Did you Get your Procurement Pay Rise?

A Deep Dive into the CIPS Procurement Salary Guide. Warning: FOMO AlERT ACTIVATED

Hey Procurement Legends, this is an article for paid members. Every Friday is a deep dive into a topic that will give you new insights. At this point, I could take sponsors for content from all sorts of providers across the World of Procurement but I want to keep this content pure. And not influenced by outside players (kinda like this piece I’m writing about by CIPS and Hays). So if you’ve got value from my content at all, consider a paid subscription to World of Procurement.

And with this money I’ll perhaps hire a researcher or an AI army to help me read the hundreds perhaps thousands of pages of content I get through each week to create this content (look at those tired eyes).

---

I’m not a big fan of the Chartered Institute of Procurement.

Their courses are average.

They’re taught by people who were once in the profession but are now focused on teaching the next generation. But they teach using outdated analogies (this is the class setting).

And their textbooks are dryer than a desert.

Every piece of content they push out on social isn’t built for social media. It feels like they’ve got a “traditional” marketing set-up, and no one knows how to share ideas with the world. Which, all-in-all, makes them less relevant as an organisation.

And I will caveat the title of this piece by saying that there is an inherent bias in this piece and an ulterior motive. This content by CIPS is designed to give you FOMO.

FOMO of the much sought-after MCIPS…or the more elusive FCIPS. It’s a marketing document designed to induce fear and to show you how much more you could be making if you had an MCIPS qualification. Additionally, this was made in partnership with Hays, who no doubt want to position themselves as the market-leading Procurement talent house in the UK and across the globe. So keep that in mind.

Let’s dive into this.

This dude is enjoying is 9% bonus in the private sector.

Improved Perception of the Procurement Profession

63% of procurement professionals say that the perception of procurement has improved in the past 12 months.

This is a positive sign, as better perception can lead to easier buy-in from internal stakeholders and external suppliers.

With 69% stating that their directors and heads of other departments value procurement, it becomes easier to create efficient and resilient supply chains that, in turn, help improve those perceptions further. Of course, we can take another person's perspective, imagine how they feel about us, and come to a conclusion.

But I’d argue this is not convincing. Humans aren’t all that good at determining the views of others.

But do we fully understand their position?

Do we steelman the case that Procurement is bringing more value to the table and that people want to work with us?

I’m not sure. And I’m sure some of the respondents have good data around this, such as OKRs that manage the perception of others and alignment.

I’m not being pessimistic - I genuinely hope this uptick is true. I’m being critical of the view pushed forwards, and I’d like you to do the same as we move through this.

Challenges Faced by Procurement Professionals

Managing risk in the supply chain is the biggest challenge for organisations over the coming year, according to 48% of respondents. Risk Management has been severely neglected by organisations and, by extension, procurement teams, so this makes sense. It’s incredible to see that people are turning their attention to it.

Following this in the top three are two new challenges: market volatility and budget restraints.

Budget constraints will be big this year, and it feels like a good opportunity to turn to consolidation efforts so long as it doesn’t increase the risk of supply, a.k.a, your supply chain resiliency efforts.

To tackle these, the biggest priority identified for the year ahead is building supply chain resilience. I recently posted on LinkedIn about this because I do not think enough people are taking this seriously. I’ll be writing a dedicated piece around this soon, but for now, work on your processes, your tech, your people, and value add activities that can reduce risk and find new suppliers such as ESG.