The answer is you can be if you conduct some simple research and then apply a few simple principles to your job.
There are quite a number of educational sites that procurement professionals can visit in order to educate themselves as to best practices (I hate that term), strategy development, execution management and reporting. Some companies refer to themselves as e-procurement companies, some as reverse auction companies and others as strategic sourcing companies. Most will have an outline as to their implementation ideas somewhere on their website. It might be in a WIKI, a blog archive or in a products and services tab. The point is you can probably find one pretty easily and most likely it is better than what your company already has in place.
Typically the proof is in the pudding, which is to say there are many tools out there, but the services delivery model and what it is based on will be what determines how strategic you become if you follow it. I like to break the tools and services into three areas which are;
1. Analyze
2. Assess
3. Source
These areas can then be expanded to support most strategic platforms tools and services.
If your company is not particularly strategic, it does not mean that you can’t be. Who knows, you might event get noticed.
We look forward to and appreciate your comments.
