Introduction
Procurement has become an increasingly important function in a wide range of industries and business sectors.
It is seen as a strategic function, a function that touches and influences all aspects of a business’s operation. Procurement should facilitate, enable and empower but procurement is also often misunderstood.
The language of procurement can be peppered with strange acronyms and it can be hard for people to hear past a wall of words studded with, “You have to…”, “We must…” and “You can’t…”. And yet procurement is all about building relationships, relationships with suppliers as well as with departments and individuals within your own company.
Our focused NLP based training can give Supply chain leaders and procurement managers the tools, skills and knowledge to use richer communication that will forge stronger relationships and add value to the process.
Case Study
One example of just how affective this can be is Andy, Chief Procurement Officer at a large NHS Trust. He is responsible for a team of over 30 people who spend more than £150 million per year. Not long after he joined the Trust he was involved in a major project to enhance endoscopic surgery. This was the biggest project of its kind in Europe and his customer was a “prickly and vocal” Consultant Surgeon.
In fact, at the start of the project he was forwarded an email from this Consultant that simply said, “This is War!”, a rather forthright way of summing up the classic tension of two opposing philosophies familiar to many procurement professionals – the desire to spend and the need to save.
Choosing communication rather than confrontation, Andy used the skills he had gathered on one of our NLP Business Practioner courses to steer the project to a successful conclusion and at the end of that journey the same Consultant sent the following email to 150 NHS leaders:
Dear All
Re: Laparoscopic stacks – skills training
See enclosed photo – the new HD stack systems in the skills training room in the Radiology Academy – result!
Many thanks to all being involved in this initiative to bring us out of the dark ages (literally!).
The stacks for the rest of the hospital to follow shortly.
A special thanks to Andy XXX, whose god-like skills in the laparoscopic stack tender have saved the Trust ~£600k
He is now very aware that Procurement adds value to his work and the work of the Trust and is currently leading a commercial team within the Trust as well as doing his day job as a Consultant Surgeon.
Andy is now Chief Procurement Officer at the Trust and is involved in a large number of Strategic Committees – both within the Trust and at a National level.
His team continue to add value and save costs. For example, they recently made a saving of £1million on a £3 million annual spend through collaborative working with various teams within the Trust.
So, how did he do it?
As well as demonstrating his technical competence, he utilised some crucial skills and processes he learned using NLP.
Click here to visit the Crucial Skills page
