Changing systems, restructuring teams and introducing new procedures won’t solve problems you haven’t properly understood.
Procurement transformation has become a familiar topic in many organisations. Management recognises that something needs to change. Procurement costs are increasing, processes take too long, supplier performance is disappointing, or the department simply isn’t delivering what the business expects.
The response is often predictable.
A new procurement system is introduced. Procedures are rewritten. Responsibilities are reassigned. Sometimes the entire department is reorganised.
Several months later, management starts asking why the expected improvements haven’t materialised.
The answer is often straightforward: the organisation started changing things before fully understanding what was wrong.
And I’ve seen this happen more than once.
The problem isn’t always procurement
One of the first things I look at when assessing a procurement organisation is how it interacts with the rest of the business.
Procurement doesn’t operate independently. It relies on engineering, operations, finance, project management and other departments to provide the information and decisions needed to do its job.
Yet, when something goes wrong, procurement is frequently the first department being questioned.
Purchase orders take too long. Suppliers deliver late. Materials aren’t available when needed. Projects exceed their budgets.
But what happens when you look beyond the procurement department?
You may discover that purchase requisitions arrive with incomplete specifications. Engineering changes requirements halfway through the sourcing process. Technical evaluations remain unanswered for weeks. Or management expects delivery dates that were never realistic in the first place.
None of these issues can be resolved by procurement alone.
Before transforming procurement, organisations need to understand how the entire process works, from identifying a requirement to receiving the goods or services.
Otherwise, they’re simply improving one part of a process that remains fundamentally flawed.
A new system won’t fix a broken process
I’ve worked with organisations that invested heavily in procurement systems, expecting technology to improve efficiency, transparency and control.
And while technology certainly has its place, it cannot compensate for poor processes or unclear responsibilities.
If a purchase requisition requires too many approvals, automating those approvals doesn’t necessarily make the process more efficient.
If specifications are incomplete, a digital tendering platform won’t make them better.
And if departments don’t communicate properly, introducing another system won’t suddenly make them work together.
In some cases, technology actually makes existing problems more visible without doing anything to resolve them.
My view has always been that organisations should first establish how their procurement processes ought to work, identify unnecessary steps and agree on clear responsibilities.
Only then should they determine how technology can support those processes.
Not the other way around.
Changing the organisation chart isn’t a strategy
Another common approach is restructuring.
Management decides that procurement needs a different organisational model. Perhaps centralisation will improve control, or decentralisation will bring procurement closer to operations.
Both approaches can work, depending on the business.
But changing reporting lines without addressing underlying problems rarely delivers the expected results.
I’ve seen situations where responsibilities were moved between departments, job titles changed and new management layers introduced, while the actual way of working remained almost identical.
The same approval delays continued. The same communication problems remained. And procurement was still being involved too late.
An effective procurement organisation needs more than the right structure.
It needs clear accountability, competent people, appropriate decision-making authority and a good understanding of what the business requires.
The organisational model should support those requirements, not dictate them.
Procurement KPIs can tell the wrong story
This is another area where I believe organisations often get it wrong.
Procurement performance is frequently measured through cost savings, purchase order processing times and the number of sourcing activities completed.
These are useful indicators, but they don’t necessarily tell management whether procurement is performing well.
Consider a buyer who issues a purchase order within the required timeframe.
According to the KPI, the buyer has performed successfully.
But what if the original requisition was submitted six weeks too late? What if engineering took another three weeks to approve the technical evaluation? Or what if the supplier’s delivery date was never aligned with the project schedule?
The purchase order KPI may be green while the project is already facing serious delays.
The same applies to savings.
Negotiating a lower purchase price looks good on paper. But if the selected supplier subsequently fails to deliver, resulting in additional expediting costs or project delays, what exactly has the organisation saved?
Procurement performance needs to be measured against business outcomes, not just departmental activities.
That requires management to look beyond individual KPIs and understand how procurement contributes to project execution, operational continuity, commercial risk and overall business performance.
People are often overlooked
Procurement transformation isn’t just about systems, procedures and organisational structures.
