Procurement Brand Development

“A brand is a promise. By identifying and authenticating a product or service it delivers a pledge of satisfaction and quality.” Walter Landor.

Why does Procurement need a Brand?

Procurement’s brand is arguably the CPO’s most valuable asset.

Procurement’s brand is the totality of how its stakeholders see’s, talks about, and experiences it. CPO’s must therefore have a clear view of how they wish to position and promote procurement within the organization which involves developing a strong value proposition.

If you were asked to give a 30-second elevator speech to define procurement’s value proposition, what would you say? I have asked this question of procurement people many times and, frequently find them stumbling over their words spouting statements about cost savings and vague buzz words such as ‘value add’. When pressed to define ‘value add’ their understanding of such jargon is unconvincing.

So if Procurement cannot clearly articulate its value proposition, don’t be surprised when your internal stakeholders don’t ‘get it’ and brand procurement as a ‘service function’.

A brand creates a unifying sense of purpose for procurement staff and helps build awareness among stakeholders of its value proposition.

How do you measure procurement’s brand?

Reputation x Visibility = Brand Strength

Therefore the better and more focused procurement’s reputation is and the greater its visibility with its target stakeholders, the more valuable its brand.

Nuff said …