In the last one and half year in my interactions with multiple organizations, I have understood that the more engaged the procurement team is with the stakeholders, the more efficient the bottom-line of the company is.

We all believe that the purchase team's relationship with the vendors is the most crucial in business; however, we fail to understand that their relationship with department heads, finance, legal and the senior management plays a critical role in the purchase cycle.

I am sure you all agree that the more proactive the purchasing team is the better the savings are. And every organization looks at the procurement team and asks how much did you save?

We at PRM360 have seen that the best organizations have a greater engagement with the stakeholders ensuring greater savings. So how can we engage the purchase team with the internal stakeholders?

Few of the best practices from our current partners are:

• The purchase team maintains a great relationship with the other departments - they know the operational pain points of them, they know the hierarchy, they keep an update on their significant achievements, how procurement team impacts their departments etc.
• They don't push the company's policies to the other stakeholders, rather they analyze how is it becoming a hurdle to their operations and try to come up with better solutions keeping purchase compliance in order.
• They know in and out of the business. They meet their sales and marketing team, understand who their competitors are, understand how they are valued in the market etc.
• They keep adding value to the internal meetings, talking about the budget allocations for the procurement, how it rose or any deviations from the planned as the other departments don't have a clear view on this.
• They know the behavioral aspects of their internal teams, they understand what kind of people they are talking to and adapt accordingly.
• The procurement strategy of the company is aligned with the goals of the internal department. As every stakeholder doesn't have an objective to reduce cost; they have their key metrics to achieve and the procurement team can help them to get the work done in the allocated budget.
• They are great listeners with an open mind. They listen completely to the departments on any issues with related to the vendor or material before coming to a judgment which helps them to analyze whether the contract is not structured well/stakeholders are not engaged/issue with the vendor etc.

We at PRM360 would love to know if you follow any other best practices that can be implemented in the organizations. Please feel free to write to me (info@prm360.com)