It’s also about people.
You can introduce the best processes in the world, but if employees don’t understand them, don’t have the necessary skills or don’t see the value of changing their way of working, improvements will be difficult to sustain.
This applies equally to procurement and its internal stakeholders.
A procurement team may be expected to take a more strategic role, while spending most of its time dealing with urgent purchase requests, chasing approvals and resolving problems that should have been addressed earlier.
At the same time, management expects the team to develop sourcing strategies, improve supplier relationships and identify cost-saving opportunities.
Something has to give.
If organisations want procurement to operate strategically, they need to create the conditions that allow it to do so.
That means investing in people, improving cooperation between departments and giving procurement sufficient authority to challenge requirements and decisions when necessary.
It also means accepting that transformation takes time.
Start by understanding what is actually happening
Whenever I become involved in reviewing or improving procurement operations, I believe the first priority should be understanding the current situation.
Not just what the procedures say should happen, but what actually happens in practice.
Talk to the buyers. Speak with engineering, operations and project management. Review procurement files. Follow a few purchase requisitions from initiation to purchase order placement.
Look at where decisions are delayed, where responsibilities become unclear and where unnecessary work is being created.
You may find that the problems are very different from what management initially believed.
For example, what appears to be poor buyer performance may actually be caused by inadequate demand planning or lengthy internal approval processes.
Supplier delivery problems may originate from unrealistic schedules or late technical clarifications.
And excessive procurement workloads may be the consequence of fragmented purchasing, limited framework agreements or the absence of proper category management.
These are the issues that need to be understood before deciding what should change.
A practical procurement assessment doesn’t have to become a lengthy consultancy exercise. But it does need to be objective, involve the right people and produce findings that management is prepared to act upon.
Transformation needs ownership, not just management approval
There is a difference between management approving a procurement transformation and actively supporting it.
Real change often requires decisions that extend beyond procurement’s authority.
Engineering may need to change how specifications are prepared. Project management may need to involve procurement earlier. Finance may need to reconsider approval requirements. Operations may need to improve demand forecasting.
These changes won’t happen simply because the procurement director introduces a new procedure.
They require commitment from the wider management team.
And that commitment needs to remain in place when the changes become uncomfortable.
Without it, procurement transformation can easily become another internal improvement initiative that gradually loses momentum.
My perspective
Having worked in procurement and supply chain leadership roles across different industries and international organisations, I’ve learned that the most difficult part of improving procurement is rarely identifying what needs to change.
It’s getting everyone to recognise why the change is necessary and take responsibility for making it happen.
There is often a tendency to focus on the visible problems: slow purchasing, supplier delays, high costs or poor system performance.
But the underlying causes are frequently found elsewhere in the organisation.
That is why I believe procurement transformation should never be treated as an isolated departmental exercise.
It needs to be approached as a business improvement initiative, with clear objectives, realistic expectations and accountability across the organisation.
And sometimes the most valuable contribution an experienced procurement professional can make is to challenge management’s initial assumptions about where the problems actually lie.
Final thoughts
Procurement transformation can deliver significant improvements in efficiency, cost control, supplier performance and commercial risk management.
But only when organisations are prepared to address the underlying causes of poor performance.
Before investing in new systems, restructuring departments or rewriting procedures, management should ask itself three questions:
Do we genuinely understand where our procurement problems originate?
Are we prepared to change the way other departments interact with procurement?
And are we measuring success based on business results rather than simply procurement activities?
If the answers aren’t clear, the organisation may not be ready to start its transformation.
Because successful procurement transformation doesn’t begin with changing the procurement department.
It begins with understanding the business.
About Proculus Consilium
Proculus Consilium supports organisations with procurement strategy, transformation, contracting, commercial risk management and interim procurement leadership.
Drawing on extensive international experience in offshore, maritime, energy and industrial environments, we focus on practical improvements that strengthen procurement performance and support business objectives.
Facing challenges with your procurement organisation or considering a transformation?
Contact Proculus Consilium to discuss how an independent procurement assessment can help identify where improvements are genuinely needed.