Are You Ready for 2022? How to Prepare for Your Procurement Career A.C.(After-COVID)

With the question of ‘What’s Next’ on everyone’s lips, we thought it time to look at how the world is preparing for procurement (and life) beyond 2021.

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Procurement, we hear you. For many of you (in fact, over 45% of you according to our What Next survey results so far), it’s a sure-fire thing that your procurement job will still be yours in twelve months.

But have you thought about what that job will look like?

Really?

For so long, career-planning has never seemed more distant from the reality of our disruptive present.

But now, with Freedom Day celebrated in the UK this last week, and many other countries around the world opening for trade and tourism, we can now start imagining our lives and careers A.C. (after COVID).

But what, exactly, will those careers look like?

From our slightly frightening predictions in 2020 that we’d all need to become a little more proactive in managing our careers, to the exciting developments of this year — including that many of us might be able to work from anywhere! — there’s no doubt that careers A.C. will look very different from how they did B.C (before COVID).

Here’s what you need to do to prepare for the A.C. future that’s almost here (or is it here already?)

Tell us in our latest exciting survey, What Next?)

Stay ahead, keep networking

Strategic decisions lead to successful careers.

But how can you make the best decisions in the face of constant change and disruption?

One of the best ways is to keep abreast of industry news and stay deeply connected.

It’s always been prevalent, but the ability for procurement pros to access real-time supply chain news has never been more critical than now.

During the height of the pandemic (and for months after), changes happened so quickly that we’d be planning our way out of one disruption, when something else drastic occurred to overtake it.

Given the global and interconnected nature of supply chains, procurement professionals need to ensure they’re keeping abreast of what is happening in the industry.

And, how everyone else is solving the same problems. To achieve this, all procurement professionals should:

Use a news aggregator, such as Google News or Procurious, to stay up to date with supply chain news. Even ten minutes of reading a day could save you hours of work!

Invest — every week — in making new connections. During the pandemic, our Procurious community banded together through our networking events and webinars and discovered what we already suspected: that as many of us experience the same challenges, connecting with more people can collectively help decrease the burden and ensure we’re all more productive and confident.

In the A.C. world, there are more opportunities than ever to network, with many online events available.

Start afresh … and plan

We’ll hazard a guess and say that if someone asked you in 2015 where you’d be in 2020, you wouldn’t have said that you’d be fighting fires left, right and centre amidst a global pandemic!

But just because your five-year career plan may not have culminated in 2020 in the way you imagined, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t now be thinking about where you might be in 5-10 years.

To help you plan, we’ve collated Procurious’ very best articles on career management, so you can start to plan ASAP:

Aspire to Be a CPO? Know This. Are you working towards your first C-suite role within the next decade? Here is what you’ll need to do to get there.

What to Do When Procurement Isn’t Your Passion. Are you feeling a little unsure about your future in procurement? Here’s what to do if you are wondering if it’s really for you.

You’ve Been Fired or Made Redundant. What Should You Say to Your Next Boss? Do you need to bounce back from a bad career episode? Here’s what you should say to your next manager.

Going it Alone: How to Make a Success of a Contracting Career. Are you considering contracting in your five-year plan? Here’s how to succeed at it.

How to Build your 5-Year Procurement Career Roadmap. Do you need to scrap your current plan and start again? Here’s how.

Plan for the A.C. world

If you had a career plan of any type, it’s likely you’ll need to adjust it or start afresh at some point. But when you’re thinking about your future career, ensure you do so in the mindset of tomorrow.

Here are a few trends and hot topics that will undoubtedly influence your career choices and preparation:

Sustainability is the only way forward

As the decade wears on,  BSR predicts that the global shortage of resources — and competition for what remains — will become more apparent, as will the impact of climate change.

Just looking at one market, the UK, there is an increase in Government led, mandatory, schemes for the biggest businesses to report on even more elements of the greenhouse gas emissions. Called Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting.

For this reason, companies will increasingly seek procurement professionals with experience building sustainable regional supply hubs, and those sourcing from counties who have firm climate commitments.

You’ll need to be more digitally savvy than ever

As SDC truthfully points out, companies with paper-based systems suffered terribly during the pandemic.

Never had it been clearer that mass digitisation was necessary, and those who did not, or could not, embrace complex digital systems were left behind.

As such, having undergone a digital transformation — or at the very least being comfortable with multiple procurement-based systems — is going to be a must for all talent going forward.

Full visibility and transparency is key

Increasingly, consumers are expecting and calling for transparency when it comes to where and how their supply chains operate, yet still, there are hundreds of organisations worldwide that unwittingly support modern slavery, unsustainable practices or even crime.

Going forward, Finance Online says that companies will look for talent who can go above and beyond when it comes to uncovering unscrupulous supply chain practices, including, being able to report on the impact of their supply chain on the climate, jobs creation, and ensuring fair living wages.

These are just some of the trends that will dominate the next few years … but we know there’s more. Tell us what you think will happen next with our exciting new survey created with Compleat, What Next?