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The end of

procurement
as we know it
What’s Procurement’s
role after the Coronavirus
(COVID-19) pandemic crisis?
It’s a question on the minds
of Chief Procurement
Officers everywhere.

According to leading executives


Accenture interviewed,1 Procurement
organizations have played a critical
role throughout the crisis when difficult
decisions needed to be made. They’ve
contributed greatly to their company’s
effective and rapid recovery—heroicly
putting out fires, paying careful attention
to supply security, and anticipating how
to adapt to changes in end-customer and
internal customer purchasing needs.

But as the chaos from the early days of


the pandemic fades and companies have
to think about how they move forward,
it’s time for Procurement to engage in
some of its own self-reflection. What
will the business need and expect from
Procurement, and how is that different
from the role Procurement plays today?

Let’s start with the larger enterprise.


While COVID-19 undeniably has had a
massive disruptive impact on all businesses,
it hasn’t changed the fundamental fact
that the rules of competitiveness today
are very different thanks to digital and
continually evolving customer expectations.
It used to be enough for a business to flex its
competitive muscle on one or two of three
areas: growth, profitability, or sustainability,
resilience, and trust.

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Executing with equal strength against function providing commoditized services,
all three was difficult, expensive, and gradually relegated to tasks and activities
unnecessary. But now, shareholders and that haven’t been taken over by increasingly
stakeholders expect winning companies intelligent technologies.
to be growth-led, nimble and agile with
their cost base, with a demonstrated The leaders we spoke with roundly agree
commitment to sustainability, resilience, that CPOs need to think boldly about
and trust. These are the new table stakes what Procurement can do to become
for competing successfully, and leading an irreplaceable driver of 360-degree
companies know it. quantitative and non-quantitative value
for the business of the future. It’s time
This new focus has profound implications for a new vision for Procurement: its
for the Procurement organization and role across the broader enterprise,
the person who leads it. It will require stakeholders and communities, the new
Procurement to complement its traditional kind of value it can generate, and what
focus on driving profitability with added Procurement needs to get there.
value across growth and sustainability and
trust. And that means business as usual Based on our interviews, here’s how
in Procurement will no longer be tenable— that vision is shaping up in today’s
at least for Procurement organizations leading organizations.
that don’t want to become a back-office

Figure 1: The imperatives of competitive agility

Profitability

Create a zero-based mindset by


Growth and
customers
driving strategic cost reduction through
sourcing, demand management and
contract negotiations

y
og
Growth and
C
ol

ap
hn

customers
ab
tec

iliti

Serve as the ecosystem architecture,


Data and

es

working with partners to look for


growth opportunities, while keeping
the end customer at the heart of Intelligent
everything Procurement does Procurement
Path to new
growth and agility
Sustainability, Sustainability,
resilience and trust Profitability resilience
Own and drive the sustainability Pe o p l e and trust
agenda for the business, resulting
in attractiveness to customers

3
Profitability
The “Zero-Based Officer” going beyond an
external spend focus toward full cost ownership

Profitability is critical to any company’s Effectively becoming the “Zero-Based


survival and Procurement has historically Officer” means seeking opportunities to
focused on it by tackling costs through a shape specifications and demand and
price focus on external spend. But there’s to change buying behaviors across the
more to profitability than contracted organization, as well as creating a tight
savings. To give the business what it truly partnership between the business and
needs to be profitable, Procurement must finance to create a healthy tension that
build on its legacy of focusing on third- keeps everyone accountable for meeting
party spend. It needs to adopt leading target objectives. It also means moving
zero-based (ZBx) practices to continually beyond focusing on external spend only
look for ways to sustainably eliminate and assuming ownership of the total cost
undesirable or unnecessary costs in across the value chain—and that requires
the P&L and unlock money that can be integrating with the business.
reinvested in the business to fuel growth.
Take, for example, the financial services
ZBx programs deliver rapid returns, typically industry, where payroll (rather than
paying for themselves within the first year, third-party spend) represents a
and often many times over. According to majority—55 percent—of the cost
Accenture research, results vary from 5 to base. When these companies look
28 percent savings—a wide range because to reduce costs, they often consider
every company can decide how aggressive various avenues that impact customer
it wants to be (and can be) in determining segmentation and channels. In many
“should cost” targets. But regardless of cases, Procurement leads such efforts,
impact, speed is of the essence. Delaying taking a value- or process-led approach
transformation by just a single week could versus coming at it from a purely price
result in an average opportunity cost of perspective. Procurement is in the driver’s
$5 million for global companies. seat because it understands the value
levers for the categories involved and
which levers optimize cost, knows where
there are opportunities to drive down
consumption or change specifications,
and can help guide suppliers to take
advantage of synergies to lower costs.

