BTW EP 01: Buy: The Way... To Purposeful Procurement
Feb 19, 2025
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Rich Ham, CEO of Fine Tune, an expense management consultancy, shares his insights on the critical flaws in current procurement incentive structures. He discusses how these issues hinder true value creation and profitability. The conversation highlights the need for a shift from mere cost-saving to a more collaborative, value-driven approach. Ham also explores the impact of technology on procurement roles and the importance of diverse perspectives in overcoming systemic challenges. This dialogue sets the foundation for a transformative journey in responsible procurement.
Flawed procurement incentive structures often prioritize short-term savings over long-term value, stifling innovation and comprehensive performance within organizations.
A collaborative approach among stakeholders is essential to identify and address procurement challenges, fostering more purposeful systems that maximize business and societal benefits.
Deep dives
The Impact of Corporate Purchasing Decisions
The purchasing habits of corporations have far-reaching effects on both their financial performance and the environment in which they operate. Corporations effectively 'vote' with their dollars, shaping not only their internal operations but also social and ecological outcomes. Understanding the implications of procurement choices is critical, as flawed incentive structures can lead to unintended negative consequences over time. Therefore, improving the procurement function can lead to more intentional outcomes that bolster both business performance and societal benefits.
Flaws in Procurement Incentive Structures
Widely accepted procurement incentives often fail to align with the desired outcomes for businesses, resulting in significant inefficiencies. These flaws can lead procurement professionals to prioritize short-term savings over longer-term value creation, stifling innovation and comprehensive performance. As a result, practitioners find themselves caught between conflicting priorities, hindering their ability to fully serve the interests of their companies. There is a pressing need to identify and address these flaws to transform procurement into a more purposeful function that can drive substantial organizational improvements.
A Journey Towards Purposeful Procurement
The project aims to explore the existing challenges within procurement and to identify innovative solutions that can enhance its strategic role. Throughout the series, experts will be consulted to provide insights on historical factors that have shaped current practices and potential steps forward. By engaging stakeholders from various sectors, the goal is to develop new incentive structures that foster a culture of purposeful procurement. This collaborative approach strives to not only expose flaws but to also envision a more effective procurement landscape that maximizes both business and social value.
“Show me the incentive, and I will show you the outcome.” Warren Buffet’s vice chairman Charlie Munger’s succinct and insightful take reminds us of the power of incentives—and provides a backdrop for this project.
In this first episode of the “Buy: The Way…To Purposeful Procurement” podcast, produced collaboratively by the teams at Art of Procurement and Fine Tune, Fine Tune CEO Rich Ham, Philip Ideson, and Kelly Barner lay the groundwork for this year-long series of bi-weekly episodes featuring hand-picked guests that will explore various flaws within commonplace procurement department incentive structures, and how those flaws are holding the profession back from its most purposeful potential.
This first conversation sets the stage for frank discussions with practitioners, procurement leaders, and subject matter experts about how prevailing systems of incentives create harms to the status quo, what a healthier system might look like, and the outcomes such improved systems might produce—both within the company’s walls and beyond them.