Procurement ::

I have written before on the importance of marketing agencies engaging with brand procurement teams.

Promotional Marketing (November 2010) has written this month about how agencies are being tested in these current times. It writes of the knock on effect of the current spending cuts at governmental level – and that anecdotal evidence suggests there is already a huge impact on the market research sector with some agencies already having closed their social research units.

The full article (reproduced here with kind permission of Promotional Marketing) expands on this theme.

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Other posts:

In praise of legal and procurement – 9 ways to get yes

Procurement – COI Digital Expenditure and ROI

Procurement ::

I have written about, advised and trained marketing agency personnel (account management and the business leaders), extensively, in how they approach and manage agency interaction with client procurement.

One article, for the IPM magazine Promotional Marketing, counseled agencies to pro-actively engage with the procurement professionals within their client organisations both at the earlies stage in the business relationship – and also on an on-going basis.

Procurement professionals adds considerable value within client organisations and it is incumbent on the marketing services agencies  to continually realise  and work with this function.

Pauline Ores has published an article on eConsultancy that backs up this thinking and I quote it below in full:

I think we can all agree digital marketing doesn’t fit neatly into a single slot. Hence, success requires digital marketers to be expert at yet another skill: the ability to drive organizational change. Loosely translated, this means, “Those idiots and their rules are driving me so crazy I could throttle them.” Completely understandable, digital marketing is hard enough as is.

While many books and conferences address marketing, few address how digital marketers are supposed to get through the day without either committing a felony or indulging in hari kiri. Not that I sailed through corporate life like the Dalai Lama. Far from it. I made plenty of mistakes, burnt a lot of bridges, and was furious a good part of the time, particularly at first. But over time I honed my ‘transformational’ skills.

For someone who spent most (okay, nearly all) of her time implementing new things, I always enjoyed working with legal and procurement, the two groups many marketers tell me they avoid by any and all measures.

Not me. One, their rules have some rhyme and reason to them, and are usually well documented.  Two, by and large their objections boil down to ‘the firm would be at risk if’ statements.  Makes perfect sense, I fully agree that type of risk doesn’t add value. Three, if you express your interest in their mission and articulate the business value of your slightly-out-of-bounds idea, I found for the most part they were willing to work with you on it.

For what it’s worth, here’s how I managed to get along with our brethren in legal and procurement. I’m not officially qualified, but given procurement jokingly nicknamed me Ms. Loophole, I can say with certainty I was proficient.

If you only take away one thought, let it be this: put in as much effort as you can before you approach these groups. Having helped others after they tried and failed, it’s much easier to do right than remedy.

How to get started:

• Do your homework. Pretend you’re traveling to a foreign land. Unless you’re a lawyer or purchasing professional, you are. Understand their department’s organizational structure and read their guidelines. Regular marketers may not have to, but you do. Have colleagues recommend whom they enjoyed or had a hard time working with in these departments. The more you know, the better the outcome.
• Expand your range. This is not an area where demanding behavior or arguing louder gets results. In fact, it’s the worst thing you can do. Other marketing functions may cower at the mere mention of your name, but these groups deservedly wield real power. Alternately, don’t whine about your projects or your goals. They’re not therapists. They’re focused on their mission, not yours.
• The thesaurus is your friend. You want to know the process well enough to understand the implications of scope of work terms such as ‘campaign,’ ‘design,’ etc. One word can make a world of difference if you don’t want to end up in a certain bin. Note I said thesaurus, not dictionary. Don’t lie, just expand your vocabulary.
• Be a boy scout. To a greater or lesser degree we’re demanding nuisances who generate unnecessary risk and expense. Don’t earn a reputation as a scofflaw who requires a shorter leash. Don’t make a habit of cleaving large projects in two to route around clip levels. Don’t hire one firm, via other agencies, to do work that belongs in another procurement category. And never, ever, assume legal won’t find out or think what they don’t know won’t hurt them.

As you move forward:

• Start with value. You’re on common ground. They’re there to protect the firm; you’re there to make sure it thrives. It only works if you both do your jobs. Outline what you’re trying to accomplish for the business, not the activity. Not, “But I absolutely need to let 300 perfect strangers tweet on our behalf,” but rather, “Here’s why it’s imperative our business has a meaningful presence in this space. My thought as to how we might achieve that is…”
• Avoid tunnel vision. Don’t walk away with a “no” unless it comes with a “why.” Ask them to outline their concerns for the firm, don’t focus the conversation on the rules. Often, there are other issues you’re completely unaware of, particularly at large firms. Did you know government contracts can require a certain percentage of your firm’s procurement contracts go to minority business owners? You’d be amazed to learn what these teams have to juggle.
• Ask them to help. I saw a great tweet from a social media colleague. Something along the lines of, “Why is it when you ask legal to weed a garden, their only thought is napalm?” Invite them to work with you. Being on the front lines all day is no picnic. I’m sure they’d welcome an opportunity to be creative and develop new solutions and policies.
• Get even more creative. If at first you don’t succeed, let them know you understand, but that you’re going to go back and work on a solution that meets your criteria as well as theirs. If you’re as good as you think you are, you can do this.
• Never stop educating. The more they understand, the better. Believe it or not they, too (perhaps more than you) live in an ever-changing environment. New regulations, financial constraints, etc. Provide some guidance as to how digital marketing will impact their work, and what’s coming, i.e. I may be the first, but there are at least a hundred similar requests behind me. Ideally, you become their digital resource.

