Creating a Procurement Video to Make Your Mum Proud!

Photo by Donald Tong from Pexels

This article was written for Procurious by Sievo. Find out more about them here.

Have you ever had a hard time explaining what you do to friends or family? Do you love your job but get the sense other people find it boring?

We all know sales drives growth, marketing builds brands and the buck stops with finance. Why is it so difficult to explain the excitement and value procurement brings to the table?

According to Wikipedia, procurement is “the process of finding and agreeing to terms, and acquiring goods, services, or works from an external source, often via a tendering or competitive bidding process. Procurement generally involves making buying decisions under conditions of scarcity.”

Yeah, I know! It sounds boring. Compare it to what we came up with to describe procurement analytics. And we promise you, this is NOT just another boring video about procurement.

Time for a Re-Brand

So why did we break the procurement as we know it and create that simple-fun video? We all know that procurement is often introduced in a boring way – it’s no Sales or Marketing.

But if Sales and Marketing can brand themselves well, why can’t procurement? Why is it that when think-ing about sales, people think of smiling businessmen in suits making deals on lunch dates that increase the company’s revenue, and when thinking of procurement it’s something….well…different.

At Sievo we do procurement analytics. It’s arguably the nerdiest, geekiest, most jargon-filled area of procurement. Analytics is tough to explain on its own. But analytics combined with procurement? I’m not going to even put the definition of that here.

But don’t worry – the fact that procurement is boring is not your fault!

You can choose who and what to blame – the fact that procurement professionals are focusing on savings instead of branding or the lack of knowledge about the subject – but one thing is true: procurement has a branding problem.

Our Procurement Video – Sharing the Excitement

A while back we were looking at YouTube videos about procurement to have some inspiration for future projects. Turned out, we weren’t very inspired at all after watching all of the long and technical videos. In fact, we got a bit worried when wondering what our moms would say if they decided to look into what we do for a living.

We decided we had to do something. Anything. We found that there was a clear demand for an interesting and fun video about procurement. Like the one the sales function has where Leonardo DiCaprio shows how to sell a pen. If for no-one else than to finally explain to our partners and mothers what it really is that we do in a way that they wouldn’t fall asleep halfway.

The thing is, procurement and procurement analytics are actually quite exciting. You should know. Sure, it’s not smiling people out on launch dates all the time, but dang it, procurement is an important function. It’s a function that should be portrayed in the exciting way it deserves.

This subject of changing the way we talk about procurement seemed to be close to the hearts of many since there has been an abundance of comments in response to the video.

Check some of those out:

“Definitely going to show this to my family to let them know what I do at work all day!”

Naavie

“Very cool – this video shows importance of procurement analytics to CPOs, cate-gory managers, compliance officers who look for sustainability in procurement process and even legal department!”

Alexandra Shtromberg

“Shared to my network, great vid… procurement analytics, simply explained and fun to watch… ”

Laura Garcia-Hornell

“Interesting and fun video, really liked it. I am all in for procurement analytics because on the best case it helps to support better decisions which lead to better negotiations… ”

Phil Kowalski

Want more? Read here 14 of some of the most creative definitions of procurement analytics by the ex-perts. Who knew procurement analytics could be explained with Tequila, an Indian wedding, and digging up gold?

Comment what you think about our approach and let us know how YOU would rebrand procurement!