I often refrain from commenting on the activities of procurement/sourcing vendors; but I have to give a big shout out to the recent activities at Coupa. Last week, Coupa appointed Rob Bernshteyn as CEO, succeeding Coupa founder Dave Stephens in the role.
This might seem like nothing more than a company reorganizing themselves to suit the needs of their market; but the thing I love about this story is where Dave Stephens is going. To quote the press release:
Stephens will remain with the company as Coupa’s Chief Evangelist with responsibility for customer advocacy and business development initiatives.
Now, if there is one thing that procurement/sourcing/purchasing need, it’s not another CPO or another CEO or any other three letter acronym. In my mind, purchasing needs more evangelists. People willing to go out there and speak their minds, getting the profession out into the open, preaching the gospel if you will. Otherwise, what are the alternatives – as David Rae quite bluntly points out on the Procurement Leaders blog:
“…until we recommend pursuing a career in procurement to our kids, the profession will always be one, two, maybe three steps behind the likes of law, accountancy and finance. Not to mention marketing and sales”.
To be honest, I have no idea where Dave Stephens actually is going, but the semantics of his new title (and hopefully the activities of his new role) gives me great hope for the future of purchasing.
February 16, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Excellent comments Torbjörn.
Purchasing needs to leave the realms of the Rodeny Dangerfield “I get no respect” mantra and recognize its impact on the enterprise as a whole.
The challenges of course is that purchasing/supply chain as a practice has gained considerable creditability over the the past 24 months as senior executives are beginning to realize the direct impact this area of an enteprise’s operations have on the bottom line.
Unfortunately, the professional has not kept pace with the profession.
And as it stands, there are two very big stumbling blocks that need to be overcome before we can assume our rightful place in the corporate heirarchy.
The first is the general consensus by senior managers that the best people to run a company’s purchasing department are individuals who DO NOT have or come from a purchasing background. This point was emphasized in an article I wrote regarding a 2007 CPO Agend Roundtable. (Note: here is the link to the article: http://procureinsights.wordpress.com/2007/08/03/procurement%e2%80%99s-expanding-role-and-the-executive-of-the-future/)
It is indeed a telling statement that someone from finance is usually seen as being the best equipped to run a purchasing department, a fact that has been reflected in the increasing number of finance people who attend my purchasing/supply chain-centric seminars.
While some may attribute this growing “presence” to being a natural progression as a result of purchasing historically being seen as an adjunct to finance, there are more meaningful reasons that fall squarely on the shoulders of purchasing professionals. This is the prefect segue into the second obstacle . . . an inability ot see beyond the realms of the job function to better understand the job impact.
A 2007 Aberdeen survey of CFOs found that 73 percent of all savings claimed by purchasing were discounted as being irrelevant. In other words, what purchasing considered a win, finance considered fluff.
Here are some additional findings from the Aberdeen study that may surprise you:
- Less than 20% of CFOs consider the work of CPOs and their staffs as having a very positive impact on competitiveness.
- On average only 46% of CFOs feel that the procurement team has contributed to enterprise growth.
- Only 57% of CFOs feel that procurement contributes to enterprise profitability.
In the end, it would appear that the profession is leaving the professional behind in the dust. Until purchasing people both recognize the critical role we play in the emerging global supply practice, and acquire the skill sets that extend beyond the traditional framework of our area of practice we may find ourselves collectively on the outside looking in.
So you are indeed right when you say that we need evangelists who bring a new and energetic boost to a profession that deserves to be considered in the same breath as law, accountancy and finance.