Welcome back to another installment of Whitepaper Wednesday here on the Purchasing Certification Blog. Today, I\u2019ll be reviewing a whitepaper entitled \u201cInfluence More Spend and Drive More Savings\u201d from Denali.<\/p>\n
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At the core of this whitepaper is the belief that the key to being able to get more spend under the procurement department\u2019s control is being able to successfully implement basic marketing principles. But can learning \u201cthe four P\u2019s of marketing\u201d really make sense in the context of modern procurement? Read on!<\/p>\n
The first section of this whitepaper was entitled \u201cDefine Your Marketing Strategy & Objectives.\u201d It gave a very academic \u2013 and not so procurement-centric \u2013 explanation of putting together a marketing plan for the procurement function.<\/p>\n
I was worried.<\/p>\n
The next section about conducting focus groups calmed my concerns, however. It gave some very practical advice about how to engage with internal customers in order to get them to buy-in to procurement initiatives, such as \u201cunderstanding your target audience and their pain points will help you clearly define your organization\u2019s strategy and objectives while providing the opportunity to prioritize and align your services with stakeholder interests.\u201d This section goes on to give some real-world examples of common complaints that internal customers have and how procurement departments can use this type of feedback for improvement.<\/p>\n
I felt a little better about the whitepaper. But would the forthcoming \u201cfour P\u2019s\u201d discussion turn this whitepaper into an incarnation of those boring textbooks that you\u2019d fall asleep on in your dorm room while making a feeble attempt at staying interested and awake during your college days?<\/p>\n
Fortunately, the answer is a resounding \u201cno!\u201d<\/p>\n
The four P\u2019s were adapted quite appropriately for a procurement application. In particular, the second P \u2013 Promotion \u2013 injected a little creatively found too infrequently in procurement departments with suggestions like \u201cProcurement organizations can use targeted emails; company newsletters; corporate-wide events; or unique, personal give-aways as a springboard into new categories and departments\u201d and \u201ccoordinate with your finance department to\u2026implement a \u2018How to stretch your budget\u2019 campaign during the annual budgeting process.\u201d<\/p>\n
I admit it \u2013 I am a bit surprised at how well Denali applied \u201cMarketing 101\u201d concepts to a procurement situation. If you would like to check out the rest of the whitepaper\u2019s good content that I didn\u2019t have time to cover here, you can download your own copy from Denali\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
Struggling To Find More Good Resources For Procurement Leaders?<\/em> Welcome back to another installment of Whitepaper Wednesday here on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":4125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-procurement"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nCheck Out Our Web Site\u2019s New Whitepaper Section At<\/em>
\nhttp:\/\/www.NextLevelPurchasing.com\/WPcharles<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"