Procurement People Are Your Friends, Not The Enemy
Investment in creativity is crucial. Jon talks to MediaCat to explain why Procurement is in fact an agencies’ best friend, not foe.
(2-minute read with a jolt of double espresso)
We need to debunk this idea that procurement people are some sort of Mephistophelean figure with whom you had to cut a deal for your soul.
That they are wheeled up from some sort of dingy basement when it’s time to negotiate to cut the fun, value and budget out of your plans.
Because this ain’t how it is boys and girls. Procurement people are your friends. Not your enemies. They are not the reason you can’t shoot that ad in Hawaii, despite what your account team tells you.
Sure, there will be some of you who get this premise, but from the conversations we have with procurement people — and we’ve had hundreds — they don’t feel like that. They feel massively undervalued.
Which is ironic, being that their job is actually all about creating value
They understand how to make value out of great creativity. They understand that we are in a time of flux, systemic change to supplier relationships, business models, distribution, go to market strategy, media landscape, supply chain and logistics, and ultimately the consumer’s behaviour and mindset.
They are intrepreneurial champions of disruptive change and understand a business beyond marketing — something akin to hen’s teeth in the industry currently. On most projects, you will find they’re the ones trying to move everything forward.
Since setting up the The Liberty Guild we’ve made a point of finding procurement people and working closely with them, because we’ve found the procurement community to be massively collaborative.
In fact, if there is anything negative in this relationship, it’s the agency set-up. This isn’t any of the above. It’s not set up to drive value. It’s an old tired monster of a system set up to eat man-hours and resources and spew out low quality work and eye-watering fees. There can’t be many other industries where the model is set up where it’s better for revenue and margin for more people to take longer to do the work. In fact, this means it ends up being the diametric opposite of ‘value’.
But it’s too difficult to change now, so let’s just blame it on procurement and crack on.
I was recently on stage at ProcureCon and the generalised opinion could be summed up as; ‘Yes, maybe every year we ask for more for less, but that is because our businesses are under massive pressure and the world is changing. It’s disappointing that agencies have not evolved their model to reflect this as we know all too well how much marketing is a crucial investment in the success of a brand. ’
And because, in essence, everyone on both sides wholeheartedly believes that this investment in creativity is crucial, this isn’t a burning bridge.
Here are some ways it can be rebuilt
Procurement can analyse how it can be better for their agency. Be open and transparent in the decision-making process, because, yes, this builds trust. Transparency of budget is a double-edged sword, sharing it is so incredibly important, but agencies — if this is shared with you, you need to stop seeing it as a target.
On both sides, there needs to be a move towards greater trust and a push towards treating each other as equals. But before trust has to come transparency. This can be done in a number of ways. Accelerate the move away from transactional KPIs and create joint ownership. Funny how being jointly incentivised on something brings people together.
Build a joint culture or team spirit around the brand. Embrace the whole ‘post-Covid’ array of digital communications tools to use now. Bring everyone into the creative process. Think about a creative council, including procurement, marketers and partner agencies. We spend a long time getting to know procurement as the MSA is designed, it always seems odd to me that they disappear once you start the work. Surely it makes more sense to keep it tight.
Photo by Dalton Smith on Unsplash
