Art of Procurement BTW EP 12: The Phil-ins: A Pivotal Pivot
Halfway through their 24-episode journey, the co-hosts of “Buy: The Way...To Purposeful Procurement” pause to assess what they've learned so far about how procurement has and is evolving, and, more importantly, what’s ahead for the future.
In this reflective episode, Philip Ideson, Rich Ham, and Kelly Barner bring together insights from their recent conversations that confirm a troubling trend in procurement: not only are the P&L-related harms of procurement's flawed incentive structures real, they're also worsening over time.
It is time for procurement to course correct.
Rich explains why by pointing out an important lesson learned from previous episodes: suppliers have figured out the game. They've learned that winning the initial deal is what matters, because procurement's incentives usually revolve around projected savings rather than actual P&L impact.
This discovery has unleashed an avalanche of post-contract margin-grabbing tactics, from billing for non-existent inventory to charging premium rates for basic services during crisis situations, that are diluting procurement value creation.
This episode reveals a fundamental paradox within procurement: while they consistently report driving value in multiple ways (sustainability, risk mitigation, social impact, strategic sourcing for M&A targets), procurement is still measured almost exclusively by narrow, often dysfunctional savings definitions.
This misalignment doesn't just harm savings outcomes; it may be crippling procurement's ability to deliver value across the business.
Finally, this episode sets up the series' pivot from problem diagnosis to solution exploration, as the co-hosts discuss their plans for future episodes to examine how organizations can move beyond “savings” toward comprehensive “value” metrics that more accurately reflect the depth and breadth of procurement's true contribution.
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