How do you pursue projects with other departments within your organization?
Today?s post is by Mark Davis; Sr. Vice President and COO at SafeSourcing.
I suppose it is appropriate that on St. Patrick?s Day we would post a blog about luck.?? I was asked this weekend whether my company was hiring or if I knew anyone hiring.? In the course of speaking with a few people and hearing their approach to finding a job this statement was made ?I guess right now I?m just not that lucky finding a job.?? I countered my belief that, to a large extent, you make your own luck.? You make it with how you prepare, how you pursue, and how you perform.? People don?t ?luck? into jobs, promotions or successful sourcing events, they prepare, they pursue and they perform in a way that achieves what they want for an outcome.
Prepare ? Through the years there have been many quotes from wise people concerning ?luck? and preparedness but the one that seems to sum them all up was by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, an ancient Roman Philosopher, ?Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.??? Opportunities will present themselves, other departments will approach procurement teams with new projects and the team that has been prepared by developing documentation, processes, and research, and how have made relationships with 3rd party strategic sourcing partners will be the ones that are prepared to take on the new opportunity and execute it in a way that builds on their reputation internally for getting things done and returns value to their company.
Pursue ? The world we live in is quickly being handed over to generations of people who have been labeled as the ?entitled to? group.? They expect they do not naturally value the effort it takes to be successful.? They send emails and expect to become a priority to someone.? They leave a message one day and wait days before following up.? They apply for a job and when they hear nothing they move on to the next posting.? They have an internal customer mention a sourcing project and wait until they hear back from that person before following up.? Everyone is busy.? One more time; EVERYONE is busy.? The only way to achieve the success that many people desire is to be the ONE person that works harder than anyone else to follow up on opportunities.? Pursue, pursue, pursue.? When a new sourcing project is mentioned internally, follow that up regularly until the project begins or the initial owner pulls it off the table.? People are busy and they will generally not have their work stopped in order to help procurement run a project correctly.? Dogged pursuit will bring many projects to life.
Perform ? Preparedness and pursuit gets someone in the game, how they perform will determine the level of success they can expect from the outcome.? Performance will depend on how well a team follows their own processes and procedures for good procurement projects.? How well they pay attention to what they have learned from their research and how well they have learned from previous experience.? Performing well will determine how many more projects will come after the current one is completed.
For more information on how SafeSourcing can assist with the Three Ps or on our ?Risk Free? trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.? We have an entire customer services team waiting to assist you today.
We look forward to your comments.
