Procurement: process or punishment?

You’re in the market for a new phone.

You’ve had the same one (from Apple) for the last few years and while it does the job, you can’t help feeling there’s a better option out there.

There are many different brands, but realistically just a handful that suit what you want.

So, you invite a few to create a detailed presentation outlining exactly how they are the best option for you. You need this information urgently because its Friday and you want the new phone on Monday

Meanwhile, you also ask them to register some info about the company with you – full year end accounts, detailed IT policies, staff bios, CEO’s first born etc – with you just in case you decide to buy their phone (no promises).

This registration is submitted via a platform that you designed with sticks and paper and stones and absolutely no instructions.

You then take six months to review everything and end up choosing an Apple phone again.

This, in essence, is the modern comms procurement process. And, its utterly broken.

(For our journalist readers feel free to scroll down to the new jobs your peers have; sorry for catfishing you like that.)

I was once told during a particularly arduous training session that procurement was “a process, not a person”.

But if that was true our jails would be filled with processes who were put away for their crimes against efficiency.

Instead we have teams of people (who I’m sure hate the process as much as everyone else) who are charged with meticulously registering and verifying a group of PR agencies and vendors using software that is archaic and baffling, and then usually making a decision based more on price than true effectiveness.

It’s painful for literally everyone involved, and often serves to start an important (and expensive) PR relationship in a cloud of exhaustion and resignation.

Kate Midttun from comms agency Acorn Strategy makes some great suggestions in this recent post about how this entire process could be reimagined – and in essence it boils down to treating this as carefully and sensitively as any other relationship.

As Kate alludes to, chemistry meetings, clear communication from both sides, firm boundaries, transparent needs and goals, honest feedback would all help: the same building blocks you’d put into any friendship or marriage.

PR agencies are time and resource poor at the moment; clients just want someone to help them. There’s a common need here that is being thwarted by outdated thinking and overly-complicated technology.

Maybe AI agents will solve a lot of these pain points in time. Maybe procurement as a function will fade away in favour or a more nuanced process.

But until something changes, we’ll all just keep buying the Apple phone.