Even with a “yes” in hand, the end-to-end process was always more akin to an Indiana Jones sequel than a business process. Inevitably, unexpected challenges that threatened to derail the project pop up, so it does take constant vigilance and supervision, but I’m here to tell you it can be done. Over time you’ll develop relationships with these teams; they’ll begin to see you as a partner and may even grant you a bit more leeway.

Last, let us praise legal and procurement. Be ever so thankful you’ve them to help to keep you from getting yourself fired, or worse. It’s not as if the digital marketing landscape is that well-mapped. Ask them to share their field’s horror stories: vendors who disappeared mid-project, lawsuits that have gone on for decades, etc. The more you hear, the more grateful you’ll be.

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Procurement ::

The COI has published Reporting on progress – Central government websites 2009/10.

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Procurement ::

The article I wrote, published in the ISP’s Sales Promotion sets out to explain the importance of a proactive approach for agencies and their engagement with procurement.

Since then, there have been a number of articles written – and Suzy Bashford asks, in Marketing, Is Procurement killing Marketing Creativity?

David Wilson, ex-Mattel, also highlights the issues surrounding agency and their ability to understand and engage with procurement in this article.

Viral ::

Advertising ::

Sales promotion 30.06.08

The word “procurement” may strike fear into the hearts of agencies, but Rod Geoghegan, business development director at promotional marketing agency Wax Communications,  shows how, with understanding and an inclusive approach, you can make procurement work for you

Procurement departments have had a bad press, it has to be said. Regarded by many as evil bean counters whose only talent is to buy goods and services by the metre at the cheapest price, the very mention of them tends to send agency folk diving for their calculators and a stiff drink.

But agencies brave enough to embrace the commercial reality of procurement departments – which are here to stay – will actually find they are staffed by reasonable people (yes people!) who can be a real help to you.

The key to working productively with procurement is in building a relationship founded on mutual understanding, openness and trust. And there are many ways to do this.

Firstly, there’s nothing to be afraid of. The sooner you embrace, love and help them to do their job better, the more you will benefit from them. Procurement should be the agency’s best friend, and they can really help, for example, clarifying commercial situations with clients that may become tricky.

Get procurement involved as early in the process as possible – don’t put off meeting them because you think they are only going to give you a hard time.

Just make sure you have all the information they need in a format they can use and understand. In fact, our approach is more proactive than that – we mail our details to the procurement departments of clients we have yet to work with and it has put us on their radar and helps us immediately create a sense of openness and trustworthiness.

Transparency is all. Be open about how you work and how you charge. Don’t be frightened to show your costs and profit. If you don’t, procurement managers will think you have something to hide. Be upfront and think ahead: are third-party costs available to look at, for example?

Have you highlighted where the budget-breaking risks could arise? This kind of detail shows you are commercially aware, which again helps in the trust-building stakes – it’s one of the key factors a procurement department wants to see from its suppliers.

Make sure you give a clear picture of the value you offer – not just a breakdown of your costs, but details on how you manage the working relationship; how you keep costs within budget and the checks and balances that are in place that can warn of budget over-runs. Let them know how you benchmark your service and what your service level agreements are.

Think about your internal processes and how they can be improved to aid better working – can you improve your negotiating skills for example? Are you looking for points that unite rather than divide?

Whatever you think, procurement people are not the cynics Oscar Wilde referred to as “knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing”. What they are looking for on behalf of your clients is “good value”, and it’s up to you to prove that.

So agencies must show increased concern for quality and effectiveness, as well as productivity and efficiency. The creative must be great, but so must be the costing, pricing and negotiation. Knowing the value of the creative contribution made to the client’s business and having confidence in your processes and costs will help build mutual respect and deliver mutual benefit. Talk their language. Make sure you take a finance person or trained negotiator to every meeting with procurement – finance people speaking to finance people is a much better start point than bringing in your finance director way down the line when things have already got sticky.

Consider: do you talk in measurables and are you focusing on output and deliverables as much as costs? Include procurement in your communications with your client. Keep them abreast of any changes in activity that may impact finances.

Tell them early on, so you can work together to ensure a good result. Keep the client in the loop too when talking to procurement. Some businesses outsource their procurement and these companies can be very good at excluding the client so they do not get to see how tough they are being in the negotiation and only report back that the agency supplier is “being difficult”.

It’s your job to keep your client abreast of what’s going on. Also, remember procurement are integral members of your client’s team, so approach them the same way you would your marketing client.

Believe it or not, procurement are people too – so send them Christmas cards, as you would with the marketing department, thank them for their help and really work hard at building that relationship.

Help them understand who you are, how you work, how you charge and help them see you as people, not as numbers on a spread-sheet. It all comes down to mutual understanding and collaboration.

By keeping open the lines of communication and listening to each other, agencies and procurement should learn to work side by side rather than head to head, as is often the case today.

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