Most organisations can develop a solid supply chain strategy. In packaging, this means understanding material flows, knowing where plates originate, identifying who produces digital files and mapping the entire process. On paper, everything appears perfectly aligned. However, procurement doesn’t occur on paper – it happens in the real world, where complexity, volatility and interdependence are the reality.
The days when procurement was simply a cost-saving exercise that could be set and forgotten are long gone. Modern procurement is a dynamic discipline that, executed effectively, sits at the heart of organisational value creation. The challenge lies not in designing the strategy but executing it effectively.
Why execution fails when strategy succeeds
Most procurement strategies look remarkably similar. The documents are comprehensive, the logic sound, the stakeholder buy-in secured. Yet when it comes to actual delivery, these strategies often fail to generate their intended value.
So what goes wrong? People underestimate operational reality.
A strategy might identify approved suppliers across multiple regions, but it can’t account for the chaos when the wrong file version gets sent to production, requiring expensive reprints. It won’t reflect the reality that your preferred supplier can’t handle the volume when three major campaigns launch simultaneously.
Execution fails because strategies assume how organisations should behave. It doesn’t reflect how the people that make up those companies react when pressure is on. In print and production, this intensifies because the supply chain touches so many stakeholders – brand teams, designers, production managers, logistics coordinators – each with their own priorities and ways of working.
The organisations that succeed are the ones that focus on execution: standardising processes, building systems that enable compliance without bureaucracy and creating real-time visibility across the entire production ecosystem.
The fragmentation problem
If execution is where strategies stumble, fragmentation is often the root cause. Print and production supply chains are uniquely susceptible to this challenge.
Consider a global brand updating its packaging across multiple markets. They might work with a design agency in London, a prepress house in Mumbai, a plate manufacturer in Germany, substrate suppliers in Asia, print facilities in six countries and logistics providers on four continents. Each relationship exists independently with its own contracts, specifications and systems. None of these parties necessarily communicates with the others.
This creates structural fragmentation where no single party has visibility across the entire supply chain. The design team doesn’t know the print facility’s capacity constraints. The print facility doesn’t know the substrate supplier is experiencing quality issues. Each link operates in isolation, making informed decisions impossible.
Data fragmentation compounds the problem. Production specifications live in one system, supplier performance data in another, cost information in spreadsheets. When a procurement leader needs to make decisions they’re piecing together information manually and incompletely.
This fragmentation creates a vicious cycle. Lack of visibility drives risk, which drives the need for redundancy, which increases supplier relationships, which increases fragmentation further. Organisations end up with extensive supplier rosters masquerading as resiliency, as a result of fragmentation.
The clue is in the name: it’s a supply chain, reliant on multiple interconnected organisations. And those organisations need to communicate. Procurement leads bear the responsibility of digging deeper and creating these connections.
They don’t need extensive supplier rosters, but they do need an understanding beyond the critical elements of their own supply chain.
The minimum standard should be visibility two steps removed – understanding your critical supplier and their critical supplier. When supply chains are fragmented and there’s insufficient understanding between different parts, vulnerabilities emerge.
Global perspective with local delivery
Where procurement once operated in silos, recent years have demonstrated that this is no longer viable. Procurement and supply chain management are business-critical functions, and maintaining a global overview has become essential.
At Propelis, we provide clients with local print and production delivery on the ground near them, backed by global insight. Our procurement team monitors developments worldwide, anticipating shifts before they materialise and ensuring seamless delivery. Whether facing changes to tariffs, driver shortages, port closures or evolving sustainability regulations, we stay ahead of problems and pivot the relevant parts of our supply chain to ensure ongoing delivery – this doesn’t mean having extensive suppliers, just a deep understanding of the ones we choose.
Understanding developments at a global level remains crucial even when a client operates in a single market, because events on the opposite side of the world can impact print and production timelines. However, clients don’t need to feel this complexity directly. They should still be able to engage with someone on the ground near them, who understands the nuances of their specific market, whilst having the backing of a global organisation.
Leveraging technology for visibility
When it comes to maintaining global perspective, scenario-based modelling is indispensable. At Propelis, this is enabled through AI. We’ve created workflows managed by 5Flow to help clients share data about upcoming projects. We combine this with macroeconomic, geopolitical and location data to model scenarios that ensure ongoing delivery across our print and production network.
Given the current uncertainty, procurement technology and AI modelling represent the only way to keep pace with ever-changing demands. There’s no single technology solution that addresses everything. We’re leveraging multiple tools to create a simplified supply chain, and we’ll continue refining this process as new technologies become available.
Building meaningful partnerships
Supply chains are partnerships where all links depend on each other – a rising tide lifts all boats.
Imagine one of our clients is launching a new global marketing campaign, they may work with Marks on the strategy and design, 5Flow for workflow management, Collide for the launch event collateral and SGX for print across the whole project – every element is managed by Propelis, and we have oversight of it all.
Before the project even begins, we’re working backwards through the entire process to ensure every part of the supply chain is prepared to meet demand. We engage with suppliers to identify potential weaknesses and collaborate to address challenges. Because we’ve spent years fostering long-term partnerships with every part of the supply chain, we work closely together to identify any challenges and work together to overcome them.
Building authentic partner relationships externally is crucial, but internal relationships are just as important. How can we model scenarios, particularly around print capacity, without strong relationships with our internal teams across each LoB to understand what’s coming down the path?
Procurement as value creation
The era when procurement existed merely to reduce costs has ended. Procurement executed properly represents an opportunity for value creation.
Take our sector. Packaging is not a commodity but an essential brand-building tool. We don’t simply provide packaging, we support clients through an end-to-end process from strategy through design to print, production and delivery. Our ability to execute this consistently wouldn’t exist without a strategic and robust procurement strategy that constantly evolves, and that’s what creates value across every area of our business
Final thoughts
One litmus test I encourage any client to use when assessing a business’s ability to deliver resilience is to ask how often the procurement lead participates in leadership conversations. Businesses that can provide genuine resilience give their procurement professionals a seat at the table because they understand that procurement is fundamental to value creation.
I meet with our CEO weekly, and that should communicate everything you need to know about our commitment to simplicity and resilience across our global print and production ecosystem.