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What’s possible in 2030?

Profitability moves
to a true total cost of
ownership mindset
In 2030, Procurement has moved far In this role, Procurement reports
beyond its traditional focus on contracted directly to the business unit lead and
cost savings to assume ownership of all provides vital direction and insights
costs, internal and external, of a business to the budget process in two key
unit or product group. Gone is the ways. One is determining what the
old three-headed cost ownership— budget (or total cost baseline) should
Controller, Business, and Procurement. be to achieve business ambitions.
Now, it’s a one-stop shop: Procurement As the neutral cost owner advising the
is solely responsible for the cost line business, Procurement infuses make/
on the P&L. And with Procurement in buy thinking to help steer the business
the driver’s seat, the business now no toward the right mix of insourcing and
longer focuses on optimizing individual outsourcing. The second is driving
costs but, instead, adopts a total cost continuous improvement initiatives
of ownership mindset that drives higher within the budgeting cycle. In particular,
overall profitability. This is what we call Procurement works on continuously
Integrated Spend Management. improving the internal cost structure,
which is often not the core competence
of managers who formerly owned internal
costs. By helping the business make more
informed financial decisions, Procurement
enables the company to target and
eliminate unnecessary costs, which results
in more money to invest in people and
other growth-generating capabilities.

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Growth
Gaining a top-line focus by embedding innovation
and customer-centricity in every decision

Procurement has to be about more than When it comes to customer centricity,


the bottom line. Top-line growth matters tomorrow’s leading Procurement
too, and Procurement must consider organizations will have a dedicated
how it could influence innovation and focus on the company’s end customer.
customer experience. Procurement must ensure that every
sourcing and strategic decision it makes
With more and more companies is rooted in the ultimate impact of that
looking outside their own walls for decision on the customer experience,
new ideas, Procurement is in an ideal the value delivered, and how it might
position to serve as the orchestrator of impact the company’s brand. In other
the company’s ecosystem (suppliers, words, the voice of the customer must
startups, academics, other key external become a guiding force across the
relationships, and even customers) and Procurement organization.
be a driving force of the enterprise’s
innovation agenda. Many of the executives “I think a lot of Procurement organizations
we interviewed see Procurement are still removed from the customer and
becoming the chief “innovation scout,” still not working toward realizing who
charged with identifying promising new the customer is, and partnering with the
technologies, products, and capabilities rest of the organization to exceed and
that help make the company more meet customer expectations,” noted one
customer-centric. CPO. “When you ask Procurement people
who their customers are, you generally
“Procurement needs to get ahead of the get, ‘it’s sales,’ or ‘it’s operations,’ or ‘it’s
opportunities, and help to get business finance.’ It’s typically an internal customer,
partners there too, because they are which kind of gives you a glimpse of the
not scanning the marketplace for what internal culture and the mentality of the
is going on all the time—they are busy Procurement organization.”
running their operation,” noted one
CPO. “And you can’t do this totally in-
house and build everything from scratch.
The reality is you need to have a network
of suppliers, providers and partners that
all work together with you to help deliver
that. It is not just a category strategy
that stays on the shelf for 12 months
and you buy off of it.”

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What’s possible in 2030?

Growth driven
by Procurement
becomes the norm
Over the past three years, the evolution In this new dawn of Procurement as
of large organizations from siloed entities a growth driver, organizations work
into co-evolutionary networked providers strategically with their existing partners
has quickened dramatically. Something and undiscovered suppliers, which now
that seemed wholly intangible at the start have a line of sight into organizations’
of the decade has now manifested into 5-, 10- and even 15-year objective horizons.
myriad platform-first organizations, ones Procurement engages with partners to
operating at breakneck speed and sitting contribute to these shared objectives as
in the center of partner ecosystems that early as possible to build a pipeline of
contribute to their sustained growth. future-facing growth ideas. Procurement
sits in the C-Suite and controls the
Procurement itself is also barely growth agenda, aligning Procurement
recognizable. The function is now the teams with business objectives,
glue that binds all external and internal using technology to farm and harvest
stakeholders together in a spiderweb innovation from supplier ecosystems
structure. These interconnected parts at scale, and driving top-line revenue
are all facilitated by a third wave of growth through incredible competitive
Procurement teams, ones tasked with advantage. The cost- and efficiency-
driving innovation and revenue growth. focused procurement organization of
Made up of data scientists, growth old is truly dead and buried.
hackers, and business analysts, these
teams use all the technology at their
disposal to collaboratively work with this
ecosystem, blurring the lines between
where one organization ends and the
next one begins. Knowledge, trust, and
transparency have all been underpinned
by blockchain and data, ensuring the
demise of the walls that had previously
existed around the transfer of knowledge.

