Use Storyboards in Purchasing

Market Your Purchasing Successes with the Use of Storyboards

Purchasing professionals need to realize that they must not only market their purchasing strategies but their successes. Many purchasing professionals neglect to create a marketing plan for their organization. I use the term marketing plan synonymously with communication plan.

Some of the goals and techniques of your marketing-communication plan should be to educate top management on your strategic plans, publish results of supplier performance and surveys, publish internal customer survey results, educate personnel on purchasing and supply chain principles, emails, hold roundtables, hold town meetings, use social media, utilize newsletters, use a supply chain specific web pages, monthly letters, and announcement of successes.

Storyboards are a great way to market your successes.  Storyboards require you to be disciplined in your message and fully understand your results and assertions. You must limit your words and concentrate on the essentials. Thus you must communicate explicitly and right to the point for your audience. You need to strip away the technical argot and make sure the audience can easily grasp what you have accomplished, even with a very limited knowledge of purchasing. Storyboards should adhere to a lean principle of visibility. Storyboards must be understood quickly with the maximum use of graphics, not words, spreadsheets or numbers. This is not an easy task, as a consultant we would often spent hours and days trying to accomplish this with a storyboard. Obviously purchasing often does not have the talent (full time illustrator) or resources to do this meticulously, but this is intended to be a guide.

There is no one catch all formula or template for storyboards. Often how you employ them and your particular style depends on the culture and communication norms of your organization. The important aspect is to make sure that you communicate your successes in a manner that can be readily understood by both purchasing and non-purchasing personnel. Think of storyboards as intelligent commercials that must be brief, easily remembered and upbeat.

I have provided an example of a storyboard that we used to communicate a purchase order success story. The organization that it was used in was very heavily into Lean Six Sigma, Kaizens and the DMAIC methodology (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control). We used this familiar DMAIC format to help people understand and follow what we did.  It still has too many words and numbers but we needed to insure people realized the scope of what we had accomplished. The storyboard was well received and readily understood by employees. I highly recommend purchasing and supply chain professionals consider using storyboards to communicate your successes.

Purchasing has continuously demonstrated their impact to the bottom line of an organization. It has been well documented and universality recognized. Then why do many companies refuse to take advantage of this cost-saving resource? Why do executives still remain skeptical of purchasing’s value? In many organizations purchased materials and services account for over 50% of the cost of goods sold; yet purchasing is often relegated to a bureaucratic mundane dungeon of clerical functions.
Some of the fault lies in purchasing itself. Purchasing personnel are notoriously inept at marketing and selling their ideas and suggestions. They are often a harried bunch running around from firefight to firefight. Most do not even have a good or comprehensive communication plan. They fail to “toot their horn” or market their successes. Purchasing fails to tell their story compellingly and neglects to sell their importance. Other departments either ignore or politely humor purchasing. Purchasing remains the chief cost driver or cost saver for many companies, yet often purchasing is remarkably under-resourced and underappreciated.
One-way to sell purchasing’s importance is to empower as many other employees as possible to participate in purchasing especially on cross-functional sourcing teams. Involving as many personnel in constructive purchasing activities educates them on the value and importance of purchasing. This is a bottom-up approach to educating employees on the value of purchasing. It encourages them to contribute their ideas about improving services and products. Purchasing needs to strongly persuade other departments to participate in purchasing processes and decisions. Purchasing all too often fails at what I call the empowerment of employees and internal public relations.
But what can purchasing do about the top executives or top-down? Many executives have stereotype views of purchasing. One of our most successful methods to convince top executives of the value of executives is to encourage direct one-on-one collaboration with executives of your suppliers; especially ones who you are partnering with who realize the relationship is long-term. Exchanging ideas at this level not only yields great results, but also expedites decisions and removes bureaucratic barriers to success.
The fact is that purchasing also runs its own Research and Development (R&D) department. Suppliers, in collaboration with purchasing, are perhaps the most cost effective R&D function in a company. Jointly they often come up with leaps in technology and transformations in products. When they cooperate they can transform a company and its products. Breakthroughs that occur via this method should receive as much publicity if not more than those developed internally!
In summary, getting purchasing valued for its great contribution to revenue requires both a bottom-up and top-down approach. Empower as many employees as possible to participate in purchasing and solicit their ideas and suggestions. Set up one-on-one executive exchanges with your supplier executives. Finally, systematically create a strong marketing plan to communicate your successes.

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