Image Cb9c7c2608
  • Publish Date: Posted over 3 years ago
  • Author:by Matthew Langley

Procurement – at the heart of the crisis and the centre of the recovery

Public sector, especially NHS, procurement has been at the centre of the coronavirus crisis, perhaps for the first time bringing the general public an awareness of what procurement itself is all about. People started to understand that if PPE was not available then that was because of supply chains and purchasing decisions made over time and across international borders. All of a sudden, procurement became a matter of life and death, not just whether there was enough loo roll in Sainsbury’s.When the UK economy was put into deep freeze at the end of March, the recruitment industry, like almost every other, fell off the proverbial cliff. The word ‘unprecedented’ was used a lot. Even grizzled managers who had been through the early 1990s recession or their younger counterparts who cut their teeth on the ‘Great (Ha!) Recession’ of 2008, which lasted for 18 months, have experienced nothing like it.Across Cedar as a whole, our finance and transformation teams have, unsurprisingly, seen volumes of work diminish considerably, albeit with one or two hopeful straws in the wind more recently. However, our other main area of specialisation, procurement, has followed a different trajectory. We saw a spike in demand as businesses pivoted to put enhanced cost control and cashflow management in place and looked to Cedar’s procurement team to hire the leading buyers, procurement and cost control professionals needed to drive these changes.This business came from a wide range of sectors, from FMCG, pharmaceuticals, cloud-based tech firms, high street retailers and even hospitality groups planning for the return to full operational capacity. However, the question everyone wants answered is, what happens next…?Well, one thing that is clearly important is to increase business confidence. Of course, the politicians have a key role here, but business can play its part. With the caveat that all this is dependent on the progress of the virus, it was encouraging to see the FT’s fifth round of reader research (end June ’20) shows “a picture of cautious but growing optimism (and) the number optimistic about their company’s performance in the short term has increased from 26% to 38%” (while) “70% of all C-Suites now say they are confident their company will successfully navigate the crisis. This compared to only 55% in the beginning of April.” Backing this up, the Evening Standard reports that Andy Haldane, the chief economist of the Bank of England, while not shying away from the reality that there is, “a risk of soaring unemployment when the Government support measures end, which could impact the path of recovery,” believes that, “the UK economy is on course for a V-shaped recovery (and that) the recovery in the UK and globally had come “sooner and faster” than expected.”The ways in which we work and, more specifically, how we sell, communicate and deliver goods and services are evolving rapidly and will continue to do so. More automation/AI and a slew of technological innovation will transform industries, including recruitment. As far as procurement is concerned, at the onset of lockdown, savvy companies looked at the areas of supply management risk. With the likelihood of thousands of firms going bust in the next six months, the need to source new suppliers and ensure they meet all the required standards of probity and business quality is even more vital than usual. Expect more use of AI cost-modelling and procurement analytics to become the norm, with the latter’s ability to dig deep into contract portfolios to identify and weed out any non-performers being especially important. Resilience will be the watchword.At a time when many are asking for debt forgiveness and payment holidays, procurement will, I am sure, be looking to re-open contracts. Everyone will be looking to negotiate their costs down, while trying at the same time as to increase their prices to offset the economic damage already sustained. As a result, we expect that the demand for the very best procurement professionals, at every level, will surge as companies realise just how important they are going to be to their future success in the “new normal.” As noted above, we’ve already seen this demand growing, and we expect it to steadily climb over the next year.Procurement must also be mindful that, even as the world economy strives to climb out of the depression, consumer pressures for greater sustainability will not go away. Sustainability and environmental responsibility will be key here, as will regulatory compliance to meet tighter government regulations and enhanced public expectations.As with every business specialism, the rush to digital will bring challenges, one of the biggest of which will be cyber-security. The switched-on Procurement Director will make best-friends of the CIO and work with IT and the wider business toward digital transformation, but investment in AI-based data protection or blockchain to counter cybersecurity threats must not be neglected.On the jobs-front, the growing optimism noted above from the FT is reflected in LinkedIn (who obviously have skin in this particular game) claiming that job views (on their platform) have returned to pre-crisis levels. The other, generalist job-boards are also being as upbeat as they can (with varying degrees of enthusiasm), but it’s when you go to the specialists that you start to see the number of procurement jobs available. Supply Chain Online has, at the time of writing, 1,419 advertised positions, including 182 in procurement, 98 in supply chain and 182 contracts managers. At the top end of the market, the FT’s exec-appts site has dozens of big-bucks jobs, including one with the World Bank. We expect these numbers to grow. The opportunities are there; it’s how to respond and make the connections. And that, of course, is where we come in….

