Our research continues to attract significant interest and we are well placed to publish the results later this year with a record sample size.  The data and comments already make interesting reading including this one posted earlier this week:

“Real SRM is the one of the most important factors for success in a procurement role. However most SRM being discussed today is in relation to IT systems and not the real soft skills that will bring innovation and improved business performance to bear.”

Do you agree? 

Our experience tells us that there is certainly a lot of investment in Vendor Management in the technology sectors at the moment, and we have been encouraged by the number of SRM specialists who have got in touch with us about their careers since the survey was published.  Again the evidence is that a technology focus accounts for a lot of the biggest SRM roles.

Are you in an SRM or Vendor Management role with a different category focus?  We are keen to hear from you about your experience and your career aspirations. 

Thanks to all those who have completed the Supplier Management survey already – we had more responses yesterday than in the first month of the previous research into the impact of the recession on procurement, so this is clearly a hot topic.Some interesting points have been made already including this from one contributor:

SRM is the best available tool to ‘unlocking hidden profits’ that derive mutual benefit. However it is a two way relationship and both parties have to be committed to the process in order to optimise and gain the real benefits.”

What do you think?  Do you agree or can you offer a different perspective? Please complete the survey and we welcome any additional comments here.

Andrew 

We are pleased to announce that we are launching our new research project into The Importance of Supplier Relationship Management.  The questionnaire will be available for much of the summer to ensure we can attract the greatest number of participants so if you want to comment or prompt a discussion before the results are published, please feel free to contribute to this blog.

Vendor Management & Supplier Relationship Management – A Recruiter’s perspective

There’s no doubt we’ve seen a noticeable increase in the number of specialist roles in this area that we have been asked to recruit for.  This has been a trend for the last three years particularly, and we have experienced this most in services sectors like banking, consultancy and particularly IT services. 

Recruiting managers usually want a specialist in supplier management to fill their jobs rather than someone who has done some work in this area as part of a broader procurement or sourcing remit, whilst job seekers who enjoy the vendor management element of purchasing will seek specialist roles in this area.   

There is of course only a finite pool of vendor management specialists, so if demand grows further, we will have some very interesting market conditions.   This could possibly be reminiscent of the strong demand for high calibre indirect spend specialists in the City which drove up salaries, particularly between 2003 and 2007.

Year 4
Edbury Daley just entered its fourth year of trading and every aspect of our business continues to grow.

We are delighted with the contribution made by Hannah Jackson who joined us in October last year. Hannah, a former consultant at PSD brings over 3 years experience of recruiting within the FMCG and Pharma sectors in both the UK and overseas markets, on top of several years in the recruitment advertising industry with Bernard Hoades, TCS and Work Communications.

Her experience of working across Europe has added an extra dimension to our candidate sourcing capability and we are seeing large areas of growth within the European markets particularly within the FMCG sector.

Market Trends
Salaries are still on the increase and in some cases are presenting companies with real problems, particularly those with strict pay grading structures.

More emphasis is now being placed on performance which is being reflected in bonus schemes and we are finding that packages are anything from 35% up to 50% of basic salaries.

We are working to quantify these changes by using our new online survey tool to assess salary trends. If you haven’t contributed already, please can you spare 5 minutes before the end of March. Please click here

We will be launching a new survey focused on career development in early April and will remind you nearer the time.

Europe
We are currently working on a number of exciting opportunities in the FMCG sector based across Europe managing large cross functional teams. One of the common reasons for these roles is the pressure that businesses are under to reduce the carbon footprint within the packaging categories.

Working on opportunities like this are great for a business of our size as it is increasing our network of strong, internationally mobile purchasing candidates.

UK
Despite fears about US economic problems and other factors like the housing market conditions, we have seen little or no evidence that the Procurement job market has been affected. The core markets remain in good shape:

The interim market
The interim market remains healthy with most contractors employed and plenty of good roles around. Of course many businesses have realised the benefits of brining in professional contractors who can add significant value to short term initiatives, and this is also reflected in a growing supply of high calibre candidates.

Having focused on permanent appointments in years 1&2 of our business, this is now a big area for Edbury Daley, and we currently have a number of interim candidates on contracts at major plc’s.

Category Management
There demand for specific category management roles continues unabated and is probably the biggest part of the market at present simply because demand has been greater than supply for at least four years now.

Certain areas of indirect spend have seen the salaries grow rapidly because of the shortage and this has been most obvious in IT, Marketing & Professional Services.

Vendor Management
We have also noticed some growth in the demand for specialist Vendor Managers as more organisations have dedicated resource in this area, and some major Plc’s are building significant teams. The growth in Supplier Development roles hasn’t been as strong but the signs are there for a healthy future in this particular niche.

So in summary the market is still healthy and should remain so for the foreseeable future.

If you have any comments on any of the issues raised here, please e mail us at info@edburydaley.com

You can also contact Hannah Jackson, Andrew Daley or Charlie Bolam via our website: www.edburydaley.com

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