Why You Need to Look Beyond Procurement for Professional Development

If you’re going to make it to the top in procurement and beyond, now is the time to broaden your professional development horizons.

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At a time where an increasing number of people are either looking to progress in their current organisation or looking for a new role entirely, professionals from all areas are searching for ways to stand out. 

So, what’s one sure-fire way to differentiate yourself from the competition? 

Continuing professional development.

Whether you take the more formal route of further education, professional accreditation or chartership, or you opt for online learning and self-study, the career benefits are endless! What’s more, so are the opportunities. Procurement professionals have access to numerous options, with more and more taking on some form of professional development each year. 

Undertaking professional development and achieving qualifications in procurement is a fantastic accomplishment. However, there is an argument to say that it may no longer be enough to reach the top in the profession and push onward. (cue self-induced panic)

No need to stress – but if you’re wondering how you can take your skill sets and qualifications to the next level, you might need to start thinking more broadly. 

As organisations look for multi-skilled or more professionally rounded individuals for top roles, procurement professionals will have to broaden their learning into other areas. Here are our observations on the matter…

Widen your experience and build up your skill variety

More CPOs than ever are taking the next step from the top of their procurement organisation into the Executive Suite. In fact, CPOs are more in demand for these roles than they ever have been before. What these success stories have in common is a broad base of knowledge and experience across an organisation, not just a career focused on procurement and supply chain.

This expectation shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, with recruitment at all levels often focusing on a candidate’s breadth of knowledge and experience gained during the course of their career. In order to progress to executive level roles, you need to understand how procurement fits into the organisational machine, as well as how your own experience builds a foundation for better cross-functional working.

As procurement becomes more relied upon strategically, it highlights how multi-skilled many of its best professionals are. These professionals have undertaken learning and development outside of their own function, showing a willingness and ability to learn in a much broader sense and an understanding that their development and success is inhibited by organisational silos.

Put simply, it makes them look more attractive to current and future employers and less like a ‘one-trick-pony’ in a knowledge and experience sense.

Make smart selections for yourself

It’s not just a case of picking any qualification, online course or learning opportunity – you need to choose wisely! 

The qualifications need to be complementary to any existing procurement ones that you may already have, and at the same time viable for development for future roles in the organisation.

These choices don’t necessarily have to be further chartership in another profession, or even linked to professional associations (though it doesn’t hurt). There are various courses linked to common software programs that are viable across a number of industries and professions. It’s worth investigating qualifications that relate to programs used in your organisation and using that as a starting point.

We’ve picked out some good options that will work in harmony with procurement qualifications below: 

• Project Management

Project Management and Procurement frequently go hand-in-hand in an organisational setting, so having a great knowledge in this area will stand you in good stead. You can choose to go down the route of membership and chartership (the APM is Project Management’s equivalent of CIPS), or look for courses on critical skills and processes, such as are contained in PRINCE2.

Both routes offer the ability to study in your own time and at your own speed and will deliver key learning and development that will ultimately improve how you manage key procurement projects and processes too.

• Legal

Many organisations are now pushing for a much closer relationship between its Procurement and Legal functions. From simple Terms and Conditions that sit behind a purchase order, to the ins and outs of commercial and contract law for major projects, procurement can benefit from having a bit more knowledge in this area.

There are many courses available online on contract law and commercial law, as well as basic legal training for procurement professionals. As with the Project Management training, this will give you a better understanding of how the two functions are interdependent, but also arm you with the skills to input to future discussions around the appropriate terms for, for example, key strategic supplier relationships.

• Finance

Organisational structure frequently sees procurement reporting through to level via the finance function, not to mention the financial meaning of key performance metrics in procurement in savings and added value. So, it makes sense for procurement professionals to have a good understanding of key financial management skills.

These skills will aid procurement in strategic decision-making, financial planning, cost modelling and more, as well as proving to other functions that procurement has a grasp of the key financial facets underpinning organisational strategy.

• IT

Learning the basics of highly common systems such as SAP and Oracle means that you are not only going to be able to maximise your effectiveness in your current role, but also be better prepared for new systems if you move companies. And as procurement becomes a more increasingly digitally-led function, these skills will certainly be more in demand in the future too.

Which path do I take?

Ultimately, it’s up to you where you go from here, but it’s worth remembering to look for skills and qualifications to complement your procurement ones – you can effectively leverage them in your current (or any future) organisation. 

Making smart decisions on this now will stand you in good stead for the future, and make sure that when that dream role comes up, you have the breadth of knowledge and experience to really make your case.

If you’re looking for more information about continuing your professional development, especially if your organisation is on a post-pandemic budget, check out this article here.