- and [Music] [Applause] welcome to the art of procurement podcast with your host

Philip Pike's it here at 43 share the trends strategies and tactics that you can
use to elevate the wall of procurement and your career hi there and welcome to
another art of procurement Friday show and it really feels like it's been a couple
of weeks since we had a solo show I've continued to experiment with the Friday
format last couple of weeks we've had a couple of shorter interviews and the week
before that it was the album alley episode back in episode 55 where I shared things
that weren't strictly procurement related but I think just a really useful once in
a while for us to sit there it's kind of sit back and think about but I've done
that because I'm really aware that I don't want the Friday show just to be a world
according to Phil for the ones of a better term kind of an opinion show and while I
do have a lot of strong opinions on topics across procurement spectrum I don't want
every Friday show to become a soapbox essentially having said that I do feel that I
have a couple those in the work so definitely look out for them but what I really
love is I'd love to hear from you what types of content work and what doesn't for
you I know it's cliche but the show really is nothing without you and then the
feedback that you're able to give me so I would really love to hear your thoughts
on what the Friday show should be from your perspective before I do go into the
show today I wanted to just give you a quick reminder that I recently published a
report called the 50 learnings from 50 shows and in the report I share some of the
key takeaways that I've taken from the first 50 episodes are the outer procurement
this is quickly become our most popular reports of the ad procurement so if you
haven't grabbed a copy already then just head on over to art of procurement calm
slash 50 lessons that's art of procurement calm sash 50 lessons so in today's show
I wanted to first answer a question that I received from a listener and to
paraphrase that question it was how do I get early engagement with a business too
often by the time that the business thing guages me although leverage is gone and
I'm just left to rubber-stamp a contract and if you're like me I think that's
something that we can all resonate with definitely a change that I've had all the
way through my career as a practitioner and when I sit back and think about this
there's really two pieces to the puzzle I see there's a macro element and a micro
element if you will so what do I mean by macro element well that's some of the
things you can't necessarily control their policies procedures perhaps the
objectives of your organization that enable you to develop earlier engagements and
then for a micro level it's you know do you have the personal relationship with
your stakeholders that actually make them want to engage with you early in the
process and in my experience the key has really been in building that personal
relationship your ability to do that it may be influenced by the macro by the
policies and the procedures of your procurement organization but bad policies and
procedures don't necessarily inhibit early engagement I never actually found that
in instances where I had none or very little relationship it's an uphill battle
from the start no matter how good or bad the policies procedures the you actually
asked to work with are I've also worked in environments where the use of
procurement is mandated and environments where it's not mandated and even in those
Munday environments if you didn't have that relationship then stakeholders still
find ways to get around engaging with me they certainly did with me until those
scope sourcing decisions were effectively made so in reflection I think there's
really five different keys to early engagement with stakeholders the first thing to
think about is if you're in the same building take time to co-locate within their
departments it might only be for a few hours or a day of the week but I think that
being accessible really demonstrates so you're different that you want to be part
of the team and that you want to integrate and interact with the your stakeholder
and your stakeholders team secondly something that Anna Spady told me back in so 14
when we were talking about how marketing engages potential prospects Roy stood out
to me and that's to engage with these stakeholders in advance of you ever really
needing anything and without an agenda that's really the best time to start
building those relationships when you need nothing in return a third key is
proactively sharing information that really demonstrates your understanding of the
supply markets there's relevant to their area of expertise examples can be news
that impacts may because your suppliers in their space can be new technologies or
innovations or you come across or just on your perspective your view on how some
broader trends may impact what it is that they buy and how they buy it and in each
case by doing that demonstrates one that you're here to help them and to that I
think this is very important do you know their market so it really infers that
they're going to get some value from working with you rather than you being in
their eyes somebody who is just a rubber stamp someone who does just facilitate the
process fourth is when you do pickup projects focus on the objectives of the
stakeholder and not on yours or at least you know in your conversations with them
because these may actually be at odds as you like we're gonna have some cost
savings targets to hit the stakeholder may not and if that's the case number one
way of turning off that stakeholder is to give them the perception that all you are
is a way of helping you to meet your targets that that's all they're there for you
can manage that behind the scenes and generally I think that we all have
experienced that savings will Tamale flow you just don't need to be obvious with
your stakeholders in in how you position what you're there for and how you are
there to help them and the fifth key that I have for today's episode is to protect
them from the procurement process so help take the pain away of all the hoops that
they may have to jump through all the process that they may have to go through I
think a reading reason why stakeholders don't get as involved is because they fear
that process and the fact that in their mind is going to both restrict what they
want to do and bring significant delay if you can help protect them from that and
take care of everything behind the scenes it's going to make them much more likely
and willing to work with you earlier in that process ultimately I think it boils
down to positioning yourself through consistent actions over time as there are and
not as the procurement police for the ones of a better phrase and when you take a
step back just proactiveness and communications are really key to this whole
building a relationship and getting early engagement so if I go through them very
briefly again first you know if you're in the same building take that time to co-
locate second is engage when you don't need anything from them and engage without
an agenda third is proactively share information that really shows them that you
know what it is they buy and you know a lot of the intricacies about what they buy
fourth is when you do finally have a project focus on their objectives and on your
objectives at least in your conversations with the stakeholder five is protect your
stakeholders from the procurement process if you do all of these then it's really
going to encourage stakeholders to come to you early because they're not going to
be coming to you worrying you know how is this going to add delay or how is this
gonna add additional work they're going to be coming to you thinking about what
help how are you going to help facilitate what it is they need to buy and how are
you going to bring your intelligence to help them in their decision making all
right well that wraps up another art of procurement Friday show as ever I'd love to
hear what you think and how you've had success in building early engagement with
stakeholders just head on over to the show notes page which is art of procurement I
comm such early engagements for more information and to connect the semi your
thoughts just send me a tweet tweet for the show is at a Opie show that's at a Opie
show alright then well thanks so much for listening I'll be back on Tuesday with
another interview show take care thank you for listening to another episode of the
earth to find an archive of our past episodes you can go to art of procurement comm
slash episodes and to ensure you never miss another show go to utter for current
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