(continued) Yet, the comparison is also strange when one considers the status of purchasing organizations vs. sales organizations within large corporations over the past seven to ten years. As one executive said,” when we considered starting strategic sourcing teams, we could not even name the people in our purchasing organization, and we were their bosses!” Indeed, in many organizations purchasing was a function considered “processors of information; reactive rather than proactive; tactical, not strategic; and of relatively low status compared to Sales and other organizations. While the parallels between Sales and Purchasing may be discussed, the structure of procurement has changed to incorporate some things the Sales organization knew long ago. Structuring your organization to partner with your (internal) customers is essential, but no easy task! At a company I recently worked with, a typical procurement organization was faced with the task of crafting a new role and organizational structure for themselves, after finding eprocurement had changed their world dramatically. A typical, isolated, order fulfillment type of organization, they were challenged with employees having long worked in an organization whose role was no longer needed. How could they bring this organization to a new valued role and what should that role be? Next >>