Smart money

Customers are wising up. Today’s procurement people are smarter and better trained than ever before. What’s worrying for some print firms is that many are better trained than salespeople. With more companies now managing suppliers through centralised procurement or purchasing departments, it puts pressure on printing sales teams to raise their games. Savvy clients are out-thinking sales teams and getting better deals.

Procurement has become a sophisti-cated skill because of its impact on the bottom line; at big corporate clients, a procurement department might be responsible for millions of dollars of expenditure. Procurement people use a range of tools to weight the scoring around the responses they get from suppliers. Employers will send their procurement teams overseas for specific training in supply chain management.

There’s a perception that procurement people are only interested in beating down the price. Cost is a big part of the task, but procurement people aren’t solely fixated on dollars. After all, it’s not their money. And there is no point in buying the cheapest if the supplier is unable to
deliver on time and to specification.