Share this Article
Back to Blogs

Public sector, especially NHS, procurement has been at the centre of the coronavirus crisis, perhaps for the first time bringing the general public an awareness of what procurement itself is all about. People started to understand that if PPE was not available then that was because of supply chains and purchasing decisions made over time and across international borders. All of a sudden, procurement became a matter of life and death, not just whether there was enough loo roll in Sainsbury’s.

When the UK economy was put into deep freeze at the end of March, the recruitment industry, like almost every other, fell off the proverbial cliff. The word ‘unprecedented’ was used a lot. Even grizzled managers who had been through the early 1990s recession or their younger counterparts who cut their teeth on the ‘Great (Ha!) Recession’ of 2008, which lasted for 18 months, have experienced nothing like it.

Across Cedar as a whole, our finance and transformation teams have, unsurprisingly, seen volumes of work diminish considerably, albeit with one or two hopeful straws in the wind more recently. However, our other main area of specialisation, procurement, has followed a different trajectory. We saw a spike in demand as businesses pivoted to put enhanced cost control and cashflow management in place and looked to Cedar’s procurement team to hire the leading buyers, procurement and cost control professionals needed to drive these changes.

This business came from a wide range of sectors, from FMCG, pharmaceuticals, cloud-based tech firms, high street retailers and even hospitality groups planning for the return to full operational capacity. However, the question everyone wants answered is, what happens next…?

Well, one thing that is clearly important is to increase business confidence. Of course, the politicians have a key role here, but business can play its part. With the caveat that all this is dependent on the progress of the virus, it was encouraging to see the FT’s fifth round of reader research (end June ’20) shows “a picture of cautious but growing optimism (and) the number optimistic about their company’s performance in the short term has increased from 26% to 38%” (while) “70% of all C-Suites now say they are confident their company will successfully navigate the crisis. This compared to only 55% in the beginning of April.” Backing this up, the Evening Standard reports that Andy Haldane, the chief economist of the Bank of England, while not shying away from the reality that there is, “a risk of soaring unemployment when the Government support measures end, which could impact the path of recovery,” believes that, “the UK economy is on course for a V-shaped recovery (and that) the recovery in the UK and globally had come “sooner and faster” than expected.”

The ways in which we work and, more specifically, how we sell, communicate and deliver goods and services are evolving rapidly and will continue to do so. More automation/AI and a slew of technological innovation will transform industries, including recruitment. As far as procurement is concerned, at the onset of lockdown, savvy companies looked at the areas of supply management risk. With the likelihood of thousands of firms going bust in the next six months, the need to source new suppliers and ensure they meet all the required standards of probity and business quality is even more vital than usual. Expect more use of AI cost-modelling and procurement analytics to become the norm, with the latter’s ability to dig deep into contract portfolios to identify and weed out any non-performers being especially important. Resilience will be the watchword.

At a time when many are asking for debt forgiveness and payment holidays, procurement will, I am sure, be looking to re-open contracts. Everyone will be looking to negotiate their costs down, while trying at the same time as to increase their prices to offset the economic damage already sustained. As a result, we expect that the demand for the very best procurement professionals, at every level, will surge as companies realise just how important they are going to be to their future success in the “new normal.” As noted above, we’ve already seen this demand growing, and we expect it to steadily climb over the next year.

Procurement must also be mindful that, even as the world economy strives to climb out of the depression, consumer pressures for greater sustainability will not go away. Sustainability and environmental responsibility will be key here, as will regulatory compliance to meet tighter government regulations and enhanced public expectations.

