Critical decision criteria

Joern Wozny

Today I have a question for everyone here.

Our solutions require changes to the procurement process at the target customers. However, as the current procurement processes of large customers are often not so easy to adapt, one of the purchasing department's decision criteria is very often that the purchasing process must not change. However, this is more or less an exclusion criterion for our solution.

In my opinion, there are cases where it is actually very difficult to adapt a globally implemented process and the effort involved is not insignificant. Sometimes it also seems to me to be a gladly used opportunity to prevent a decision in our favor.

Do you also have similar cases where stakeholders pick out something that precludes a decision in favor of your product and how do you deal with such tactical moves?

Tim Caito

Joern - Without knowing more details of your situation (and solution), it's difficult to advise on tactics you can use once the decision process progresses to procurement. But it sounds like your company"s challenge will be ongoing unless something changes.

Knowing procurement organizations well, I suggest you consider driving change outside of procurement. Remember your stakeholders are procurement's internal customers. Despite their perceived power, procurement's job is to purchase what their internal customers need.

With this in mind, I suggest you focus more on the "Who" and "What"... Who has the power and authority to tell procurement they need to change their process to better fit their strategic need (the true Economic Buyer)... and What pain (I) is so compelling it cannot be seen as secondary to procurement"s process... What Decision Criteria (DC) cannot be met by any other solution that might happen to align with the procurement process... and What specific changes can the EB and your Champion (Ch) drive in the Decision Process (DP) to better align it with their needs?

It could be that your best approach to change procurement, is to drive compelling change beyond them, before they get involved!

Joern Wozny

Hi Tim, thanks for your tips. After reading your advice, I also believe that we should avoid talking too soon to the stakeholders who are considering the implementation and the challenges involved before the “business value” of our solution and the “cost of inaction” have been clearly identified and confirmed by those who are responsible for the business. It's really good to be able to ask for advice from someone outside my own bubble. 👍