After 5 years of seeing my career of procurement as separate from the work I do in community, I sat back and saw how closely linked they actually are.
Engagement with Local Suppliers
Community and economic development often focuses on supporting the local economy by supporting the local businesses in the community. Procurement managers are involved crucial in this support ecosystem because we are the “go between” from larger companies to ensure small businesses get more opportunities.
Facilitating Stakeholder Collaboration
We often have to work with a variety of different stakeholders from Legal and Finance to IT and engineering. Since we have to manage these different relationships, we are primed to support community development work since that covers so many diverse relationships.
An Example in Action
While working at P&G, I worked with a coworker Heidi to tackle waste at our downtown headquarters. We did a waste audit and started working through various options to reduce landfill waste. One the streams was food. Companies with onsite food don’t manage their own contracts. They typically contract it out to their facilities vendor who then subcontracts it out to a dining provider and then that national dining provider subcontracts it out to a local catering company. Phew! A lot of layers just to find out how the supply chain works. I learned all of this in my first year at the company.
After some investigating and meetings, Heidi and I kicked off a partnership with LaSoupe that led to literal tons of food that was going to landfill to go to a better cause instead. I directly used the skills and knowledge I was learning in Procurement to a something meaningful and tangible.
Learnings
In learning about these layers of procurement in major corporations, I learned how we didn’t have as much control in the relationship. We can always make strong suggestions. If a relationship is managed well, those strong suggestions can turn into change. It empowers me to speak up for my company and community because we have a say as procurement managers.
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