**London**: In 2025, Procurement Leaders will explore strategies to enhance collaboration with internal stakeholders, aiming to address current market complexities. Insights from experts highlight a critical need for procurement teams to communicate their value and align with business objectives for improved organisational outcomes.
In 2025, the Procurement Leaders community plans to delve into the evolving dynamics between procurement and essential internal stakeholders, an initiative aimed at addressing the complexities of current market conditions. The highlight of these efforts involves reevaluating how procurement teams forge relationships within their organisations to meet growing demands.
Despite the fundamental awareness that stakeholder engagement is crucial within procurement, the actual execution appears to be lagging. Various strategies exist that promote deeper cooperation, such as physically aligning procurement with vital functions to enhance understanding and communication. Nevertheless, it has become clear that chief procurement officers (CPOs) need to introspect about how they are perceived by their colleagues in other departments.
Recently, a call conducted by Procurement Leaders focused explicitly on enhancing these internal relationships to yield better organisational outcomes. Jens Hentschel, founder of consultancy firm Fivis, contributed his expertise on this issue. Hentschel’s consultancy emphasises bridging gaps between procurement and sales teams. During the discussion, he shared insights gained from his research with sales professionals regarding their views on procurement. “We were asking them: ‘What do you think about procurement?’,” he explained. The response, according to Hentschel, was revealing: “Most of them tell us: ‘We have absolutely no clue who the buyers are in our own organisation.’”
The findings also highlighted concerns at a high level, including frustration expressed by a CFO from a major fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company. This financial executive indicated dissatisfaction stemming from misalignment between procurement’s key performance indicators (KPIs) and overall company performance, signalling that significant improvements are needed within the procurement function.
“This issue is really twofold,” Hentschel elaborated, identifying dual challenges. “We are not relaying to our supply base the value we can create and we’re not articulating to our internal stakeholders our reason for being. How can we be of help to drive and address business needs, [for example]?”
While these insights may appear as basic procurement principles, the ongoing discussion reveals that many fundamental aspects of the procurement process are ripe for enhancement. The recurrent theme is that many other business units seem unaware of the contributions that procurement can make, stemming from a dual issue: some of this lack of awareness is due to ignorance, while a considerable portion can be attributed to procurement’s failure to communicate effectively and align its goals with overarching business priorities.
As the conversation around stakeholder engagement continues, the Procurement Leaders community is set to explore these themes further, aiming for tangible improvements in internal collaboration and performance.
Source: Noah Wire Services
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