Stephen Hayers, VP of Services Procurement at BT, recently sat down for an interview with David Rae from Procurement Leaders. The video replay of their discussion is available here (sorry, can’t link directly - hit “What’s New” the top of the player and it is the 1st video on the menu). It was a very interesting conversation that covered a lot of ground, including change management, services procurement, technology and eAuctions.

But if there is one common theme that emerges throughout the interview and provides a great teachable moment, it’s how Stephen and his team worked to ensure they were delivering what the business wanted rather than what the procurement department mandated. By building a flexible process around various business needs, results quickly followed.

As Stephen succinctly put it:

“If we work with the business to give them what they want, then by the nature of it the compliance will go up. And what’s more important to me is not the compliance going up but the value to BT going up.”

Their approach - actively aiming to please their internal stakeholders - is a model that’s yielded better traction, adoption, compliance and results than a pushy, our-way-or-else procurement process. By Stephen’s account, they recognize different needs and adapt to working with various departments. And by involving their stakeholders in every step of the process, they share ownership of the program and it’s savings successes as well.

Considering that Stephen and his boss, CPO Neil Rogers, have only been in their positions for a little over a year and in that time satisfaction metrics from internal stakeholders for the procurement department have improved 20%, I’d say they are on the right track. Couple those results with challenging economic times that provide real opportunity for procurement to increase its strategic role and value as a cost savings tool, and I’d say Neil, Stephen and their team are in a position to truly flourish.

Gerry Garcia is a Managing Director in Ariba’s Spend Management Services group. Gerry manages the Sourcing Services Practice for Ariba Europe.