Process and Competence Analysis

Building a complete picture of your current processes and competencies

This stage begins by identifying key internal stakeholders. This would typically include the board or senior management as well as ‘internal customers’ such as buyers, budget holders and involve processors. However your purchasing and supply chain management processes are structured, these people are all interested and influential stakeholders.

Constituency mapping

A useful approach is to map out where all stakeholders are positioned within the organisation, their roles, involvement and requirements from the purchasing and supply management function. This is often called ‘constituency mapping’.

Competency mapping

The next stage is to evaluate the competencies of all those involved in the function. This should include staff that are involved in the process as only part of their jobs. The extent of this analysis depends on the size of your organisation, the number of people involved and, of course, the resources available. The outcome of competency mapping is a clear idea of any gaps in competency and the skill development needed.

Awareness and understanding

Of equal importance is ascertaining the extent to which the board or other senior management colleagues appreciate the function. An understanding of the complexity and importance of properly executed purchasing and supply management will encourage them to champion your strategies. Awareness raising tactics like seminars can help to create a deeper understanding and appreciation of your function across the organisation - improving collaboration and integration between departmental strategies.

Setting management controls

The systems, policies, procedures, and controls should also be analysed and evaluated as they may be out-dated or ineffective. Activity based costing is one methodology for working out how effective particular processes and procedures are against alternatives. The objective is to identify how your processes and approaches can be streamlined and improved. Benchmarking is a useful approach here as it can inspire new business processes or identify the need for leading edge systems for electronic acquisition amongst other improvements.