As my wise colleague Pat Furey recently wrote, “career fortunes are made during a recession.” As companies tighten their belts in the face of shrinking top-line revenues, they’ll look to procurement to drive bottom line savings. So do you have the performance record, skillset and credentials to move up the ladder when the economy rebounds and management rewards top performers?

It’s with maximizing personal impact and career advancement opportunities that SupplyExcellence recently sponsored the 7 Habits of Highly Effective CPOs seminar series. Larry Welch, who retired as VP of Indirect Procurement at HP last year, led the sessions and provided his insights for driving results and moving up the career ladder.

It is often said that procurement has “risen out of the basement” and into a strategic role in recent years. Larry not only saw this evolution take place, but actively drove some of the functional and strategic changes that reverberated through the field. So if you’re in procurement and residing in a cubicle or office that’s not in the basement, you may owe Larry a quick thank you.

Larry’s Top 7 Habits of Highly Effective CPOs:

1. Have strong sponsors and partners. A helping hand in the c-suite is critical for success. In Larry’s case, the CFO helped give him leverage and the CMO, CIO and EVPs provided the support he needed to drive changes in their departments.
2. Know the business and the numbers. Larry advised sitting in on the quarterly analyst calls to get a perspective on the numbers driving decisions in various business units. Those facts and figures, coupled with a broad understanding of business goals and jargon, help you to be taken seriously across the company.
3. Drive procurement strategy deep into the enterprise. Visibility is key, especially in the current economic climate. Larry says pointing out “this is what we’re doing to save the company money” will expand reach, adoption and results.
4. Standardize and globalize. According to Larry, this can be an area of major resistance, so you’ll need to approach it properly. His advice is to focus on clear policies and standardized tools (that automate processes whenever possible). Like in #3, you’ll need to vocalize your wins in order to show doubters what leverage, consolidation and standardization can accomplish.
5. Relentless focus on execution. This requires an extremely hands on approach, including meeting weekly with stakeholders, regular pipeline reviews, and managing expectations. Larry’s focus never stopped until a project led to actual cost-out results.
6. Develop key suppliers. Larry urges identifying key suppliers and then “opening the kimono” to show them the numbers. Those who helped achieve results were rewarded with bigger slices of the pie.
7. Upgrade the enterprise of the procurement function. Working closely with HR enabled Larry to develop a framework for “dispassionate analysis of what future work would be” and 1-on-1 discussions with employees to see if they are prepared to meet the challenge. Of course, it’s always critical to “sharpen your own saw” as well, so you are prepared to the direction the department and company are headed.

Have any other pearls of wisdom you think should crack the top 7 list? Leave them in the comments section or in the Strategic Sourcing & Procurement Group on LinkedIn.

Justin Fogarty is Managing Editor of Supply Excellence. For any questions or feedback on the blog or its contributors, Justin can be reached at jfogarty[at]ariba.com.