7 tips for better Pharma Procurement: a conversation with Jill Robbins

1 Cost savings are less important than business value

Jill warns against procurement professioanls getting too focused on the bottom line to the exclusion of everything else.

“Savings often get lost in the shuffle. Finance can agree or not agree, or then they get added back in or  taken away from budget. There’s got to be a better metric, and it has to be business value.

Instead,  understand what’s important to your particular company and tie the procurement metrics to that.

For example, a solution may cost more, but if you are delivering things faster, or you don’t have disruption in your supply, that is worth the weight in  gold .

People need to think differently, and processes like  RFPs have become far too tactical.”

>Read more advice on how to fix the RFP process

2. Be a trusted advisor

Procurement can “earn a seat at the table” by becoming a trusted advisor. 

“Get to know the business and your stakeholders, and don’t make assumptions as everyone is there to make a positive impact. Understand their objectives, metrics and KPIs, and help them to over-deliver. 

Try to understand your suppliers, what they do, how long the business has been working with them, and what else is available in the marketplace, 

3. See across the silos

“Pharma can be very siloed, which can be a barrier to innovation and collaboration. 

Procurement  has the best seat in the house to see across the value chain and highlight opportunities to your business partners that they may not see. What is obvious to you may not be obvious to everyone else.  

Thinking like a P&L owner will really remove some of the blinders that exist and break through some of the silos.  It gives you a different lens and appreciation on when things work well in are efficient and when things aren’t working well and when they’re inefficient.”

4. Treat suppliers like partners 

“It’s  very easy to blame suppliers tor everything. but to be successful, its got to be a collaboration.

If you want  optimal quality, speed and value from those suppliers don’t withhold information. You want it to be competitive, but don’t make it, adversarial. 

Suppliers can be a very helpful in giving you insights into how you can improve your business. Rely on them, ask them open ended questions.  What ideas do they have for how you can improve?  What are your competitors doing?

Ask how are they approaching common problems and learn from them.”

5 Salespeople are not the enemy

“Sales are often treated like a used car salesman –  they want to do a ‘dog and pony’ show,  they’re not listening, they don’t understand my business… those kind of attitudes have got to be put in the past. 

Yes, you want to hold them accountable, but be collaborative and treat them with respect. 

When you’ve got strategic suppliers in place that you’ll be working with for a long time, invest in that relationship and learn from it. 

Take the time to ask then questions and allow them to teach you how you can run your business better and more efficiently.”

6. Simpler metrics are  better

“In my career the common thread has been getting the data right so that does not become a burden for your team. 

There are many metrics that you should be tracking about suppliers – from whether suppliers are delivering to contract, payment, but also qualitative data points around innovation and partnering 

I’m of the view that simpler is better start with  having the discipline around the  contracts and how you’re tracking them to payments

You want to see kind of a high level roll up, to see whether KPIs are green, yellow, red on a variety of metrics, and then also insights on how they’re performing against other key data points. “

 7. Be yourself

Jill’s advice for anyone considering their career is to find the path that works for you.

“Everyone has different priorities, If you want to be CPO you’re going to have a different level of dedication, than if you want to remain an individual contributor. 

Everyone has to decide that for themselves and there’s no right or wrong answer.”