Outsource Magazine Issue 25 - (Page 102)

TOP TEN OPTIMAL PROCUREMENT OUTSOURCING The latest in our Top Ten series visits a big growth area, as Vinny Patel gives us his ten tips for optimising your procurement outsourcing initiative… Vinod (Vinny) Patel, Commercial Director, buyingTeam Vinny Patel is Commercial Director for buyingTeam, Europe’s largest pure-play procurement outsourcer and solutions provider. P 102 ●● rocurement outsourcing, which has been predicted for many years to take off, is ﬁnally moving into the mainstream. More and more large organisations are waking up to the fact that signiﬁcant improvements to the bottom line are possible through improved management of non-core or indirect expenditure (otherwise known as GNFR in the retail sector). As topline growth is hard to come by in the current economic climate, the opportunity is simply too good to ignore. Whilst it is a largely misunderstood and complex world fraught with pitfalls to the uninitiated, the good news is that there is much to learn from the early adopters of procurement BPO. Below are my top ten tips to consider when embarking on your procurement BPO journey. Expect the unexpected. The ROI achievable through procurement BPO, once fully operational and embedded in an organisation, can be as high as 15 to 20 times the outsourcer’s fee. This is often a pleasant surprise to organisations. And the beneﬁts should go way beyond savings. With the right provider, procurement BPO should result in real improvements in business performance, and be challenging and inﬂuencing fundamental business rules. Procurement BPO can be the change agent for a transformative procurement agenda. 1 The old adage of ‘don’t outsource a mess’ is different in procurement BPO. Clearly, outsourcing a mess is never advisable. However, as the nature of procurement BPO means that you are about to achieve something that you can’t afford to achieve internally, it’s not possible to get your house in order and then handover to an outsourcer (i.e. the traditional lift-andshift approach of Finance & Accounting, Information Technology and Human Resources outsourcing). Focus instead on deﬁning the areas for which you want to hand over responsibility and what, therefore, you need to have in-house to maximise the chances of success. 2 @OlwenCD: I am currently completing a tender. The document itself [which I am ﬁnding impossible to read] is 55-pages long.... public procurement, eh ●● www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk http://www.outsourcemagazine.co.uk

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Outsource Magazine Issue 25

News & Commentary
Making Contact
Taking the Chair
Clinical Outsourcing Strategies
New Worlds
To Share Or Not To Share?
Trends in Outsourcing Governance
The Next Big Idea
Smart Intelligence
Taking the ChairCracking the Wip
NOA Round-Up
Predicting Success
It’s Not The Contract.
Get Productive
Rigorously Agile
Good Relations
Knowledge Sustainability
Racking Up The Wins
Trust Me... I’m an Outsourcer
Head-to-Head
Top Ten
The Legal view
HfS Round-Up
Online Round-Up
Inside Source
The Last Word

Outsource Magazine Issue 25