1. Procurement category management structures

2. Global category-aligned strategies
CPO
Senior leadership within a global category-aligned function must ensure that alignment with the business is not hindered, ensuring stakeholder needs are met by the procurement organisation.
Dedicated category teams purchasing across business units benefit from significant economies of scale and standardisation.
Senior leadership team
Global Category Director IT
Global Category Director HR
Global Category Director Travel
Global Category Director FM
Global Category Director Logistics
Category managers can dedicate significant resource into developing a strong level of global category expertise.
Category focus
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Business Unit
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In a global category-aligned function site-based needs can be poorly met- with operational buyers the principal support for local business unit issues.
Category Directors
Category Managers
Operational Buyers

3. Global category-aligned procurement functions
This model of category-aligned organisation develops efficiencies and strong purchasing power.
CHARACTERISTICS
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
This structure builds global category teams, with a purchasing purview across the organisation. Frequently perceived in organisations with a centralised procurement function, this model emphasises standardisation and a global approach to spend.
The cross-organisation overview drives economies of scale, and consequently purchasing power. This model also encourages more effective supply-base consolidation and a more efficient procurement function, with little role replication.
This model can be perceived as being resistant to different regional requirements, and therefore failing to meet the needs of local business units. Additionally it can struggle to manage spend which is highly regionalised.

4. Business-unit aligned
Significant role duplication often exists at a leadership, and a purchasing level, with dedicated heads of categories for each business unit for example.
Global procurement leadership
Business-unit A
Business-unit B
Business-unit C
Business unit leadership
Business unit leadership
Business unit leadership
Local proc. leadership
Local proc. leadership
Local proc. leadership
Purchasing team
Purchasing team
Purchasing team
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Similar to scrum teams, this model has virtual working groups, focussed on projects- these groups could vary significantly by size depending on resource requirements but would likely max out at 15 people. Each group would be controlled by a group lead, which would ensure that the projects reflect the vision of the senior leadership team and CPO. These virtual working groups may in turn by grouped into larger projects, coordinated by these group leaders- and incorporated stakeholders (be they internal customers, or suppliers) where necessary.
Purchasing professionals will be classified in a number of additional ways, their category focus areas, skillsets and the business unit they are embedded with or serve. The leadership team will then be able to designate this resource as they see fit, orientating the correct skills around projects whilst still retaining the business alignment and category knowledge procurement teams need to retain.
We have presented some potential skill role designators on this slide- and we are seeing considerations about building out designated stakeholder and supplier management roles within our membership, alongside building up internal data teams. You’ll also notice the inclusion of tactical specialists, the area which is of central focus with regards to automation- a set of skills more at risk from more effective use of systems, or leveraging automating technologies such as Robotics Process Automation. It will also be through automating many of these more tactical areas that we can shift resource, and upskill employees, towards those more interesting high value roles- a category manager would be freed from many of the dreariest aspects of their work (having to alternate between a variety of systems to work out the clauses which should be within a contract for example) and with near-time data to their fingertips able to dig far deeper into their areas of expertise.
The primary role for category managers involves fulfilling local unit business needs.
Depending on the size, and geographic scope, of business-units local operational buyers may be incorporated within the wider purchasing team .
Senior Directors
Category managers
Operational Buyers

5. Business unit-aligned procurement functions
Viable option for fragmented and independent business units where there are little to no synergies .
CHARACTERISTICS
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
Business-unit aligned functions structure their purchasing teams by business-unit. Whilst there can continue to be a global leadership team, category manager roles can be replicated by business unit and, in a geographically segmented team, purchasing is perceived through a regional lens.
The structure stresses strong business-alignment, with directly fulfilling business-unit needs being the central procurement team objective. This form of alignment is particularly useful for spend areas which require customisation, lack global suppliers or have diverse requirements.
There will frequently be significant duplication in purchasing items for different business units and roles. Additionally a wide range of agreements likely exist across the entire organisation, frequently with limited visibility. This complexity can hinder transformation projects as well as increasing implementation time and expense when deploying new systems.

