Tactical Procurement in Your Organization

Whether you work for a smaller sized business where all employees wear the ‘procurement’ hat at one time or another or work for a large company with a dedicated procurement department, you will do better if you learn how to put tactical procurement to work in your organization. Tactical procurement enables you to ensure that things get done when they should get done and that every order and every designated task is completed accurately, with nothing whatsoever falling through the cracks or getting overlooked. Before we explore how tactical procurement can be used to benefit your organization, we must first define exactly what tactical procurement is, how it works an why it can be such a great benefit for your business. What is Tactical Procurement? Firstly, let us define what a tactical plan is. It is a plan that is crafted with the aim of achieving goals that are short-term in nature, short-term generally meaning within a year’s time or less than that. A tactical plan is used to pursue shorter-term goals that can add up to achieving the strategic (and more long-term) goals of the company. A tactical plan is mainly concerned with delegating responsibility to the workers and explaining what they need to do and how they need to do. The time frame for a tactical plan is much shorter and the scope is generally much narrower than it would be for a strategic plan. A tactical procurement plan is usually created by top level management within an organization or without an organization’s procurement department. Tactical procurement plans are oftentimes necessary in order to achieve the strategic plan of the company. How Can You Decide If Tactical Procurement Is Right For You? The first thing you must do is consider the things you need to do in the short-term in order to be successfully working towards your long-term goals. This is much easier to do if you have a strategic plan in place already. For example, if you work for a giant corporation with a huge procurement department and your strategic plan is to get your entire team certified and you have a team of over 40 people, the certification process will definitely take some time. A tactical strategy can break down this enormous task into smaller, more manageable goals. For instance, in this example you could begin by getting all of the senior members of the procurement department certified, or by signing up groups of ten for four different certification education course, all to be completed within a year’s time. Tactical procurement strategies have gotten many a procurement department and many a procurement professional out of a tricky situation. If a tactical procurement emergency should occur, it will be much easier for you to deal with it and overcome it if you are familiar with using tactical procurement strategies. Just keep in mind that you should continue to work towards your long-term strategic procurement goals while working on your short-term tactical procurement solutions. Here’s to your success!