“It’s still on us, as procurement professionals, to invest the right amount of time in building relationships and building our narrative.” Ashish Dhongde, Associate Director Procurement Beauty and Wellbeing North America, Unilever
For procurement to break traditional barriers and become a true strategic partner that contributes to innovation and growth, they have to go beyond managing costs and contracts.
Procurement must ‘speak the language of the business,’ build trust and address risk through consistent value delivery and relationship management, and take ownership of key business outcomes.
Unilever’s procurement team has an established reputation for doing all of this, and more. They are known for the strong partnership they’ve built with the rest of the business and for their raw capabilities. To understand the story behind their success, I recently spoke with Ashish Dhongde, Associate Director of Procurement, Beauty and Wellbeing North America at Unilever.
Ashish explained how his team has built strong relationships with their internal stakeholders – much of which comes down to trust – and how this successful partnership continues to provide value to the business.
Here, in Ashish’s own words, are some highlights from our conversation:
A Partner, Not a Service Provider
"I think [our stakeholders] approach procurement as an ally. If you have 60 percent of your direct and indirect P&L being managed by a bunch of professionals, it behooves you to stay very close to procurement. There are several instances where this conversation or connection could take place, but it's still on us as procurement professionals to invest the right amount of time in building these relationships and building the narrative."
Speaking the Language of Business
"There is so much mileage and so much more that we can get done if we speak the business language. Rather than talking in dollars per metric ton, let's talk the language of gross margin. That really opens quite a few doors for us."
Taking Ownership of Business Challenges
"One point which has helped me personally, and which I see reflected in a lot of leaders, is the sense of ownership with the business. This is not a brand problem or an R&D problem. We cannot play with it at the end of three years saying, 'guys, I told you so.' Speaking up at the right time is what matters."
Balancing Innovation and Risk
"A lot of risks are genuinely ones that can be mitigated if someone has had the courage to have the right conversation at the right point in time. When does risk get introduced into the system? Most risk comes in when there's a regulation change or there is a new innovation happening. That's the point when you need to go out and have that sometimes difficult conversation with the brand teams."
Proving Value Through Crisis
"Within our culture, it's sort of ingrained that there is this bunch of people, these professionals who are responsible for 50 - 60 percent of your P&L. We've been through COVID, so there's a lot of institutional knowledge around it and appreciation around how procurement has helped the business in various ways, not just service, but even mitigating inflation."
Building Strategic Support
"If one can craft a solid narrative around what we want to do for the business or what the problem is at the moment, and then ask for their help and go down with them on this journey - the solution might be technical in most cases, but business doesn't need to know all the technicalities. We need to water it down into business terms, but that helps get immense support for what we do."
Data-Driven Decision Making
"Eighty percent of the job is about finding what the problem is. And then, once you see that, there's a very clear pot of gold if you were to go down that route, then it's almost easy to convince people with the numbers that this is where we should be in the next three to five years."
