By: Bill Duggan
I am blogging from Paris where I just attended the WFA Global COMPAQ committee meeting. WFA – World Federation of Advertisers – is a sister trade association to ANA … really our European counterpart. WFA has a committee system similar to ours. COMPAQ is an acronym for Communications Purchasing Action Group. It provides a forum for marketing procurement practitioners to share knowledge, ideas and working methods to help optimize their strategic sourcing. In many ways it is similar to the ANA Advertising Financial Management Committee.
Orange (the France Telecom Group) hosted the meeting and attendees were from companies including Henkel, InBev, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft, Mars, Nokia, Orkla, Philips, Renault, and Unilever.
One of the highlights of the meeting was a roundtable discussion on the relationship that procurement has with internal stakeholders and ways to optimize stakeholder engagement, and integrate procurement into the marketing communications process. Some notes from this discussion follow.
One attendee talked about how a simple template contributed to integrating procurement into the marketing communication process. The template helps formalize a regular status meeting between procurement and marketing at this company and provides an update on key projects and deliverables. While informal processes can work, some formal processes are indeed needed.
Another attendee has a process that works well too. There are quarterly meetings that provide “sign-offs” on budgets. These meetings are attended by marketing, sales, finance, and procurement. This provides procurement a true seat at the table and helps solidify the integration of procurement into the marketing communication process.
There was a brief debate about the term “procurement” versus “sourcing.” There was a perspective from a few individuals that procurement is more tactical and sourcing is more strategic. I have heard the same argument in the U.S.
Senior management support of procurement (or sourcing!) is critical. One attendee expressed some shock upon hearing their management refer to procurement’s role as “cutting costs and increasing cash flow.” This was an organization where the marketing procurement function has been in existence for only two years. In such cases, change management – to change the perception of the role of procurement – is a key challenge. Another attendee stated that there’s a business mandate from the board to fully involve procurement.
One attendee felt strongly that procurement should not sell itself based on cost savings. Rather, procurement should speak the same language as marketing and refer to its contribution in terms such as ROI and brand building. This same attendee noted that getting invitations and a seat at the table of appropriate meetings is very important.
There’s a frustration that marketers do not stay long in any one job. Often, just when procurement has built trust and a relationship with a marketer, that person moves on to another job and the process of building a new relationship begins.
There are lots of similarities between the role of procurement in Europe and the U.S. Perhaps the biggest difference is the fact that procurement in Europe manages multiple local (i.e., various countries) sourcing structures. And that adds another layer of complexity to an already complicated job.
Technorati tags: WFA advertising financial management procurement sourcing
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