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Ep 25 Inside Procurement: Procurement Industry Report: Best Practices vs Benchmarks
In our second episode this week, Omer Abdullah explores Benchmarks Vs. Best Practices in the procurement function – particularly when and how to use benchmarks, and where to obtain best practices from.
Benchmarks are a means to drive high performance, but how much emphasis should be placed on them in a function? Are they legitimate and valuable? The term comes up frequently in discussions around functional and corporate performance, and senior executives do like to use benchmarks to quantify both financial and operational performance. However, although benchmarking is an important tool, it does have constraints – as it can divert discussions from the main substance to details and numbers, and sometimes benchmarks can be used wrongly by senior management to drive changes that don’t make business sense – particularly with functions such as procurement.
Omer thinks it’s far more meaningful to focus on best practices. But where can businesses get these best practices from?
Watch the full video to find out this and more.
You can also read Omer’s opinion piece “Benchmarks versus Best Practices: A Case for Both” in Future of Sourcing, which publishes content for opinion-formers and decision-makers at the heart of the global sourcing community. Its columnists and contributors are global sourcing thought leaders, and provide innovative, cutting-edge insights on challenges and opportunities in the industry today.
Be sure to subscribe to our bi-monthly series for the latest concepts and ideas that influence procurement and supply chain executives. You can also read more about our Procurement and Supply Chain solutions.
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Omer Abdullah
Omer Abdullah is Chief Commercial Officer and Co-founder for The Smart Cube. He works with Procurement and Strategy leaders at global organisations, transforming their teams to become value-driven and insight-led. Omer has more than 30 years of management consulting and global corporate and industry experience across North America, Europe, and Asia. His prior roles include A.T. Kearney (North America), Warner Lambert (USA), and The Perrier Group (Asia-Pacific). Omer has an MBA from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, USA, and a BBA from the University of East Asia.
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