You've Made the Naughty List!
Procurement’s got more than one Naughty List!
Oh tis the season to buy things without procurement’s involvement, because why not? Who cares if procurement has a naughty list or not!
It’s not like we serve some kind of purpose for the company. Or even provide valuable insights about the marketplace and industry to help you make educated decisions. Or try to protect you from terrible contracting terms.
We frankly are just here to annoy the ever-living sh…. out of everyone, am I right?! Not so much. Not EVERYONE hates procurement, I hope? If you haven’t noticed by now, I’m in a wonderful Christmas mood and wanted to spread the cheer. For sure.
Naught List #1 – Supplier Selection
Riddle me this – how do you know if supplier pricing is reasonable if you do absolutely no comparison or negotiations? How can you say you think it is fair when they provide you with absolutely no break-down of a million dollars worth of spend?
If I asked you to cut me a million dollar check out of your personal account, would your opinion of the deal change? Would you go back and simply ask a single question to see if you could get maybe 10% off to save 100k?
Or would you just blindly go into the deal and accept whatever pricing they gave you since it seemed fair? But fair in comparison to what?! I mean it’s only a million dollars out of your personal account we are talking about. And suppliers are always going to give you the best deal because they like you so much.
It’s not like they’ve set out to be profitable or anything, and it’s in their best interest to gouge you if they can. They are totally giving you ‘fair’ pricing, aren’t they?!
Other Procurement Naughty Lists
- Dividing up a single SOW into multiples
- Bringing your old supplier with you
- Adding new suppliers without due diligence
Naughty List #2 – Spend Coding (Commodity Code, GL Code, etc.)
You know what is truly amazing when you work for a multi-billion dollar company, the spend analytics that come with the data! You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to pull all meeting and event spend or hotel costs across the organization. Which brings us to our next offenders on the naught list.
It really provides the foundation to understand where we are spending and who we are spending it with so we can properly strategize and optimize the spend. Said NO FINANCE, PROCUREMENT, or any other professional. EVER.
I get it, I really do. If you have a company providing you with multiple services in one PO, you need to have a single commodity or GL code to identify it. But I also get you may have budget on a different line and so you may code it to a completely different code. Or the additional minute it takes to break out the spend in the requisition to different codes is just too much for you. Or you just don’t care. That’s fine.
But you actually should care, because it has indirect consequences. Did you know C-Suite executives use that information to make important decisions? Like major strategy changes, or budget or headcount cutting decisions. Therefore, if it came down to it, your miscoded spend could easily guide a CFO /CEO to take headcount cuts (or create hiring freezes) in lieu of a budget expense. Or even organizational changes to re-level (demote) some of the current positions.
Still want to miscode your spending now? I’m sure you don’t think that this can happen, but I can guarantee it already has. I’ve seen it happen. And it’s not pretty. You think you’re rushing now to get a PO, but you’ll really be scurrying about when it’s time to find a new job instead.
Naughty List #3 – No Response then Complete Chaos
It’s once, twice, three times an ignored email. That’s right folks. If we email you because we’re holding up a PO, it’s normally for good reason. I typically don’t have the time to annoy EVERYONE who submits a requisition daily. I’d be working 80-100 hours a week if I did.
That’s why my next naughty list consists of everyone who decides to ignore our requests for information via email or the system. Then calls a week later with their pants on fire because they need a PO or CONTRACT STAT!! And I’m the jerk for holding up this life altering requisition that will cure cancer. Just kidding. I haven’t heard that excuse, YET.
So how is procurement always the jerk in this situation? We nicely asked you for information (multiple times I might add), yet you blatantly ignore us. Do you think you can just wait it out and I’ll just approve it? Or are you hopeful it will escalate so your VP calls me about it? I’ll give you a little bit of insight, if your VP does call me, he’s just going to have to answer the same questions. There’s no circumventing something you may be trying to hide.