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Sustainability,
resilience and trust
Earning the license to operate and grow under
the stewardship of the CPO

Being customer-centric is also where Trust is also about resilience and true
sustainability, resilience, and trust come business continuity. With the threats of
into play, of which Procurement is well- disruption higher than ever, it’s critical
positioned to become the chief steward. for businesses to build world-class
With customers increasingly opting operating chain resilience and implement
to only do business with companies a risk management strategy that
that operate ethically and sustainably, embraces complexity, with capabilities
enterprises can ill afford missteps that enabling prediction, anticipation, and
undermine customers’ and the public’s real-time execution and monitoring of
trust. Accenture research1 has found that real business continuity plans.
54 percent of a sample of companies
we studied experienced a material drop “I think sustainability and resilience
in trust that put a collective $180 billion is actually an opportunity that a lot of
in revenue at risk. More specifically, we Procurement organizations are seizing
found that a typical $30 billion retailer that because it’s something that doesn’t have
experiences a material drop in trust stands a formal owner in a lot of companies,”
to lose $4 billion in future revenue. one CPO noted. “I see the sustainability
piece, in particular, as an opportunity
Leading Procurement organizations for Procurement to actually shine
will take the lead on the company’s and show more relevancy within the
responsibility, sustainability and company. For example, at our company,
resilience agenda, and help guarantee Procurement leads a big effort on shifting
the company’s license to operate and the consumption of energy from fuel
grow. This includes fully vetting the sources to renewable sources. That was
supplier base and ecosystem; basing something the company was talking
business, supplier, and sourcing decisions about from a PR perspective, but nobody
on sustainability objectives, reputation, was doing it, so Procurement took it over
and trust; carefully balancing the because we manage utilities spend.”
tradeoffs between sustainability and cost
management; and continually looking
for ways to embrace circular economy
principles in sourcing to reduce or
eliminate waste and promote reuse.

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What’s possible in 2030?

Sustainability and
resilience become
the “New” savings
The board of a large industrial components a manufacturer’s traceability practices
manufacturer has delivered a new edict on across its supply chain a major factor
sustainability—but not to generate good in their purchase decision. Third, the
PR or remain compliant with government company has found that its largest
regulations. That’s so 2020. Instead, this customers have jointly agreed that all
global manufacturer, in the midst of its transactions with suppliers will have full
own turnaround driven by the rise of carbon offsets in place by 2024—or risk
electric-powered vehicles, now cares significant penalties for non-compliance.
more about the impact of sustainability
on its stock price than all other initiatives. In the draft of the 10-K filing introductory
In fact, the company considers creating letter making its way around the board
quantifiable impact around sustainability for comment, the CEO puts it bluntly:
its top strategic priority for creating “Without making sustainability and
shareholder value this year—for three resilience our number one strategy in
compelling reasons. 2023 to meet shareholder and customer
requirements, this company will not exist
First, there’s the investment factor. in 2025. I have instructed our Procurement
The company determined that if it didn’t and supply chain teams to prioritize these
build on its existing sustainability efforts, initiatives over cost reduction and cost
it would likely lose up to 60 percent of management programs until our goals
current investors that have raised the are achieved.”
sustainability and resilience performance
threshold to be considered for investment
or holdings in 2024. Second, proliferating
electronic vehicles, which now represent
47 percent of the firm’s business, has
become critical to strategy. These vehicle
producers are requiring the same minimum
sustainability thresholds from their
suppliers to meet the expectations of
their younger car buyers, who consider

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To thrive tomorrow,
CPOs must reinvent
themselves today
Procurement’s new vision and value
proposition is a significant departure from
what Procurement historically has done and
it won’t be easy to deliver on—especially for
organizations operating with a more traditional
model and still struggling to evolve from a
transactional to a strategic function.

But, according to the CPOs in our research, Procurement really has


no choice. It has to adapt and evolve if it wants to remain relevant
and valuable to today’s rapidly changing enterprise.

For CPOs, the change may seem intimidating and make no mistake
it’s a huge undertaking, but it’s certainly not insurmountable. Based
on our research and input from leading CPOs, we’ve developed a
structure that can help CPOs think through and shape the next steps
in Procurement’s evolution and the key elements that will define the
organization’s journey.

