.png)
Ho Chi Minh City, 23/09/2016 – CEL Consulting develops and provides the free online tool to evaluate procurement management knowledge across all levels. “The Holistic Procurement Management Competency Test” includes 68 questions to be completed in 68 minutes covering 17 must-know areas that any procurement professional would need to master.
In today’s business world, Procurement has transformed from a much needed but “under the radar” function to become a critical and highly regarded function for the success of all multinational corporations. We see more and more CPOs stepping up to CEO positions at many leading companies and the trend is not slowing. Some notable examples include Apple, Renault- Nissan, General Motors, P&G, Toshiba...
Procurement is not only responsible for cost-effective supplying of raw materials and services necessary for production and operations but also plays an important role in realizing new ideas and new products. A procurement function in a manufacturing company employs on average below 3% its total workforce. But these few people are responsible for over 58-82% total cost. Companies with effective and efficiency procurement operations tend to achieve 1-2% annual savings improvement on total cost. About 0.5-1% directly contributes to the net profit. Hence, Procurement function directly improves the bottom line of any manufacturing business.
Despite their importance to business operations, procurement is often mistaken as “simply bargaining to buy at low cost”, and therefore the skills required are also “simply negotiation and contracting”. In reality, the procurement skillset encompasses many management skills and knowledge that even the majority of procurement professionals are not aware of. The procurement skillset can be categorized into 3 levels - operational, tactical, and strategic. About 30% leading companies admit that they are looking to employ more procurement professionals with strategic management capability.
Mr. Julien Brun, Managing Partner of CEL Consulting, shared that currently in Vietnam the majority of procurement professionals was working with experience and skills accumulated over many years on the job learning. These talents usually have lots of experience in the operational aspects of procurement management, but lack the skills in tactical and strategic levels needed for middle management and top executive positions. Some missing skills include forecasting, planning, inventory management, risk management and strategic sourcing. At the moment, these activities are performed sub-optimally because companies lack standard framework, and processes. In the USA, leading companies spend on average 912 USD every year to train one procurement employee. Meanwhile, in Vietnam, the training budget is the first to be cut or the last to be approved compared to other items. The procurement training and learning activities at most companies are yet to follow an international standard framework.
Currently, procurement competency gap between Vietnam and international standards falls in the range of 30-35% for each of the 3 levels. In order to formulate a procurement capability development direction and plan, companies need to measure the current skill level, knowledge base, and compare with international standard framework to capture the reality more objectively and holistically. Although the competency gap between Vietnam and international standards is still high, measurement is the first step in the improvement journey.
In order to help companies and procurement professionals in Vietnam make the first step effectively, CEL Consulting develops and provides the tool to holistically evaluate procurement competency across all levels. “The Holistic Procurement Management Competency Test includes 68 questions to be completed in 68 minutes covering 17 topics that any procurement professional would need to master. This test is completely free for anyone interested in procurement profession, including: Sourcing, Cost & Finance, Procurement CSR, International Procurement, Contracting and Negotiation, Supplier Management, Quality Control, Procurement Planning, Logistics, Forecasting, Procurement Leadership, Risk and Compliance, and Sourcing Strategy.
Link to The Holistic Procurement Management Competency Test: http://bit.ly/2cxJdQ2
After completing the test, test-takers will have their results evaluated, analyzed and compared with international and local benchmarks. This aims to provide them with a complete overview of their current competency and gaps so that they can form a direction for learning and development. As it is the nature of procurement profession to constantly change in line with the growing complexity of businesses and industries, this tool will also be constantly updated and refined by CEL professionals to catch up with the learning demand of procurement professionals in Vietnam.
Companies and individuals in Vietnam who are interested in this evaluation tool and wish to discover how to develop procurement training plan, please contact CEL Consulting at: apics@cel-consulting.com or +84 (0) 977 023 441 or +84 (08) 22 494 241