People-driven change & procurement operating models fit for a new world

Some things resonate more than others when groups of people who share common challenges come together, and so it was at the latest Procurement Leaders Member Exchange at the home of pharmaceutical giant Roche in Basel.

With an agenda focused on people-driven transformation, the quest for more effective business partnering and procurement operating models fit for the future, it wasn’t long before some common themes started to float to the surface. And while it’s impossible to summarise such a rich and varied discussion taking place over the course of a full day, here’s three thoughts that I took away from the session.

First: procurement must have an absolute focus on understanding the business need and scientifically match this to supplier capability. As a result, we can really begin to bring value and step up our role in the externalisation of business-critical services.

Roche has segmented how it can deliver business value into six broad areas – quality & availability, speed, buying experience, risk & sustainability, innovation and productivity & growth. By going on to deploy a ‘persona-based value contribution approach’ and ‘proactive business partnering’, where it takes a different approach to communicating procurement’s value proposition based on the “unique strengths and priorities of stakeholders”, it is able to clearly identify what procurement can deliver to individual business stakeholders.

The reality is that savings aren’t always what the business demands and by being laser focused on what it does want, procurement can become far more integral to the business. As head of strategy & transformation Patrick Foelck explained, he is looking for a commitment, almost a contract, between procurement and the business in terms of what they want, before he and the team even start to think about delivering against it.