In today’s challenging and dynamic landscape, the importance of building strategic and mutually beneficial relationships with other procurement professionals should not be underestimated.
Geopolitical issues from the likes of trade tariffs to wars, and everything in between, have meant the role of a Chief Procurement Officer has got busy quickly.
Fortunately, Procurement Leaders exists as a channel of collaboration and support.
Procurement Leaders is the world’s largest member-based network and intelligence platform for procurement professionals. The organisation serves more than 775 leading global companies and over 35,000 senior leaders. Procurement Leaders provides significant networking opportunities for procurement professionals and allows for connections to be built outside of organisations. It helps with career development and enables information sharing, along with providing ready-to-use procurement tools. Marnie Harte, Chief Procurement Officer at Hertz, believes one of the biggest advantages of establishing external networks is the access to connection which can help navigate today’s pressing and often complex challenges.
“If you stay internal, it doesn’t give you the perspective of what other people are doing,” she explains. “It doesn’t give you the perspective of how other people have solved challenges. From a purely business value perspective, it’s critical for every CPO to be doing. From a personal perspective, having peers to connect to is just invaluable. Having people who have walked the walk that you have and who have dealt with the challenges that you have is just an incredible thing.”
One of the biggest areas that aligns both Harte and Procurement Leaders is the importance of mentorship and sharing learnings. “If you don’t invest in building and maintaining those relationships, you’re putting yourself at a huge disadvantage, not to mention your organisation or the company you work for,” explains Harte. “It is a safe space to speak freely and not have to worry about saying the wrong thing.”
Harte explains there are two key drivers that set Procurement Leaders apart from other networks – resources and access. “I am a new CPO in a procurement organisation that is building from the ground up,” Harte reveals. “A big part of our transformation is a focus on people and that comes with needing training resources, templates and networking. Where do you go so that you can get all that? It’s Procurement Leaders. The resources available to me, even as basic as performance scorecards for suppliers, it would take me and my team weeks, if not months, to build some of those tools but they are readily available at Procurement Leaders.
“On a more tactical level, the tools that are available through Procurement Leaders, we have been able to implement rapid change because of the availability of those tools. And that is priceless for me. That’s something that if I had to use my own resources to do, it would detract from negotiating the next deal or influencing a senior stakeholder. It’s just been a huge help.
“The other part is the access. If you look at other services that are out there, they are limited to what access the broader organisation gets. It’s what I love about Procurement Leaders, it’s not just about me – it’s a tool for the entire organisation. It’s a tremendous networking and career building tool for my team.”
Find out more about Procurement Leaders here.