurement: Part II

Last month's article addressed how procurement is perceived (or not perceived at all) and addressed the fact that we don't do a very good job of proactively marketing ourselves to our various customers.

Last month's article addressed how procurement is perceived (or not perceived at all) and addressed the fact that we don't do a very good job of proactively marketing ourselves to our various customers.

First, let's look at a couple of ways you can proactively (and strategically) place yourself in your customers' line of sight:

• When your entity is formulating the budget, send out a memo offering your market expertise to assist your users in developing realistic and accurate budget estimates.
• When the new budget is published, check out the capital equipment and systems to be acquired and contact the specific users. State that you want to make the best possible use of your limited resources to assist them in timely and best-value acquisitions of their budgeted items. Ask them when their requisition with complete specifications will be submitted. You might even identify the contract officer who has been assigned to process their purchase.
• Proactively contact Program/Project Managers and offer your procurement expertise as a member of their team to develop the most effective procure-ment/contract to ensure the success of their important project.
• Ask to be a member of the organization's Strategic Plan Management Team.

Next, review what you measure and report. Keep in mind that what you measure, measures you! Your customers really don't care how many requisitions and purchase orders you processed. Customers are only interested in how well you met their particular needs. Are you accessible and available to them? Are you courteous and professional? Are you responsive to their needs? Do you protect and ensure their legal rights and responsibilities? Do you continuously measure real-time customer and vendor satisfaction, by transaction, on a daily basis? Do you take appropriate and timely action to improve those areas that need attention? Most importantly, do you report your customer satisfaction rate to all your customers each month?

Performance measures must be customer-focused and expressed in terms of results achieved, instead of processes applied. Instead of reporting the number of formal solicitations processed, identify the value of those procurements to the entity's mission. For example, "22 new custodial contracts were awarded to maintain the newly completed Motor Vehicle Division testing stations throughout the state." Another example might be, "100 percent of the contracts scheduled to expire were renewed on time, ensuring uninterrupted services and operations."

Report on the status of projects in progress, as it pertains to procurement. For example, "Procurement processed four complex modifications to the The Valley Freeway corridor project to incorporate new technology authorized under the contract's "Value Engineering" process. These modifications amounted to $380,000 of relief and drainage enhancements that will extend the life expectancy of the various surfaces by 25 percent."

Report Exceptions! Report Emergency and Sole Source purchases by incident, user, and cost. Management is always interested in exceptions and their related costs. Be sure to include procurement's responsiveness to the emergency requirement.

I've only scratched the surface of marketing procurement's value. Remember, in order for procurement to be value-added, it must be seen and acknowledged by its customers as "essential to the entity's mission." You are Value-Added! Market your value.