Enhancing and Redefining the Role of Indirect Procurement Research Findings and Results

The principal goals of the research were to identify:

•    Organisations’ attitudes, specifically amongst finance and procurement professionals, towards the indirect procurement function
•  The current role that indirect procurement plays and the desired future role of the indirect procurement function
•  Business perceptions of the value currently being delivered from this aspect of procurement
• The benefits senior stakeholders are seeking from the indirect procurement function
•    Insights into the ways in which indirect procurement needs to develop within the organisation
•    The current and planned usage of the procurement outsourcing strategy

The research was conducted through interviews with 120 Senior Executives in Continental Europe, UK and the US, with half coming from Procurement and the other half from Finance. The sectors in which these executives came from:

•  Financial Services
•  Retail
•  Consumer Products
•  Manufacturing




Since the economic downturn, procurement’s profile has been raised within many global businesses.  
Stronger executive support for major initiatives has increased mandates for tackling non-compliance and we are now witnessing business units, such as Marketing which, in some instances, have never let Procurement cross their door before, proactively seeking procurement support.

However, through a series of interactions with senior executives over the last few years, a consistent message has arisen – one of frustration that procurement, and indirect procurement in particular, is underappreciated by the wider organisation. 

Furthermore, across the US and Europe a vast majority of the members of the C-Suite feel that indirect procurement is under-invested. Proxima, in conjunction with NelsonHall, therefore ran a research study to investigate the perceptions, attitudes and desired outcomes of indirect procurement to catalyse this common sense that procurement could and should play a greater role in most businesses. 

Many of the responses in our study do indicate that indirect procurement is perceived to have a role that is somewhat tactical and administrative. Respondents advised that it can create process blocks and can, on occasion, even be antagonistic to specialist suppliers of the business, particularly specialist service providers.  This whitepaper, which is the third and final whitepaper in the series, investigates outsourcing as a procurement strategy to augment existing capability, enhance expertise and enable procurement to power your business.

To download this white paper in full visit http://info.proximagroup.com/power-your-business-procurement-outsourcing/