Want to be a purchasing manager? Get these three skills first

What skills do you need to become a purchasing manager? We use a case study to understand in detail how these skills are expressed and used.

case analysis

So, what problems does Xiao Wang have in management?

Xiao Wang’s problem is that he is not suitable for purchasing work.

• First, Xiao Wang lacks professional purchasing skills;
  

• Second, Xiao Wang does not have a long-term development concept and plan for procurement work;
  

• Third, they don’t know how to negotiate;
  

• Fourth, lack of interpersonal skills.
  

What problems did the supermarket and the buyer have in this case? The following is an analysis of the basic skills of purchasing managers.

Problem 1: Hiring the wrong people: supermarket chains misplace work

This supermarket chain hired an inappropriate person. Think about it, if an amateur is asked to manage the purchase of instant noodles, problems are bound to arise. The management process has three stages:

• ①Recruit the right people;
  

• ② Assign the right job to the right person;
  

• ③Motivate and lead them to create work results.
  

Procurement work has high requirements for procurement workers, including talent requirements for the incumbent; professional or technical skills requirements; interpersonal skills requirements; and conceptual skills requirements (strategic and tactical wisdom).

Mr. Peter Drucker pointed out: "The goal of an organization is to enable ordinary people to do extraordinary work." If a person fails to achieve good performance in a certain job, it can only indicate one thing, that is, the manager has arranged his work improperly.

Problem 2: Lack of experience: Blindly pursuing low prices and falling into negotiation traps

There are five basic principles for purchasing: timely, quality, quantity, price, and location. It can be seen that price is not the only key factor in purchasing strategy. From the perspective of the performance of the supermarket supplier Lao Li, he is very professional. In order to get instant noodles into this chain supermarket, he applied to his superiors for a very low entry price. This trick really worked. Seeing that it was profitable, Xiao Wang was excited and signed a "quantity-price linkage" purchasing agreement with Lao Li, and bought a large amount of instant noodles from Lao Li at one time. Once the purchase contract came into effect, Lao Li worked for several days and nights to quickly fill the food warehouses of the supermarket stores, making it impossible for other brands of instant noodles to enter, so Lao Li's instant noodles were seriously overstocked. Lao Li's overstocking probably also depends on the support of the store supervisors, warehouse managers and security guards, so Lao Li's interpersonal skills are also very sophisticated. This is also very worth learning for Xiao Wang.

Question 3: Interpersonal skills: Consider others as well as yourself

For example, as a purchasing manager of instant noodles, Xiao Wang must first save money for his boss, that is, he must know how to purchase high-quality and low-priced goods. Secondly, he also knows how to protect himself. If the market minimum cost of this product is 100 yuan, then he must not choose those products that are close to 100 yuan. If he really wants to buy, he should also give the supplier a minimum profit and require the supplier to provide certain promotional support. Why? Because, in the heart of every boss, there is never a lowest price. The lowest price in your eyes is definitely not the lowest price in the eyes of the boss. If the purchasing manager makes a deal at the lowest price of 100 yuan for the first time, he will definitely not last long.

Why is it that even though he saved costs for the company, he didn't work for long?

• First, if the supplier does not make money because of the lowest price, it will cut corners, and the subsequent products will have quality problems. As a result, when customers complain, firing the purchasing manager is the best way to appease customer complaints.
  

• Second, if the supplier does not make a profit, he will not pay attention to the order, which will easily lead to delayed delivery. Failure to deliver goods on time will affect the operation of the supermarket, and the result of out-of-stock will be the dismissal of the purchasing manager.
  

• Third, getting the lowest price at the beginning will affect long-term performance. If a competent buyer cannot gradually lower the unit price and improve the supply service over a long period of time, you will not be able to explain to your boss and you will have to leave. Therefore, it is a correct choice to give the procurement contract to a supplier with whom you have a good relationship and who is reliable, even if it is not the lowest price. On the other hand, there are great risks in doing business with unreviewed and unfamiliar suppliers. Generally speaking, buyers must be vigilant about unfamiliar goods, materials, parts, equipment and new suppliers, because high risks have appeared before your eyes.
  

