In the past few years, I have been training supply chain management for the sales of some companies in Korea, and I have become more and more aware that if procurement is done like sales, 80% of the procurement performance will be better.

Let’s start with the customer-centric mentality. One sales director said that he stayed with customers all day and would not go back to his office unless the company had a meeting. The reason is simple: the customer’s needs are his greatest needs. Procurement also has internal customers. How many procurement companies can treat internal customers with this mentality? The reason why we purchase is for the existence of internal customers. It’s easy to say this, but ask yourself, when was the last time we proactively met with an internal customer? Eighty percent of us can’t do “it” with our internal customers; but I’m afraid it’s not an exaggeration to go over often and take the initiative to say hello and ask if there is anything we can do for you.

Some people may say, can we greet so many internal customers? This is actually a bit amateurish, or it sounds like an excuse. Counting on fingers, it is difficult for us to have more than 5 key customers at any time, no matter which functional department we are in; and our biggest troubles are often caused by those two or three people. Maybe some people say that if you don’t look for it, internal customers will come to you; if you look for it, won’t you find more things? Not necessarily. It’s a blessing, not a curse. You can’t avoid the curse. What’s yours will always be yours. Take the initiative to say hello and contact more, and communicate smoothly. Many problems will be solved before they become problems, and there will be fewer problems in the future. By the time he finds you, 80% of the time the matter will either be on fire or smoking. You have to Spend more energy to solve it.

Let’s talk about being a person and doing things. Good sales, with few exceptions, make people feel comfortable and assured. This is necessary to build trust. During the conversation, you can feel their customer-focused mentality. This is completely different from the arrogance that is common in procurement. This does not mean that sales are at a disadvantage and have to be like this; it is due to their many years of experience, because only by thinking about customers and seeking a win-win situation can we be sustainable. Careful in work, not to mention sales. No matter how small, they all took care of everything in an orderly manner. Some people may say, how many sales people say one thing and do another, but how many do they deliver on what they promised? These are “small sales” and are not role models for us to learn from. Of course, looking at our “purchasing management”, they can only do worse. Many companies’ purchases are ” purchasing management “, no matter how famous the company is. They are not proficient in the procurement industry, and their expertise is in urging materials and bargaining. They do not understand and are unwilling to spend energy to understand how internal customers operate. They cannot talk about the management of internal customers. There are only a few things they have promised to suppliers. arrive? Of course, I am by no means saying that just because one party is doing poorly, the other party has a reason to do worse.

 while those who are not self-aware still think they are perfect. The way procurement treats sales is also a catalyst for low-quality sales. Sales performance is actually a mirror of purchasing. I wonder if you have noticed that these low-quality procurements not only ruin sales, but also ruin new procurement. Some buyers are very arrogant and arrogant at a young age. They learned bad things from some low-quality old buyers. If I had to choose, I would rather give new buyers to experienced salespeople than give them to veteran buyers to train. When I first entered the field of supplier management, I was lucky enough to meet good salespeople. I admit that I learned as much from them as I did from my procurement colleagues .

Learning from sales is also about learning their ideas for solving problems. When it comes to sales, many people’s subconscious mind is that these people only rely on their mouths. Yes, especially low-level sales. However, a good salesperson is also a master of problem solving. They survive in the cracks, balance the needs of the company and customers, make difficult choices, and demonstrate excellent problem-solving skills. Pay attention, that’s a real skill. It makes sense that top salesmen make that much money. In the United States, there are many millionaires who are born in sales. How many of them can become millionaires in purchasing? Among outstanding people, there are probably many more people who are in sales than in purchasing. If you are a first-class elite and a master problem solver, then you may be more successful in sales than in purchasing. On the contrary, when procurement takes a long time, especially ” purchasing management “, many people will find it increasingly boring, because ” purchasing management ” actually have not solved any problems at all, and naturally there is no sense of accomplishment: specifications, drawings The problem belongs to the engineers, and the quality problem belongs to the quality engineers. Cost reduction in procurement is the main business of procurement, but they will only forcefully push it to the supplier: “Reduce me by x%, how to reduce it is your business.” ” purchasing management ” did not solve the problem, but created more problems: too many reminders not only generated a lot of reminder costs, but also disrupted the supplier’s production schedule, causing more goods to be late; cost reductions were a lot Problems have to be solved on the purchasing side, such as design optimization and process improvement, which all need approval from the purchasing side. Now they are pushed to the suppliers. They have no way to solve the problem and can only give away profits. When the suppliers’ profits are too low, there will be more problems.

“Small purchasers” are left to process documents, track orders, and simply do odd jobs. Can such a ” purchasing management ” be respected? Naturally, the more you do, the less promising you become. But they can’t get rid of it, not only because of poor ability, but more importantly because of poor mentality – you really have to learn this from sales. A positive mentality can be said to be a professional characteristic of sales. Later, these ” purchasing management ” could not even do purchasing, but could they still do sales, design, quality, or production? It really echoes the words of a professor when I was in business school at Arizona State University: Procurement (in the United States) used to be a person’s last stop before being fired. The difference is that in our “small purchasing” department, purchasing is not only “what it used to be”, it is actually still a person’s final destination. Want to change that? Learn more from great salesman.

Furthermore, any position placed in the supply chain has a dual status: on the one hand, it is to manage internal/external suppliers, and on the other hand, it is to support internal/external customers. In other words, each of us is doing purchasing and selling at the same time. Being customer-centric means emphasizing the “sales” function of each position and solving customer problems. The larger the company, the more departmental barriers there are, and the more sales capabilities are needed to implement new initiatives. For purchasing professionals, purchasing ability allows us to earn a living, but to truly be promoted, we must rely on sales ability, that is, “selling” the contribution of purchasing to internal customers and management, and recommending good suppliers to the company , implement good measures such as early intervention of key suppliers in the company. Over the years, I have been in contact with the procurement of many companies, and I have found that what these procurements lack is not so much procurement capabilities as sales capabilities. the procurement function is not taken seriously, and it is impossible to effectively promote changes internally. All the pressure is transferred to the suppliers, creating many problems that the suppliers cannot solve, and in turn Come and influence the purchaser.