Alan Low of Purchasing Index (PI) tells SmartProcurement that the world of commerce is an ever more challenging place for Procurement professionals:
• Senior management is recognising Procurement professionals’ contributions within organisations, with the result that procurement is asked to procure more commodities, such as marketing and IT.
• They have to market themselves and their abilities to skeptical internal clients – their own colleagues.
• They must keep themselves informed of market information regarding significant commodities that their organisations use, in what are volatile and turbulent markets.
• While managing ever more complex commercial arrangements with suppliers that now include service level measurement, etc.
• And make sure that they are keeping up-to-date with the latest legislation and regulations.
Most organisations are faced with increasing pressures on their margins. Increased corporate spending is not being matched by increases in consumer and government demand, owed to consumers reducing existing debt and saving more and government’s capacity and other restraints preventing it from spending at the required levels of its infrastructure and service budgets, says Low.
With regard to cost pressures, utility bills are increasing ahead of inflation and many basic commodity prices are subject to highly volatile price movements. Furthermore, wage increases in many sectors have been running ahead of inflation for a number of years.
“In short this presents a very challenging environment in which to make cost savings,” he says.
Focused benchmarking information
For over 13 years PI has been a market leader in providing focused benchmarking information on a wide range of goods and services and is now broadening its services to include market research and intelligence.
PI will now offer focused market intelligence with its benchmarking service to assist Procurement professionals to understand their markets. This will include:
1. Specific benchmarks
2. Generic benchmarks
3. Market research tailored for each client’s specific strategic goods and services.
If you would like to discuss this service and help PI build a comprehensive service for your specific needs, please email Alan Low on alan@pibenchmark.co.za.
