The good thing about procurement is that no day is the same. A lot of meetings, juggling tasks and firefighting around the clock. So, how does an average day of a Procurement Manager look like?
This article was originally published on LinkedIn in September 2019, and updated in June 2020.
I get quite a lot the question "how does Your day look like?". Many do not understand what we do, and more importantly, how. Being a Purchasing Manager requires patience, negotiation skills, technical skills and from time to time, luck.
So, here is my average day. Of course, no day is the same, and quite often the plan gets completely upside down.
8:00
Team briefing. Catching up with my Manager and the General Manager around the MIT (most important task) for the day.
Catching up with other stakeholders on important things for the day. Of course, also catching up on the latest gossip. It is good to know if a manager just got kicked by the GM, as you will not go to him to ask for any support for the project you are trying to do. We work with humans, and knowing their mood for the day can help.
I do not use a to-do list but aim to have everything booked in my calendar. Since I get easily into procrastinating, having the system reminding me keeps me on track.
9:00
Emails: answering the important ones immediately, while flagging less important to be either answered later or transferred to the calendar if they need more time. In average, I am getting around 75-100 emails a day. Having a good system of filtering them can save hours.
10:00
Usually reserved for meetings with suppliers. A meeting takes in most cases around 30 minutes. For the last couple of months, I was experimenting with “Supplier Tuesday”. All meetings with suppliers for the day are scheduled on Tuesdays, with 15 minutes gaps. So basically, I would not leave the meeting room sometimes for a full day.
11:00
Projects in progress, reports, analytics. This is the deep work time.
12:00
Internal activities: training, safety meeting, meal tasting, interdepartmental, project-related or other meetings with internal stakeholders.
13:00
Administrative tasks: signing of LPO’s and invoices, replying to flagged emails. This is the time of the day I feel fatigued, therefore not good for complicated tasks.
14:00
Lunch. As the focus slows down at this time, I use the time after lunch either for a short video or article around the profession or industry.
15:00
Tenders. Either preparation of a new tender, tender result analysis or final report and contract preparation. As I use e-tendering systems for quite some time, these are relatively low-focus tasks. But due to their high value, they need to be cross-checked and verified before sending to the management for approval.
16:00
Planning the next day calendar and to-do list. Catching up with the team and stakeholders and wrapping up.
I push myself and the team not to stay after working hours unless it is an unplanned emergency that needs to be solved urgently. If the team regularly stays behind, I take this as a sign that something is wrong with my management: Either I have less manpower than needed, or something is wrong with the efficiency and processes.
You may ask:” Where is purchasing here?” Well, at the managerial level, if the team is well trained and experienced, the Manager does not do much of sourcing and operational purchasing. I am getting involved if the team got stuck due to problems in understanding the requirement or inability to find the item. And if the project is of high value or critical for the company. Most of the duties of a Purchasing Manager are around managing stakeholders, the team and large or new suppliers. And, of course, communication with the upper management around projects, results and tasks.
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