How to re-invent the procurement function? – SERVICES

A Belgian health fund, where at the time of our entry, procurement was a mere administrative function under facility management with no – to limited added value.

The client expressed the wish to increase general procurement awareness over 2 head offices and multiple affiliates and subsequently mandated Purson to perform an audit/scan of their existing procurement function, define a roadmap towards the future and afterwards build a future proof department.

• Low general procurement awareness and low willingness / openness to change.
• Good personnel that lacking guidance and structure, that were forced in a purely executional / operational role.
• No existing processes, nor tools present
• Key tenders that urgently needed procurement input
• The question needed to be raised whether the procurement function was positioned rightly in the organigram

• Rapid increase of general procurement awareness and openness towards procurement input after having performed internal roadshows in order to sell the added value of the procurement function
• Procurement was moved away from facilities and placed under the responsibility of the CFO, after carefull assessment and analysis.
• Implementation of category management
• Ad hoc tender management which brought steady savings: facility management, building & renovation, maintenance, equipment, cleaning, HR, IT.
• Set up of contract repository, installment of processes and tools (KPI dashboard etc.), optimisation of procure to pay process.
• Increase of maturity and skillset of buyers through intensive coaching