An interview with Procurement Magazine on how to advance Procurement
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We don't get the chance to speak to established media outlets very often, so we were extremely proud when Procurement Magazine reached out to discuss the backstory of Advance Procurement last month. In their "5 minutes with..." series they cover start-ups and entrepreneurs in the field of Procurement to tell their backstory and open them up to a wider audience.
Starting as a Category Manager, Marketing at Bayer almost 15 years ago first introduced me to the foundational processes and tools in Procurement like category management, sourcing, risk management, and sustainability. It also exposed me to some of the most challenging stakeholders of my career, a deep understanding of the importance of balance when managing business requirements around the workd, and a love affair with procurement technology.
These experiences helped me when leading the DACH/Nordics Marketing Procurement team at Unilver, their 5th largest by spend. Moving from global to local and back to global roles provided me with an even deeper understanding of at times directly opposed business needs and objectives between markets and global teams.
When I decided to join Deloitte as a Manager in their Procurement practice, I wanted to see the other side of the negotiation table and see the world through the eyes of a solution provider. While you can create price breakdowns in Procurement all you want, you really learn about pricing when you have to sell to Procurement. The role also allowed me to really deep dive into the Procurement technology space across the source-to-pay spectrum and partner with suite and best-of-breed providers.
When asked to join a solution provider to build a user-friendly and powerful sourcing solution, it felt like a great opportunity to gain yet another perspective on Procurement. Building out the Marketing approach, the partnership model, shaping the GTM approach, and working directly with the product team and customers gave me a deeper understanding of the dependencies at play and the challenges software providers can and cannot overcome.
Bringing together these different perspectives on Procurement made me realize the gap in the market. The inability of solution providers to understand the business realities of their audience paired with an ongoing need to deliver more with less in Procurement is the reason behind starting Advance Procurement.
This is the unique perspective we offer to the Procurement ecosystem. Advance Procurement is well positioned to help procurement teams define their digitalization agenda and to improve their value delivery while supporting solution providers in increasing the relevance of their Marketing communications.
We would love to hear your thoughts and learn about your biggest challenges. Please reach out to explore if we can support you on your journey of advancing the function we love!
