In many companies, purchasing teams can be perceived as isolated groups with their own worlds, which carry out their work, but do not establish great relationships with the different areas of the company.

Most of the time, the success of a  process of transforming the transactional purchasing area into a strategic area of ​​the organization has a greater acceleration by forming strategic alliances with the various areas of the company, it even has better results than just having a good sponsor.

Below, and in no specific order, the importance of each of the company’s areas within the purchasing strategy is described. Areas such as imports, logistics or warehouses are not specified, since the premise is that these areas operate as an integral team in the strategic supply area and easily generates synergies that add value to the processes. Nor is the main user area mentioned, operations, given that it is the client and the entire strategy must revolve around satisfying their needs.

Allied Purchasing Areas

Human resources

The development of appropriate profiles for the Purchasing team is the starting point within the change process.

It is important to sell to the Human Resources team that there are relevant topics that go beyond experience in Purchasing, such as  service vocation ,  emotional intelligence , working under pressure  and  problem-solving ability .

Within the Purchasing area, repetitive and operational tasks are quite common, such as reviewing documentation to register a supplier, preparing a purchase order, among others, which  require uncomfortable personnel looking for options to automate processes and continuous improvement.

PMO or Process Areas

The definition of procedures and processes designed from the needs of the user area (Operations) is of vital importance. The best way to detect opportunities for improvement is to gather the Purchasing team and “draw” the process flow from the moment the need arises to the completion and see that each member manages a number of logical gates for the different cases that become a real chaos.

The best recommendation is  not to legislate for exceptions  and treat them as such, as well as to define  processes that unify behaviors designed to best serve the requesting user  and not from the comfort of the Purchasing area.  

Technology

In many cases, the need for improvements, automation and implementation of technological tools for the Purchasing area do not have the same priority within the digitalization processes of companies and the worst of all worlds is to execute technological transformation initiatives of the Supply processes. without being aligned with the Information Technology guidelines.

The dependency is very great and, in case of being able to materialize disconnected projects, the main detractors and critics are the IT people, who in the end are responsible for the maintenance, stabilization and operation of the implemented solution. There is no other way  than to include the Purchasing digitalization processes in the corporate agenda  and this is achieved from grounded proposals that can be materialized and not from desire, such as proposing the automation of processes that are not standardized.

Treasury

The dependence on processes is inevitable between the Purchasing and Treasury areas, although there is a natural distance between areas, it is important to understand the particularities of the two worlds. A buyer must know the invoice payment processes and the difficulties inherent to accounting processes, reconciliations, accrual, etc., which allow them to generate “cleaner” purchasing processes.  The buyer must understand that the purchase does not end with the arrival of the supply or provision of the service , but ends when the invoices can be paid, including when the applicable withholding certificate is issued.

This holistic view of the process helps to make decisions in the acquisition of products such as not hiring a supplier whose offer was “cheaper”, but whose TCO (Total Owner Cost) increases by including the payment of invoices that requires manual reconciliation with a dedication of team hours.

Finally, having people in the Purchasing team who manage to establish organic relationship alliances with different people in the company generates a positive impact, especially in the process of transformation from transactionality to the generation of value in the Purchasing area as a strategic entity for the achievement of corporate objectives.