We run a tight ship

"We run a tight ship!"

"I have hand-picked my team and they are the best talent you can find"

"We have the technical expertise in this category"

"We manage it very closely"

I've heard it time and time again from procurement leaders.

Yet, as tempting as it is to believe you're only working with the best, these beliefs can be based on totally unfounded assumptions.

I saw one company that was fully resourced up... They even had a third-partyagency to manage their utilities expenditure across their 100+ locations.

Yet, after 2 years of activity, they covered some key sites but still didn't even know how many sites they had let alone what they were paying to power them.

A manufacturing company that was working with the same supplier across multiple sites, bought the same raw material under different codes and paid different prices.

A facilities manager that thought he had everything under control but really was just processing transactions without knowing whether the supplier was actually delivering services in line with what was required.

You may think, "Well that is hogwash... That wouldn't happen to us!"

But it's the reality for a lot of organizations.

Because they never took a step back and asked themselves...

Do I really have my shi# in order?

Go back to square one. Question and challenge everything. Use fact, hardd ata to test each hypothesis.

Gain some insights you can do something with.

And be confident that you really are running a tight ship!