Sometimes its just a quick remark that clarifies difficult issues and that happened with me yesterday when a very competent procurement professional mentioned that their company did not do much procurement activities i.e. bidding,negotiation because they preferred to stay with the same supplier. So, there was not much growth in procurement as a career…
This set me thinking because it marks a major shift in management practice because companies are realizing that just as it is more profitable to have good customer relationship management downstream – its probably more effective to have good supplier relationship management upstream the value chain. Just as you need to "fire" or "sack" your bad customers you need to do the same with your bad suppliers but for the good ones you have – good relationship management seems to be paramount.
So procurement managers need to extend skills beyond "negotiation" just as sales managers need to extend skills beyond simply trying to "close" the sale….paradigms have shifted!