Are You Really a Buyer or Are You Just a "Getter"?
I was at a presentation this week given by Robi Bendorf, of Bendorf & Associates. Robi is a purchasing consultant with a materials management background who seems pretty knowledgable. In the presentation, Robi asked the attendees (mostly all purchasing professionals) whether they were "buyers" or "getters." Before anyone answered, he explained that buyers were the ones that focused on the top tier vendors (based on spend) and that getters focused on the other 80% of the vendors. Robi implied that if you're focused on the lower tier vendors (lots of vendors, but little overall spend), you're transactional (not strategic) and merely an order processor or a "getter." He reasoned that "buyers," negotiating better deals with the top tier vendors, are far more strategic and provide more overall value than getters. The implication for me was that you're a second-class purchasing professional if you're a getter.
Everybody perked up at that point. They want to be seen as buyers, not getters, gosh darn it! Robi went on to explain that purchasing folks need to get out of the day-to-day grind of the lower tier vendors, either by (in my words) automating, innovating, or getting rid of the purchasing function. One example is vendor rationalization. Another example that Robi gave was transitioning purchasing associated with lower tier vendors to customer work units, such as having a building operations group do their own deals with the lower tier vendors. It was actually pretty compelling.
He's got a point, and, at first glance, it makes a lot of sense. Would I be able to influence my organization's bottom-line better if I focused more energy on the top tier vendors? I'm not sure, but it sounds logical. I actually like his "buyer" versus "getter" distinction. But nothing against Robi, consultants come up with ideas--they don't have to implement them. So I've learned via the school of hard knocks to really evaluate the ideas that consultants offer. Certainly many consultants, and I'm sure Robi is in the mix, have great ideas that are very much worth implementing.
However, the more I thought about his buyer versus getter concept, the more that I started finding holes. Now, in fairness to Robi, he may never read this post and be able to defend his concept, so also take what I have to say here with a grain of salt. Here's what I didn't like about his concept and why being a "getter" is just as important as being a buyer.
Imagine if I went to my boss, and told him, "Hey, I can save $1 million dollars more every year if I can transition 80% of the vendors to the customers for them to negotiate their own deals. That way I'll free up my staff to be more strategic." Clearly, the customers would love it--at first... My boss, who's a great guy, probably wouldn't fire me on the spot, but he'd be tempted to. Purchasing is not all about saving money and extracting more value from vendors, it's also about providing a service to our internal customers so they can focus on their core competencies. I want to "enable" my customers as much as possible, but it's not their job to do my job.
So, my customers would love it if I did something like that, but again, only at first. As much as my customers think they can do my job (that's a funny thing about the purchasing profession, isn't it?), they do value my service--especially when things go wrong. So, if I did manage to talk my boss into letting my group be buyers instead of customers, I guarantee you that, after a couple of months, I would spend even less time on my strategic vendors because I'd be called in to clean-up all the little nightmare deals that my customers put together that have since gone belly-up.
Along that same line, as a purchasing professional, I also have a responsibility (a big one at that) to mitigate legal and operational risk for my organization. Frequently, my smallest deals, if I hadn't negotiated them, would have presented my organization with tremendous liability. Think no limitation of liability clauses, liability to the vendor for indirect damages, customer-only indemnification obligations, etc. Hey, I want to be looked at as "strategic," but I'm not going to bankrupt my company doing it.
Sure, I agree that focusing on strategic vendors is important, and I do spend a fair amount of time there. But in purchasing, you also need to sweat the small stuff. Innovation and automation are great ways to cut down on time spent with lower-tier vendors, but partially abdicating the purchasing function to customer units is a recipe for disaster.
In closing, let me just say that I'm proud to be a buyer--and a getter.
Everybody perked up at that point. They want to be seen as buyers, not getters, gosh darn it! Robi went on to explain that purchasing folks need to get out of the day-to-day grind of the lower tier vendors, either by (in my words) automating, innovating, or getting rid of the purchasing function. One example is vendor rationalization. Another example that Robi gave was transitioning purchasing associated with lower tier vendors to customer work units, such as having a building operations group do their own deals with the lower tier vendors. It was actually pretty compelling.
He's got a point, and, at first glance, it makes a lot of sense. Would I be able to influence my organization's bottom-line better if I focused more energy on the top tier vendors? I'm not sure, but it sounds logical. I actually like his "buyer" versus "getter" distinction. But nothing against Robi, consultants come up with ideas--they don't have to implement them. So I've learned via the school of hard knocks to really evaluate the ideas that consultants offer. Certainly many consultants, and I'm sure Robi is in the mix, have great ideas that are very much worth implementing.
However, the more I thought about his buyer versus getter concept, the more that I started finding holes. Now, in fairness to Robi, he may never read this post and be able to defend his concept, so also take what I have to say here with a grain of salt. Here's what I didn't like about his concept and why being a "getter" is just as important as being a buyer.
Imagine if I went to my boss, and told him, "Hey, I can save $1 million dollars more every year if I can transition 80% of the vendors to the customers for them to negotiate their own deals. That way I'll free up my staff to be more strategic." Clearly, the customers would love it--at first... My boss, who's a great guy, probably wouldn't fire me on the spot, but he'd be tempted to. Purchasing is not all about saving money and extracting more value from vendors, it's also about providing a service to our internal customers so they can focus on their core competencies. I want to "enable" my customers as much as possible, but it's not their job to do my job.
So, my customers would love it if I did something like that, but again, only at first. As much as my customers think they can do my job (that's a funny thing about the purchasing profession, isn't it?), they do value my service--especially when things go wrong. So, if I did manage to talk my boss into letting my group be buyers instead of customers, I guarantee you that, after a couple of months, I would spend even less time on my strategic vendors because I'd be called in to clean-up all the little nightmare deals that my customers put together that have since gone belly-up.
Along that same line, as a purchasing professional, I also have a responsibility (a big one at that) to mitigate legal and operational risk for my organization. Frequently, my smallest deals, if I hadn't negotiated them, would have presented my organization with tremendous liability. Think no limitation of liability clauses, liability to the vendor for indirect damages, customer-only indemnification obligations, etc. Hey, I want to be looked at as "strategic," but I'm not going to bankrupt my company doing it.
Sure, I agree that focusing on strategic vendors is important, and I do spend a fair amount of time there. But in purchasing, you also need to sweat the small stuff. Innovation and automation are great ways to cut down on time spent with lower-tier vendors, but partially abdicating the purchasing function to customer units is a recipe for disaster.
In closing, let me just say that I'm proud to be a buyer--and a getter.
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