Top tips to navigate corporate procurement
Have you ever thought Procurement departments at large corporates are shrouded in mystery and strict protocol you don’t really understand? Matchboard (1 of Westpac’s 200 Businesses of Tomorrow) is very grateful to the team at Westpac Sourcing for sharing their top tips on how to navigate Procurement processes:
- To be on a preferred panel or supplier list normally involves a “qualification” process – it’s worth making the investment to understand how this works at the corporate you are targeting.
- Provide accurate, relevant and timely offers; and do this across multiple channels to different areas of the business (Operations, Procurement, Business Units)
- Understand your Client’s industry, primary business goals, and “talk their language”
- Interact first – sell second
- Demonstrate real ROI catered to their business and market position
- Share the Risk, Share the Reward
- Recommendations and referrals are the best – hence build your personal and business brand
- A cold call is generally an unwelcome interruption
- Conversation is more than just words – positively connecting with various members of an integrated team will be a distinct advantage
- Offer to do a trial, or proof of concept in order to build the relationship on trust and proven results
- Be patient. It takes longer than you could imagine for Corporates to evaluate, especially if your proposal involves a large amount of change management
DOs
- Submit the proposal on time
- Succinctly address critical points that have been requested in a proposal
- Ask questions if you are unclear of any detail surrounding what is being proposed or tendered
- Follow the protocols of the process
- Include any value add items that could give you the winning edge!
DON’Ts
- Add information for the sake of bulking up a proposal
- Call in favours from people you know might know within the organisation
- Forget, you know your product more than anyone – so do the best you can to sell it!
- Be disheartened by the evaluation outcome if you didn’t win…
Last updated on: October 10, 2022