As with every business specialism, the rush to digital will bring challenges, one of the biggest of which will be cyber-security. The switched-on Procurement Director will make best-friends of the CIO and work with IT and the wider business toward digital transformation, but investment in AI-based data protection or blockchain to counter cybersecurity threats must not be neglected.

On the jobs-front, the growing optimism noted above from the FT is reflected in LinkedIn (who obviously have skin in this particular game) claiming that job views (on their platform) have returned to pre-crisis levels. The other, generalist job-boards are also being as upbeat as they can (with varying degrees of enthusiasm), but it’s when you go to the specialists that you start to see the number of procurement jobs available. Supply Chain Online has, at the time of writing, 1,419 advertised positions, including 182 in procurement, 98 in supply chain and 182 contracts managers. At the top end of the market, the FT’s exec-appts site has dozens of big-bucks jobs, including one with the World Bank. We expect these numbers to grow. The opportunities are there; it’s how to respond and make the connections. And that, of course, is where we come in….

Latest Blogs

View All Blogs
Iwd 23 Cedar Colours 2
International Women's Day at Cedar

​On International Women’s Day, it’s time to #Embraceequity Wednesday, 8th March, is International Women’s Day. This year, its emphasis is on equity, and specifically the need to understand the fund...

I Stock 1415579943
From goal-nets to goal-line technology… tackling the UK’s productivity puzzle

​As we tiptoe into 2023, there is not a scintilla of doubt that the UK economy (and indeed that of much of the rest of the world) is not in a great place. The global pandemic, with its disastrous i...

I Stock 1178142029
Black History Month and the Art of Black Hair

​“I joined Cedar in 2012, having previously worked for a much smaller company. At the time I joined, I was the only Afro-Caribbean person in the business, although in the decade I’ve been here ther...

1 A Pa0pj9p Kg Lop Vf Iu M Nlo Q E1579474393478
“Show me the Money!!!”

As the UK teeters on the brink of the recession precipice, the most commonly used phrase Cedar’s recruitment consultants hear these days is, “What with everything that’s going on…”.A year ago, we w...

Skynews Rishi Sunak Liz Truss 5845802
Britain's surprisingly diverse leadership battle

At Cedar, we're a diverse bunch, with diverse views, including our politics​. But looking at the current Government, it seems we're at an inflection point for all parties.With the resignation of Bo...

Regents Street Pride
​London Pride

In June 1970, up to 20,000 people gathered for what was then called a Gay Liberation march in New York. Although the battle for gay rights in the USA can be traced back to the 1920s, this march was...

Diverse Hands
​DE&I at Cedar – a work in progress

If you read our previous blog, ‘The Long March to Equality’, examining the rise of DE&I within recruitment, you may have been surprised, as we were, at how far the industry has come since the first...

I Stock 1072338828
The long march to equality

The oldest person who works at Cedar can remember when airlines advertised for male pilots and female air-hostesses. In Northern Ireland at that time, recruitment consultants used to draw up list...

Employers Are Getting Very Choosy Image
Employers are getting very choosy… A review of the recently-qualified accountancy & finance jobs market

The recruitment market and the economy more generally have had a lot of exogenous shocks over the last few years is, I can say without fear of contradiction, an understatement. Yet, despite all th...

square peg
Square pegs, round holes…and the need for genuine tax expertise in your business

As you know, the government has an Office for Tax Simplification, set up by George Osborne after he became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2010. Unfortunately, as a former tax director from Grant...

Blank
​Recruitment as we move into Q4 – it’s a battlefield and a buyer’s market

Last year, as the full extent of the pandemic, became apparent, many economists said it would take a long time for the economy to recover. In April 2020, The Guardian reported that the EY Item Club...

Screen Shot 2018 07 12 At 3
What it takes to be a successful PE portfolio company CEO

​Whilst there is not a one size fits all solution for what we see in successful PE portfolio company CEO’s we are able to see some clear trends when it comes this. Below we have attempted to answer...

Image 790ea9f990
How to Make Your CV Stand Out

Looking for your next finance role? The first step is getting your CV right. With such a small window in which to impress recruiters, it’s vital that you’re able to make your CV stand out from the ...