How procurement/purchasing department is perceived by other departments within an organization?
Shahbaz, as the fact that you asked the question demonstrates, procurement and purchasing are often perceived negatively by other parts of organizations. But, procurement and purchasing serve important roles. They don’t exist to win a popularity contest. Here are four reasons that these departments may be perceived negatively: 1. Procurement and purchasing departments are often asked to handle far more projects than they have bandwidth to do. 2. In many cases, people come to these departments at the last minute and expect them to work miracles (e.g. complete $200 million RFQs and sign work orders in a month or restructure major business relationships while members of the internal client’s leadership are conducting site visits or talking with the suppliers). 3. Procurement and purchasing are responsible for compliance with various fiduciary obligations of organizations and Sarbanes-Oxley. In addition, procurement and purchasing are intended to act as a check and balance on other groups