Four steps to future-proofing procurement

Fine-tune Rewrite Reinvigorate Adopt new


1 the core 2 the book of 3 the talent 4 measures
engine Procurement base of value

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Fine-tune the Being equipped with the right technology
1 core engine landscape requires having defined a clear
digital Procurement strategy and having
Building credibility, buy-in and enthusiasm confirmed, via proof of concepts, that the
among the business for Procurement’s functionalities meet business needs. It also
new agenda is only possible if the requires a strong business and value drive
organization continues to focus on and to avoid delivering “technology projects,”
flawlessly execute the “brilliant basics”— as well as the capacity to change how
the core engine of Procurement that people behave and work.
drives profitability. It must be clear that
Procurement will still be responsible for One example of the impact these emerging
ensuring seamless source-to-pay, ensuring apps can have is how new providers have
compliance, managing suppliers, and dramatically improved procure-to-pay
ultimately managing spend. Yet in many enablement. Their cloud-based, flexible,
companies today, these are areas in which and user-friendly solutions, combined
Procurement continues to struggle. with the right content and buying channel
enablement, offer an enterprise version of
“The Procurement user experience is shopping on Amazon, in a compliant way.
very important, but the reality is that the
user experience will not get better until
Rewrite the book
the systems are integrated,” one CPO 2 of Procurement
observed. “Why is it when I do a purchase
order, I have to do a requisition, approve
While fine-tuning the core engine,
that, then I have to approve the contract
CPOs also need to develop their vision
when that goes through? I have to touch
for the next level of Procurement—the
it three to four times, and on different
organization’s objectives, role, and
systems. It’s almost ridiculous.”
priorities—and what’s needed to get there.
This vision must be communicated across
Procurement needs to once and for all the business, with the support of CPOs’
complete its source-to-pay transformation peers in the C-suite. From our research,
by building robust capabilities that bring it’s obvious that the new role of the CPO
together simplified and harmonized and Procurement varies across industries
processes, the highest-quality data and and even within them. Corporate
content, the right organization model strategies will determine what aspect
(typically in a front-, middle- and back (growth, profitability, or sustainability)
-office structure), and state-of-the-art, will be the focus.
user-friendly digital technologies.
A key part of that vision is the fundamentally
In fact, a wide range of new, specialized new Procurement structure and operating
digital apps are infusing innovative model that will enable the function to more
capabilities into the overall stack of effectively align the value it delivers with the
Procurement technology enablers. business’s strategies. In most companies,
By exploring and using these best-of- with the new mandate of Procurement and
breed solutions, CPOs can more easily, a seamless source-to-pay experience, the
quickly, and cost effectively build, adopt, majority of current Procurement capabilities
and maintain the capabilities they need. will become back-office activities.

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The face to the business will no longer sources—both internal (such as sales
be a set of category  managers; instead, or engineering functions) and external
Procurement will be represented by (including technical universities and
senior entrepreneurs who are seamlessly startups). Importantly, a compelling
integrated into the business. Procurement value proposition will be
key in helping to attract and retain the
diverse, highly skilled (and in-demand)
Reinvigorate
3 the talent base
professionals Procurement will need to
achieve its new vision. A big contributor
to such an experience is a different type
New Procurement roles and
of career path for new Procurement
responsibilities necessarily mean new
professionals that’s consistent with their
skills are required. In fact, 95 percent of
aspirations and supported by appropriate
the CPOs we spoke with said developing
training and development programs.
new roles and skills is critical for
Procurement’s future success. The days
of a “typical” Procurement professional, “We actually don’t actively recruit people
with a category or process focus and with traditional Procurement backgrounds
standard career path, are gone. Instead, anymore,” noted one CPO. “We don’t need
diversity will be required. Successful any more Procurement specialists, more
teams will still need key Procurement people with Procurement backgrounds at
skills, but will also be expected to exhibit different companies with their own sets
a high degree of business acumen, as of Procurement processes and mindsets.
well as entrepreneurial, collaboration, Instead, we have people with backgrounds
and analytical skills. Furthermore, they’ll in marketing, sales, and finance—
need story-telling and communications talented people who have the potential
proficiency; the ability to scout and to learn and to develop themselves.
foster relationships with partners; and an We can teach them the Procurement
understanding of how to interpret insights technical knowledge—I prefer to start
and leverage digital technologies to solve with generalists and a clean sheet when
business problems. it comes to Procurement skills.”

