Are all procurement departments arsey?

[suityou01]

Currently designing a process for onboarding new suppliers. As part of this process the procurement team need to eyeball the request and make a yay or nay decision. You have to be careful here as just making someone's day by adding unnecessary mouse clicks doesn't win friends. So having now met with procurement to ask what the actually do I was surprised to learn that it's just a rubber stamping exercise. No process. No conscious thought. Just yes, yes, yes, yes to every request.

So I ask them, who does the background checks?

Proc : What background checks?
SY01 : Oh I don't know, companies house for example.

Proc : The data entry team do that.
SY01 : Really? Should they be doing that? Do they want the responsibility?

DataEntryManager : Not really. It's just how it is.
SY01 : I see. As we're replacing the process, this is a golden opportunity to bring in change.

Proc : But if you're expecting us to actually do the background checks we need need lots more resource, and run a big recruitment drive etc etc.

SY01 : How many in the data entry team?
DataEntryManager : 2

SY01 : And do they solely do background checks for new suppliers or do they have other activities.
DataEntryManager : The background checks take up 30% of their day.

SY01 : Not sounding like you need a lot more resouce then. Is this something you want to think about?
Proc : Who do you work for again?



Kicking off here.

[NotAllThere]

Are all procurement departments arsey?

Yes. Next question?

[suityou01]

Yes. Next question?

OK thanks. Lock the thread on your way out would you?

[bobspud]

Should have just said : "Not to worry we can automate all of the checking process and put rules in place to automatically agree most of the purchases on the fly..."

Then get the FM team to come up and start measuring round their office muttering something about not needing desks here anymore...

[MarillionFan]

I've just come off a call with a development company who had the plug pulled on them last year for a complex invoice calculation product which I am now tasked with having developed. I've got some preliminary designs done and so I discussed with them how they did it, what went wrong, lessons learned.

They'd designed the system the same as mine.

One of the things we've noticed with the client it's for is their lack of interaction on any level. So I've had to review government contracts which are so complex they make your eyes water. We've immediately flagged up that we shouldn't be doing this and the business should interpret these into concrete requirements.

Where did it go wrong we asked?

Oh we found that the business just wouldn't interact with us on it, so had to make our own assumptions & do it all ourselves.

Guess what we're about to flag up as the biggest risk.

[suityou01]

Surprisingly on topic and concilliatory stuff

I was reading this just this morning

Lack of user involvement has proved fatal for many projects. Without user involvement nobody in the business feels committed to a system, and can even be hostile to it. If a project is to be a success senior management and users need to be involved from the start, and continuously throughout the development. This requires time and effort, and when the people in a business are already stretched, finding time for a new project is not high on their priorities. Therefore senior management need to continuously support the project to make it clear to staff it is a priority.

[DodgyAgent]

Currently designing a process for onboarding new suppliers. As part of this process the procurement team need to eyeball the request and make a yay or nay decision. You have to be careful here as just making someone's day by adding unnecessary mouse clicks doesn't win friends. So having now met with procurement to ask what the actually do I was surprised to learn that it's just a rubber stamping exercise. No process. No conscious thought. Just yes, yes, yes, yes to every request.

So I ask them, who does the background checks?

Proc : What background checks?
SY01 : Oh I don't know, companies house for example.

Proc : The data entry team do that.
SY01 : Really? Should they be doing that? Do they want the responsibility?

DataEntryManager : Not really. It's just how it is.
SY01 : I see. As we're replacing the process, this is a golden opportunity to bring in change.

Proc : But if you're expecting us to actually do the background checks we need need lots more resource, and run a big recruitment drive etc etc.

SY01 : How many in the data entry team?
DataEntryManager : 2

SY01 : And do they solely do background checks for new suppliers or do they have other activities.
DataEntryManager : The background checks take up 30% of their day.

SY01 : Not sounding like you need a lot more resouce then. Is this something you want to think about?
Proc : Who do you work for again?



Kicking off here.

Why do they need to check suppliers?

[suityou01]

Why do they need to check suppliers?

They have standards Dodgy, way beyond you.

[vetran]

groundhog day.

I'm not sure why you are surprised?

[Freamon]

So having now met with procurement to ask what the actually do I was surprised to learn that it's just a rubber stamping exercise. No process. No conscious thought. Just yes, yes, yes, yes to every request.

Sounds like you're not in public sector then. In public sector they would have to go through a lengthy and drawn out procurement process to decide where to buy paperclips, probably publishing an invitation to tender, with some complicated scoring system for evaluating the responses.