Problem 4: Procurement thinking: eating from the bowl, looking at the pot, thinking about the field

Generally speaking, before a procurement negotiation, the negotiator should first think about: if the negotiation fails, what should I do next? Is there a best alternative? If the negotiator does not have a clear understanding of his alternatives, then he will not know when to accept the other party's final plan and when to reject the other party and choose an alternative.

The alternatives evaluation consists of three parts:

• First, in order to deal with the possibility of not being able to reach an agreement with the other party, negotiators need to find more possible alternatives.
  

• Second, evaluate each alternative.
  

• Third, we need to choose the best alternative. This means eating from the bowl, looking at the pot, and thinking about the field.
  

• If Xiao Wang chooses some of the instant noodles from old customers and at least one instant noodle manufacturer that can also offer the most favorable price when negotiating with Lao Li, a one-to-many tactical negotiation situation will be formed. At this time, if Xiao Wang knows how to use the "competitive negotiation strategy", it will form a killing spree among suppliers to obtain better prices, better delivery conditions and after-sales service conditions.
  

In the current situation, Xiao Wang should call Lao Li and sincerely invite him to continue supplying goods, agree to appropriately increase the purchase price and reduce the single purchase quantity in accordance with the agreed contract terms, and at the same time ask Lao Li to speed up the supply.

An excellent purchaser must have "patience". Patience is a skill. For you, "patience" does not cost anything, just your time. Lack of patience will only make you weak, but having enough patience will give you enough time to "turn bad things into good things".

A professional purchasing manager must know what not to do and what not to get involved in. You must also learn to judge things based on how much it might cost. You can also apply this standard to everything, including whether to cooperate with others or to help others. You must learn to take a roundabout route to achieve success. To cover up your shrewdness or cunning, all your actions must be carefully planned and implemented in the least conspicuous way. Because direct actions will attract many competitors to join in, causing you unimaginable difficulties. Therefore, to complete a strategic purchase, you must hit the target after several rebounds, just like playing billiards, and "take down the supplier."

Question 5: Negotiation skills: Maintain purchasing power and strive for maximum benefits

Carrefour's purchasing philosophy is "don't waste it". Everyone who has dealt with Carrefour said, "You need to have infinite patience and tenacity, and only persistence can bring success." Carrefour has been cultivating "offensive" purchasing specialists and attacking suppliers with a strong attitude.

• The first principle of purchasing - never forget to remain skeptical every minute of the negotiation, appear to lack enthusiasm for what is being discussed, or be unwilling to make a decision.
  

• The second principle of purchasing is to either reject or oppose the conditions proposed by the supplier for the first time. The buyer’s response should be: “What?” or “Are you kidding me?”, so as to create a psychological burden on the other party and lower the negotiation standards and expectations.
  

• The third principle of procurement is to always ask for the impossible. For things to be negotiated, the more outrageous the request, the better. Maybe the supplier will agree. These impossible requests help to gain more room for maneuver and room for concession. Ultimately, through small concessions, the opponent will feel that he has "gained benefits" from the negotiation.

• The fourth principle of procurement is to tell suppliers: "You need to do better." Repeat this statement over and over again until suppliers start to think that they are really doing a bad job now; in the eyes of procurement, these suppliers can never be the best.
  

• The fifth principle of purchasing is to postpone the matter to the next time. At the end of the negotiation, the buyer should claim that the decision must be made by the superior manager to buy more time for himself to consider rejecting or reconsidering a plan.
  

• The sixth principle of procurement is the "peeling" principle. 80% of negotiations are effective in the last 20% of the time, and the requirements raised at the beginning of the negotiation can be ignored.

Source | Supply Chain Management Cloud Platform

Exclusively compiled by Xinshiye

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