Are you looking at making procurement work for You? The procurement process requires a mastery of supply chain management, sourcing raw materials, and meeting purchasing goals.
What Is Procurement?
The term “procurement” can encompass all of the many elements of a company’s purchasing and investment process. Although it does involve the literal purchasing of goods, services, and property, procurement management certainly goes much further so that it can include additional benefits such as strategic planning as well.
The procurement process can impact upon a variety of business functions, and it no doubt requires a total mastery of supply chain management, sourcing the best raw materials all while meeting purchasing goals and sticking to a set budget.
For these reasons, procurement professionals are almost always in high demand, and many big brands choose to maintain an entire procurement department in-house which is led by a chief procurement officer so that they can reap the rewards all-year round.
4 Main Types of Procurement
There are four main types of procurement activities that you can get involved with, including direct procurement, indirect procurement, and services procurement.
• Direct procurement – involves the direct purchase of raw goods, machinery, and wholesale goods which will directly contribute towards the company’s end product. The key stakeholders in direct procurement processes are procurement officers and contracted suppliers.
• Indirect procurement – involves the purchase of goods such as office supplies. Although such goods don’t directly affect your company’s end product, they do support the day-to-day management of the business and should not be forgotten. A smaller company may ask office managers to complete their indirect procurement processes, whereas other larger corporations would employ an external management company to help control and monitor those purchases.
• Services procurement – involves hiring a range of temporary staff, leasing various software, and investing with short term vendors to work in a more limited or controlled fashion for one key project or idea.
• Goods procurement – involves sourcing physical items but can also include items like software subscriptions. Effective procurement can rely heavily on good supply chain management practices. Good procurement is commonly the most popular or widely utilised form of purchasing or investment.
Why Is Procurement Important in Business?
Procurement is such a vital step, as it helps you to better understand supply chains by allowing you to find more reliable suppliers that can offer competitively priced goods and services that match up directly with your unique wants and needs. This will be the case whether your business is seeking out raw materials for manufacturing or even marketing services or a load of new office supplies, as procurement covers a variety of bases big and small.
So, if a company needs a new supplier to provide an ongoing service for an indefinite period of time, then indulging in the procurement process will help you to better identify and choose the supplier which can best meet all of your standards and requirements at the most reasonable or affordable price. Through top quality procurement businesses can avoid wasting time, money and valuable resources dealing with a range of inadequate suppliers that can offer low standard products or services with poor time management and a total lack of support.
Of course, it has to be said that although minimising costs is one key feature of improving your procurement processes: however. It’s also essential that you can better identify good suppliers who are able to sell you the top-quality goods and services that you need to maintain the highest standards within your business, as you cannot forfeit the end products just to save a little cash. You’ll end up losing far more by making the mistake of utilising a very cheap supplier.
How Can I Pursue a Career in Procurement?
Deciding to pursue a profitable and rewarding career in procurement can certainly be a profitable option if you take the time to learn all of the necessary skills and information surrounding such a complex topic.
You cannot simply throw yourself in at the deep end without the help of intense study, as you’ll soon sink to the bottom having found yourself confused and intimidated when applying for associated procurement roles. Instead, you must take the time to study to the best of your abilities, pursuing some kind of CIPS courses or a CIPS qualification so that you can prove yourself to potential employers.
As procurement can have such dramatic impact on any business, it’s always going to be a popular area that companies choose not to ignore, so you could certainly have a long and prosperous career in the world of procurement.
Ready to Get Started?
Telso provides professional qualifications and short courses in CIPS & procurement, supply management, and soft skills, which can be consumed via face-to-face, virtual, self-paced, mobile, and microlearning. They are also a Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) accredited Training Provider.
With offices in London, their priority is to create a collaborative learning culture that facilitates social interaction. Delivering video content and social learning through interactions and forums that makes procurement, supply management and soft skills interesting, relevant and entertaining.
To find out more about some of the best-in-class procurement qualifications and supply management learning, plus CISP qualification courses, call Telso today on 020 4538 0222 or contact them via their procurement services website, so that they can understand how best to help you meet your goals.