How to stop procurement departments from stifling creativity

Corporates and public sector agencies are experiencing something that could be limiting creativity in design. Large organisations are becoming more aware of the need to create an investment case and calculate the return on every pound spent. This is why they involve their procurement function in creative pitches, briefs, contracts, and ongoing relationships between their marketing and design teams. Is this to the detriment or creativity? Is it possible to commoditise creativity?

A procurement team is responsible for finding and purchasing goods or services. Usually, this is done via competitive bidding or tendering. One procurement professional recently spoke to us. "We're here for fairness and consistency in agency selection and the process." If you are on a roster it is highly likely that procurement was responsible for its creation. Rostering is a good thing. They are meant to ensure that everything is equal, spread the work out and not make the company dependent on one supplier. So far, so good.

Tension between procurement and consultancies

Although it is normal for organizations to have safeguards and measures in place, there are many reasons why giving procurement such a loose rein can have a negative effect on blue chip relationships with creative agencies.

To help procurement teams categorise design, measure output, and label items, they must be able to label the things and put suppliers in boxes. We must select a category from the drop-down menu when we submit tenders. The catch-all "printing and design" is always required.

We all know that each profession has its own level of experience and expertise. It is not possible and appropriate to assume that every person produces the same output and has the same expertise. Let's take an example: An old client, an international corporation. Their procurement team was involved and tried to standardize hourly rates for all printing and design work.

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Teams in procurement need to be able to create custom solutions

We were all one entity, regardless of whether it was our studio on one side, working in strategic branding, or a printing agency on the other, printing annual reports and brochures. To procurement, we were all one and one. They wanted to enforce the payment terms. It's not all the same. It is important for procurement professionals to know how to distinguish and define different types outputs from different agencies.

Hours upon hours of meetings were held, during which the procurement team had difficulty understanding what we do and how to label it. They also tried to throw a host of key performance indicators at us in an attempt to measure our output. To fit in with the new organisation's definition of design, we weren't going agree to cut our hourly rates by half. In the end,? We had to give up and quit working with them.

Insistence on everyone fitting into the same box and failure to understand and measure creativity are bad for the industry. It is also detrimental to client organizations, because it lowers competition. Many agencies will abandon the tendering process if they find RFPs too difficult or if they feel like they are going in circles while meeting with procurement teams. This is contrary to what procurement aims to do - stimulate competition and create a level playing ground.

However, not all procurement departments work this way. Many procurement teams are more forward-thinking and progressive. They understand that creativity is fluid, intangible, and it's not always easy to measure or fit in a box.

Learnable lessons

How can designers and client organizations work together better? How can procurement be integrated in a way that increases creativity and final output? These are some suggestions that might help you:

• KnowledgeYou can work with procurement to create a course on "design adding value" - you can even manage them internally and invite your partner agencies along to give talks. Insight days can be created where procurement can visit different agencies for a day to really get a feel of the agency's mission and goals.

• Realistic.It won't work for everyone if you use the same approach. While you might be able do this with catering or stationery suppliers, it is not possible with design. It is important to consider the design needs of the marketing team. This could include printing brochures, or even updating the brand. They're not all the same.

• Talking is good: Don't close your suppliers off. Do not hide behind spreadsheets or box-ticking exercises. Talk to them, get to know them and see how you can collaborate with them to achieve the best cost-effective, creative outcome. This is the only way to find a way to work together effectively.

There isn't always a solution. You can have both good and poor designers just as you can have good or bad procurement people. Some people are very open-minded, flexible and eager to learn. Some are not. It's an issue that marketing and large corporations must address. Otherwise, everyone loses.