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How Cost and Collaboration Can Energize your Career

August 12, 2020 by Jeoff Burris, Founder and Principal Leave a Comment

We have 15 years of data that shows that buyers who move from price-focused, competitive purchasing to cost/value-focused, collaborative purchasing can achieve savings of 8-18% (see figure).

I wish we had a similar level of data on the career progression experienced by buyers who develop cost knowledge and utilize it in a collaborative way.   I think it would be revealing.

It has been my experience that buyers who develop a deeper understanding of cost also increase their knowledge of operations and quality positioning themselves better for promotion opportunities within purchasing as well as for opportunities that arise in other functions where an understanding of costs, manufacturing and quality come into play.  Here are some examples that come to mind:

  • Buyer moves to operations as a production supervisor, gets promoted to an operations manager and then gets promoted to a purchasing director.
  • Buyer moves to accounting to work on capital budgeting. Comes back into purchasing as a purchasing manager.

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Buyers use their cost and manufacturing knowledge to reduce costs.  Their approach with suppliers can be competitive, where the knowledge is used as a hammer to drive down pricing, or collaboratively to reduce costs while taking into consideration the interests of both parties.

I believe buyers who demonstrate a collaborative approach with suppliers positions themselves better for promotions within and outside of their purchasing organizations.  Why?  Suppose there were two buyers who had the same background, had developed the same level of cost knowledge and achieved similar savings results.  However, one buyer was a hard, competitive negotiator; the other, a collaborator who achieved similar results while building relationships.  Which buyer would be more likely to move within their company to:

  • Sales, where building relationships with customers is key?
  • Operations management, which requires achieving results while building positive labor relationships?
  • Purchasing leadership, where they will need to not only achieve results by working with suppliers but with their buyers and managers in other functions within the company?

Yes, I am biased.  I believe that buyers achieve better results when they use a collaborative, cost knowledge approach to purchasing.  I believe in it so much that I built a company around it.  In addition, if data were available, I believe it would support my belief.

Filed Under: Blog

Jeoff Burris, Founder and Principal

About Jeoff Burris, Founder and Principal

Jeoff founded APD after spending 20 years in the automotive field where he became a recognized authority on procurement processes in the industry. Burris, a noted builder of high performance teams, led purchasing staffs at Ford Motor Company, Metaldyne and Intier Automotive Seating where they were able to consistently save money on procurement costs and significantly improve related processes as well.

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