A new book Profit from the Source by Boston Consulting Group’s Christian Schuh and Wolfgang Schnellbächer, focuses on the huge importance of the procurement function. Because it "owns" the corporate relationship with suppliers, it not only controls more than half of a company’s budget (because this is spent on suppliers), it also determines the quality and sustainability of a company’s products and services; it affects the speed of a company’s operations; it has the potential to transform (or quash) a company’s innovative spirit, and it can protect a company from as-yet-unknown risks in the supply chain.
Proprietary BCG research has shown that only 35% of the 150 top companies in the S&P 500 have a Chief Procurement Officer (or equivalent) on the leadership team, but those 50 companies outperformed the market by 134% from 2000 to 2020.
On 30 June, Wolfgang and Christian will join us to talk about procurement as a deeply undervalued corporate capability and will outline practical steps we can all take to develop the procurement function and exploit its full potential.
By using the procurement capability wisely, we can do more than simply contain costs – procurement really can become a secret weapon in these troubled times—and long after, too.