Less Well-known Benefits of Procurement Management

Procurement management is all about bringing control to acquisition of parts and skills required for projects. But it also delivers additional benefits that you don’t often hear about:

Find long-term partners. Organizations often require parts or skill-based services on an ongoing basis. Well-crafted Requests for Quotation (RFQ) or Requests for Proposal (RFP) enable vendors to share their skills and abilities as well as the culture and business approach they take to serve their clients. Your RFQ or RFP can not only reveal the best alternative for your current need and can also identify a go-to business partner for the future.

Identify other solution options. Speaking of RFPs and RFQs, send requests that encourages vendors to provide a response to your specific solution request along with alternative solutions. That way, you might discover ways to address business needs better. The information you get can draw attention to the potential for a long-term business partnership (see point 1). 

Discover skill mixes available in the marketplace. While working on a leading-edge technical project, a vendor introduced me to a technical-skill mix that I didn’t know existed. I worked with my procurement team to describe the technical installation skills I needed to implement a set of technical tools. The vendor proposed experts with both technical implementation expertise and business analysis background required to fully configure and implement our tools more efficiently than if we did it ourselves. This skill mix decreased the project’s forecasted duration and made for a stronger business case to launch the project.

Support an efficient supply chain. Supply chain challenges are everywhere today, affecting virtually every business. The entry point to your supply chain is the vendor(s) who provide parts and products for your project. Being mindful of your supply chain requirements and performing sound procurement management helps you select vendors who can minimize or eliminate supply chain issues that can impact your project outcomes.

If you have other benefits you have obtained from procurement management, share them with your fellow project managers by posting in the comment section.

For more about procurement management, check out Oliver Yarbrough’s Project Management Foundations: Procurement course.