Yet, according to Accenture research, Adopt new


nearly half of CPOs believe lack of 4 measures of value
appropriate skills will be a key barrier
to transformation, and just 10 percent of With its broader focus on profitability,
Procurement organizations are building growth, and sustainability, resilience,
the right workforce to bring them into the and trust, Procurement can no longer
future.2 Making matters worse, such skills rely solely on the cost, compliance, and
are scarce; companies that don’t move operational metrics it has long used to
fast to bring them aboard will likely find steer its organization and demonstrate
themselves out of luck. its value. While financial measures and
savings will continue to be a priority,
To get needed skills, as well as infuse new metrics, all aligned to Procurement’s
innovative and fresh thinking into the new vision and value proposition,
organization, CPOs will need to tap a are needed as well.
variety of non-traditional channels and

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For example, the Procurement Outside-in metrics that provide
organization needs to be able to ecosystem partners’ perspectives will
quantify the top-line impact and brand also be key to assessing Procurement’s
equity enhancement of ecosystem- or ability to drive value beyond cost and
supplier-led innovations. It should be efficiency. These include such measures
able to track the amount of renewable as 360-degree supplier/Procurement
energy the company uses compared with valuations to provide helpful insights
fossil fuel-based energy, or how much on how Procurement can better
the company has reduced the amount collaborate and improve relationships
of plastics in its packaging. And, in terms with the supply base.
of overall financials, it must be able to
calculate how the organization’s efforts And to keep pace with the speed of
have affected the enterprise’s total business, Procurement will need to
costs (both external and internal) and embrace new tools that enable the
cash flow, or the amount of “bad costs” organization to track these and other
that Procurement-driven ZBx initiatives key metrics, and gauge its performance,
have freed up to invest in growth. in real time—and to use these metrics to
actually impact key Procurement decisions
“I think there’s opportunity to involving such things as sourcing,
include things that are traditionally supplier performance management,
not a Procurement metric, like EBITDA, and negotiations.
for example, or even revenue,” said
one CPO. “Because if the Procurement According to one CPO, “While financial
organization is not accountable to measures and savings will continue to
actually go find value by partnering with be a priority, new metrics, all aligned
external entities, they’re not going to be to Procurement’s new vision and value
looking, for example, for opportunities proposition, are needed as well.”
for partnerships on creating additional
revenue. Overall customer satisfaction,
all the way to the end customer, is
another one. It can make Procurement
accountable, for example, for the cost that
poor quality creates for the business when While financial measures
a customer returns a product.”
and savings will continue
“One of the next KPIs we need to look at, to be a priority, new
and are starting to contemplate, is local
versus importing,” another CPO stated. metrics, all aligned to
“We see increasing pressure to buy local Procurement’s new vision
instead of imported products for financial
or sustainability reasons.” and value proposition,
are needed as well.

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A big chance for
the new procurement
According to Accenture research, 78 percent
of CPOs believe their industry is facing
disruption, and those winds of change are
reshaping virtually every element of business.

At the same time, they’re also opening up compelling new


opportunities for the Procurement organization to create greater
value as a ‘powerhouse’ for the enterprise. But the changes required
for Procurement to generate that value are unprecedented in scope
and scale and, for many organizations, the transformation needed
won’t come easily.

Successfully reinventing Procurement to expand its role to


cover new strategic grounds will require the right organization
structure and tight alignment with the corporate strategy.
It will require substantially new skills that are increasingly in
short supply. And above all, it will require a strong, visionary
CPO as a business leader, committed to driving the effort
and doing what it takes to make it happen.

“If you look at organizations today, every one is guaranteed to


have a CFO, CEO, CTO, and HR chief on the board, but not every
organization has a CPO on it,” one CPO observed. “Changing
that will require, among other things, creating a credible,
Procurement ‘brand,’ similar to the well-known brands functions
such as finance, marketing, and HR have. That’s Procurement
leadership’s responsibility—to demonstrate the value Procurement
delivers beyond just bringing in parts or services at the right cost.
We’re almost there, but I think the question is, how do we get that on
a global scale across all organizations? That’s when you start to see
Procurement being an area that people really want to work in.”

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Authors
Line Bagger-Hansen Steve Craen François Bourbigot
Managing Director Managing Director Managing Director

Alexis Perez Benjamin Oswin Varish Singh


Offering Development Senior Manager Senior Manager
Senior Principal

Contributors
Daniel Vollath Robert Fuhrmann Sven Ruytinx
Managing Director Managing Director Managing Director

Markus Hoppe Alessandro Caviggia Thomas Papa


Principal Director Managing Director Managing Director

Kai Nowosel
Chief Procurement Officer

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References About Accenture
Accenture Procurement Mastery Research
1 Accenture is a global professional services company
with leading capabilities in digital, cloud and security.
2
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strategy/trust-in-business across more than 40 industries, we offer Strategy and
Consulting, Interactive, Technology and Operations
services—all powered by the world’s largest network of
Follow us Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations centers.
Our 506,000 people deliver on the promise of technology
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