Being your ‘authentic self’: A key to success in the buyer–supplier relationship in indirect procurement

Abstract

Early in a career as a procurement professional, practitioners are focused on the goals of the company and how to achieve their own career goals as they traverse the buyer–supplier relationships, obtaining the company’s needed goods and services. For practitioners in the indirect categories, the sheer number of suppliers that must be interacted with is sometimes daunting. Finding the keys to building successful buyer–supplier relationships is often reduced to a formulaic transactional process. To be truly successful, you must become well versed in how your own personal traits become key in building relationships with suppliers. Suppliers that provide goods and services, considered indirect purchases, are not always transactional relationships. While these suppliers do not provide raw materials for your company’s production, they supply the infrastructure that supports the whole company and helps bring those finished products or services to market. With that in mind, it is integral to the success of your company that you have good relationships with these suppliers, built on the foundation of trust. In building that trust, the practitioner must become comfortable with the aspects of transparency, integrity and being their authentic self when working with the representatives of their suppliers. While there are risks and pitfalls that must be kept in mind, the personal traits that you present to your suppliers could very well be the key to your success or failure in your role as a procurement professional.