6. Hybrid: category and business-unit aligned
Senior procurement leadership team decide how categories need to be managed, and at what level.
CPO
For some categories the spend area will not be managed globally, and the role is instead segmented between business units with regional heads.
Senior leadership team
Global Category Director IT
Global Category Director HR
Global Category Director Travel
Global Category Director FM
Global Category Director Logistics
Category managers can be aligned to specific business units, which they seek to support.
Business Unit
Business Unit
Business Unit
Some categories are managed locally, others at a regional or global level
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Similar to scrum teams, this model has virtual working groups, focussed on projects- these groups could vary significantly by size depending on resource requirements but would likely max out at 15 people. Each group would be controlled by a group lead, which would ensure that the projects reflect the vision of the senior leadership team and CPO. These virtual working groups may in turn by grouped into larger projects, coordinated by these group leaders- and incorporated stakeholders (be they internal customers, or suppliers) where necessary.
Purchasing professionals will be classified in a number of additional ways, their category focus areas, skillsets and the business unit they are embedded with or serve. The leadership team will then be able to designate this resource as they see fit, orientating the correct skills around projects whilst still retaining the business alignment and category knowledge procurement teams need to retain.
We have presented some potential skill role designators on this slide- and we are seeing considerations about building out designated stakeholder and supplier management roles within our membership, alongside building up internal data teams. You’ll also notice the inclusion of tactical specialists, the area which is of central focus with regards to automation- a set of skills more at risk from more effective use of systems, or leveraging automating technologies such as Robotics Process Automation. It will also be through automating many of these more tactical areas that we can shift resource, and upskill employees, towards those more interesting high value roles- a category manager would be freed from many of the dreariest aspects of their work (having to alternate between a variety of systems to work out the clauses which should be within a contract for example) and with near-time data to their fingertips able to dig far deeper into their areas of expertise.
LOCAL
LOCAL
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LOCAL
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LOCAL
LOCAL
Category Directors
Category Managers
Operational Buyers

7. Hybrid: category and business-unit aligned
An approach which manages categories at different levels.
CHARACTERISTICS
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
A hybrid structure which has categories managed differently depending on organisational needs, and market conditions, with some categories managed globally, and others regionally or locally.
These models are more flexible to address the varied needs of purchasing categories. This means that functions can benefit from economies of scale where viable, but can also address spend areas with lower product standardisation or regionally diverse suppliers for example.
Additional complexity can emerge from these structures, with a limited understanding of responsibilities or scope. The structure will also need to be subject to regular review, which can add restructuring expenses.

8. Senior leadership team
Agile: Dynamically assigned according to need
CPO
Virtual working groups will be organised through collaboration software, and project management tools.
Senior leadership team
A shift towards procurement teams segmented by skillset rather than job-role
Virtual working group
Virtual working group
Virtual working group
Virtual working group 1 1 7 1
Group lead 2 2 6 5 5 4 1 4
Business unit 6 3 8
Similar to scrum teams, this model has virtual working groups, focussed on projects- these groups could vary significantly by size depending on resource requirements but would likely max out at 15 people. Each group would be controlled by a group lead, which would ensure that the projects reflect the vision of the senior leadership team and CPO. These virtual working groups may in turn by grouped into larger projects, coordinated by these group leaders- and incorporated stakeholders (be they internal customers, or suppliers) where necessary.
Purchasing professionals will be classified in a number of additional ways, their category focus areas, skillsets and the business unit they are embedded with or serve. The leadership team will then be able to designate this resource as they see fit, orientating the correct skills around projects whilst still retaining the business alignment and category knowledge procurement teams need to retain.
We have presented some potential skill role designators on this slide- and we are seeing considerations about building out designated stakeholder and supplier management roles within our membership, alongside building up internal data teams. You’ll also notice the inclusion of tactical specialists, the area which is of central focus with regards to automation- a set of skills more at risk from more effective use of systems, or leveraging automating technologies such as Robotics Process Automation. It will also be through automating many of these more tactical areas that we can shift resource, and upskill employees, towards those more interesting high value roles- a category manager would be freed from many of the dreariest aspects of their work (having to alternate between a variety of systems to work out the clauses which should be within a contract for example) and with near-time data to their fingertips able to dig far deeper into their areas of expertise.
Project team 1
Project team 2
Project team 3
Stakeholders can be embedded within project teams, either as contributors or product owners.
Stakeholder relationship manager
Supplier relationship manager
Category expert
Tactical
specialist
Data analyst 3
Category focus
Stakeholder

9. Agile procurement function
An evolving structure which promises greater speed and more dynamic resource dedication.
CHARACTERISTICS
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
The agility structure is an emerging one within procurement, taking inspiration from the scrum models which have revolutionised software development teams. The model involves creating small agile project teams segmenting tasks by skillsets. Teams can be deployed and dismantled quickly.
Agile procurement functions are able to quickly upscale new projects, and redeploy labour as needed. The agile model, by embedding stakeholders within the process, often having senior stakeholders as product owners, can produce deliverables which are better aligned to business requirements.
Senior purchasing executives may struggle to implement an agile model as the emerging nature of such a structure means that best practice is hard to identify. Agility represents a substantial disruption to existing workflows, and a significant proportion of procurement staff may struggle to adopt the model.