Marketing Procurement Taking the Lead

Marketing Procurement faces unique challenges, largely influenced by cost, speed, and technology. But it’s time for them to stand up and take the lead of a function that can deliver impactful results to a business.

Marketing Procurement teams are navigating an unruly world, with rising costs, continuing economic volatility and significant geopolitical uncertainty to contend with. Added to these factors are changing marketing and brand needs, shifting agency goalposts and the rise of intelligent technologies.

Successful teams are embracing innovative and intuitive approaches that allow them to lead from the front with strategic approaches and innovative thinking.

The complexities facing Marketing Procurement

There are several challenges that differentiate the challenges experienced by Marketing Procurement teams:

• Speed. Marketing has to move quickly to respond to market conditions and conventional Procurement approaches can be too slow for their needs.
• Technology. Digital tools and capabilities are evolving at immense speeds, bringing with them new ways of working and approaching Procurement. However, new platforms and trends are also moving extremely quickly, putting pressure on Marketing and Procurement to stay ahead.
• Suppliers. As Marketing disciplines continue to blur the lines between who does what, so do Procurement teams struggle to find the right agencies to represent changing brand needs. It is becoming increasingly difficult to segment agencies against these blurring lines.
• Standardization. Every agency is different, and every campaign has its own requirements, and this makes it challenging to implement metrics and measurements that are accurate across the board.
• AI. The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) Skills in Marketing Procurement Survey found that skills have become the new currency. It’s an interesting insight at a time when artificial intelligence (AI) is proving increasingly invaluable but introducing concerns around job security.

Creating innovation in Marketing Procurement

Forward-thinking Procurement professionals are reframing these challenges as opportunities. Using data, insights, smart tools and innovative thinking, they’re moving the goalposts and providing deeper support to Marketing teams.

• Resilience. As the WFA survey highlighted, Marketing Procurement teams are becoming increasingly diverse, adapting to changing market needs, and recognizing that resilience is shaped by being open to constant learning and recognizing that the skills needed for tomorrow are still being defined.
• Data. Market data and benchmarking tools give Marketing Procurement a window into Marketing performance and requirements. These tools give professionals the ability to more deftly navigate agency costs, evaluate deliverables and measure internal efficiencies.
• Strategic. Effective Marketing Procurement leaders think of themselves as strategic partners not as inhibitors. Their insights and skills help Marketing teams refine their approaches and make more informed choices.
• Optimized. The goal for Marketing Procurement isn’t to cut costs at, well, all costs. It is to get the most value from every dollar spent and this value is found in optimized agency relationships and ensuring savings are reinvested into testing, expanding campaigns and developing innovative Marketing approaches.
• Collaborative. When Marketing and Marketing Procurement collaborate, the brand benefits because shared understanding equates to shared financial responsibility and performance.

Which neatly leads to Marketing Procurement’s inherent role in creating metrics for success.

Building bridges between innovation and measurement

Marketing Procurement is key to building performance metrics that provide brands with essential visibility.

The RightSpend x ISBA Future of Agency Remuneration survey found that many brands don’t feel they are getting value from their agencies, and equally many don’t know exactly how to effectively measure success. This presents a significant opportunity for Marketing Procurement to mold their own processes and measurements.

• Move beyond cost savings. Traditionally, Marketing budget management has focused on cost reductions which tend to have a negative impact on creativity and innovation. Marketing Procurement can use data and insights to instead move the metrics beyond just savings and into innovation, reach and engagement.
• Focus on ROMI. Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) is a trusted approach to measuring the effectiveness of Marketing initiatives as it examines multiple metrics across both immediate campaign results and long-term brand building investments.
• Develop customized KPIs. Establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) using data that’s relevant to your industry and brand means you can implement tracking that’s appropriate. Ultimately, there’s no one perfect set of Marketing Procurement metrics, but ones created within the brand can improve agency relationships, enhance decision-making, and support Marketing initiatives more effectively.
• Embracing AI. As a complementary tool, AI can be wielded by Marketing Procurement to complement their human skillsets rather than replace them. When used correctly, AI has the potential to support the development of specific KPIs, assist with spend analysis, unpack performance management and empower Marketing Procurement to make more strategic decisions.
  In conclusion

By leading from the front, Marketing Procurement can balance financial responsibility with creative innovation and skills development. Embracing data-driven decision making, collaborative relationships and strategic technologies puts them firmly on the road of value creator rather than cost cutter.

RightSpend’s capabilities supports Marketing Procurement’s path to transformation, allowing teams to harness data and insights and transform processes. With these tools, Marketing Procurement steps out of the back office and firmly into the role of strategic enabler.