BTW EP 06: The Foothills of the Flaws; Retracing Procurement’s Path with Rob Hills

Art of Procurement

It’s been a long, winding road that has brought procurement to its current state of flawed incentive structures and measurement challenges. Rob Hills, CEO of Hills Advisory Services and former Deloitte partner, has seen it all unfold firsthand.

But recognizing problems and how they were created is only half of the battle.

With over three decades of procurement experience that stretches back all the way to the formative days of strategic sourcing at A.T. Kearney in the mid-1990s, Rob has seen the classic procurement dilemma play out more times than he would have liked. CPOs “plant a victory flag” on savings while CFOs fail to see procurement’s win materialize on the P&L.

In the sixth episode of “Buy: The Way…To Purposeful Procurement,” co-hosts Rich Ham and Philip Ideson speak with Rob about this measurement gap, how it has evolved over time, and why procurement’s measurement and incentive systems have remained largely unchanged over the years, despite their obvious flaws.

Rob also offers a unique historical perspective of the disconnect between negotiation and execution, especially as procurement grapples with balancing increasing workloads and larger portfolios of spend with shrinking resources.

Rob, Phil, and Rich also explore potential innovative thinking about incentives, metrics, and process design that could finally address the longstanding challenges in demonstrating procurement’s full purpose, value, and impact for the business.

Links:

• Rob Hills on LinkedIn
• Rich Ham on LinkedIn
• Learn more at FineTuneUs.com