The role of Supply or Purchasing Manager is a position that has been strengthened and is increasingly gaining more prominence in companies. It used to be a complement or annex to administrative areas, sometimes financial or accounting, until today it is at the same level as the previous ones in a direct conversation in terms of hierarchy, department size and impact on decision making.

Despite this incremental prominence and the robustness acquired by the position and the business area, there are some points in which the role is compromised in circumstances in which the traditionally defined indicators are short and fail to respond to crisis scenarios. adversity and crisis. When we talk about traditional indicators we are referring to those where only and exclusively the following are pursued: cost reduction, savings, compliance with the supply cycle and supplier control.

In market conditions or companies with relative calm, stability and prosperity, the role of the Supply and Purchasing leader, under the so-called traditional indicators, can be quite basic and even intuitive. However, in crisis conditions: companies in critical moments of sales, peaks in shortages, untimely changes in closures of business lines and even pandemics, the challenge of achieving savings or lowering costs where there really is not much scope for action invites this leader to think beyond the operational and assume a more strategic role.

3 key points to achieve it

1. Focus on the origin and not only on the exit

Many Purchasing leaders are focused exclusively on managing the outflow of resources (not bad, but it is incomplete), leaving aside the key question of what is the strategic origin that is motivating to execute that line of expense that is being managed? Knowing, questioning and participating in that point of origin of the expense generates real control of the supply chain.

2. Digital structuring

Giving continuity to manual processes with a high operational load is a mark of business delay that today the global situation highlights. This is why technological leverage becomes imperative in the DNA of any purchasing manager, who from his position is consolidated as an engine of modernization and agility in the company’s processes.

3. Business watchdog

When the Purchasing Manager manages to assume a more strategic and not just operational role, he or she is linked to many work fronts, not only internal but external. In this way, it becomes a thermometer that can provide key inputs in senior management decision-making.

Internal: which areas are demanding more resources, which ones have the most impact on strategic indicators, how stable the supply chain looks in the short and long term, among others.

External: which suppliers generate greater dependency, which sectors are more volatile, in which country or city there are better business opportunities, etc.

The constant social, economic, digital and other changes force the Purchasing leader not to stop at saving, renegotiating contracts or filling out tracking templates in Excel. The challenge is to consolidate the strategic position of the role under a complete link in the business chain with a digital perspective and early control of risks and opportunities.