To resolve conflict by improving literacy of purchasers through expanding the insights in media-services market. Employees must learn to assess vendor offers, know the process of media procurement and be able to find a common language with internal client.
Major Russian-French bank. Ranks among TOP20 Russian banks.
Trainings in Procurement
April 2016
The company had a poor understanding of media purchasing category by employees of the procurement department. During tenders, confrontations arose between the procurement department and the internal client due to the lack of uniform criteria for supplier selection. The procurement department offered to link the supplier choice to remuneration of the agency. At the same time, they did not take into account other factors – control over budget for media purchases, terms of payment, etc. A tender winner could be a company with a weak proposal in terms of media purchasing strategies and scope of services provided.
We reviewed the company’s requirements for a planned procurement tender. We looked at the tasks that were assigned to a potential service provider. We compared requirements with procurement policy, including terms of payments. We studied the tender specification and conducted interviews with the procurement department employees.
We saw a poor understanding of media-purchasing category and potential risks.
Based on the results of preliminary analysis:
The procurement department employees focused on remuneration, which is 5% of costs. The tender specification did not include terms of payment and scope of responsibility of the media agency. No attention was paid to the quality parameters of the agency. For example, the discounts refunds from media channels to client, the strategy of media purchases, etc.
The procurement department did not effectively interact with the internal client due to a poor understanding of the subject matter of a purchase. Conventional approach proposed by the purchasers led to risks that the internal client warned about.
During the training, the employees learned:
The procurement unit staff got better understanding of the category and the requirements of internal clients that reduced tensions between the departments.
Other achievements on the project:
Director of Procurement Department
“In a short time, the department staff learned about the basics of media purchasing and about what to pay attention to first of all. This made it possible to strengthen the procurement position when communicating with the internal client and allowed the purchasers to look competent in the external market.”
Insights in market, category, and functional area
Procurement Methodology and Best Practices
Skills
Expert, Coach
“The basic challenge of the project was the short timeline. It was necessary to promptly explain the peculiarities of media-purchasing to the employees, teach them to define the criteria for choosing media agencies, and prepare them for negotiations with the agencies. Therefore, we decided to use simple schemes and show the effect on a specific example with the selection of an agency."
Submit a request if your company faces similar issues. We will identify the requirements and train your employees to perform the assigned tasks effectively.
