Top 10: Gartner priorities for new procurement leaders

Gartner has recently published its top 10 suggestions for operational action that new sourcing and procurement leaders should look to prioritise.

“Leadership transitions can be challenging,” gartner writes in the introduction to its top 10, but adds that this also “represent an opportunity for raising the profile of sourcing and procurement as a strategic business partner driving business innovation and results”. 

Gartner says it is critical for sourcing and procurement leaders new to their roles to identify “critical priorities of internal business partners”, and then to determine “how these can be supported with the extended supply base”.

Most organisations, feels Gartner, see new leadership transitions as one-off events and that, and as a result “take a hands off approach that requires new leaders to self-manage their moves”. 

This creates a problem, says gartner, because new-to-role leaders are left to “simultaneously onboard themselves, establish a new vision for their function and quickly execute high-impact projects and changes”. 

Little surprise, then that many are left facing an overwhelming number of competing tasks during their first few months.

This is why getting sourcing and procurement leadership transitions right is so important, stresses Gartner. 

It says: “Maximise the new leader’s effectiveness and job satisfaction, and raise the strategic profile of sourcing & procurement, with a well-engineered transition framework.” 

Of its top 10, Gartner says: “This report clarifies immediate priorities for new leaders, so they might move forward with confidence on assessing and building sourcing and procurement maturity, building stakeholder relationships, mitigating supplier risks and devising an action plan.”

Top 10 Priorities for New Sourcing & Procurement Leaders

• Procurement vision and strategy
• Procurement technology 
• Procurement industry trends
• Effective stakeholder relationships & communications 
• Procurement performance management & benchmarks 
• Implementing advanced analytics
• Procurement operating models, governance & organisation design
• Digital disruption & business transformation
• Procurement talent, culture & people
• Cost optimisation

Gartner also offers common leader profiles, and describes typical transition scenarios ...

As well as leader profiles, Gartner also lists common transition scenarios, and says that, taken together, these two things can shape sourcing and procurement strategy ...