Procurement Insider Reveals the Truth Sellers Keep Getting Wrong

This episode features Rob, who began his career in procurement at Ford, where he learned the critical importance of value engineering—spending more to achieve disproportionately greater returns. He explains that procurement's typical remit is to save money, but the most effective approach involves understanding the underlying value and leveraging innovative sourcing. Rob transitioned from working directly for large corporations to consulting, applying his expertise across diverse industries such as quarrying, marketing, media, call centers, and tech. His core philosophy is to identify and resolve a company's 'pain points,' often leading to significant savings and improved processes.

Rob recounts a notable experience where he saved a printing company 4 million pounds on ink, including 1 million in immediate cash flow, by stepping in when the CEO was struggling to negotiate. This success highlighted the effectiveness of an objective, external perspective. He emphasizes that key skills for both procurement and sales professionals include open-mindedness, objectivity, meticulous discovery, curiosity, strong communication, effective networking, commercial savviness, and high emotional intelligence. Rob believes that many sales professionals often 'over-index' on confidence without fully understanding the underlying issues, a pitfall he avoids by asking numerous questions and listening to subtleties.

He stresses the importance of gaining internal consensus, getting finance, engineering, product development, and sales teams to collaborate to solve problems. His experience at Ford with a '10-2' program (10% cost reduction in two years) underscored that while the goal was clear, achieving it required collective buy-in and smart, cross-functional strategies. Rob also shares an amusing anecdote about an old-school buyer who repeatedly demanded a 20% discount on a product without detailed negotiation, eventually getting it due to persistence. Ultimately, Rob advocates for a collaborative, long-term approach to procurement and sales, focusing on mutual benefit and understanding the human element behind every deal, rather than simply pursuing short-term gains or relying on aggressive tactics.