Improving retail procurement through employee coordination and leadership

Departmental Improvement and Leadership Styles

The procurement or purchasing department is one of the most critical departments in the retail store that I have just joined. It is entrusted with procurement of items that are to be sold in turn as well as purchasing the other items that are needed for the daily running of the chain store.

However, there are a few incidences that have been noted in the chain store that are tainting the image of the procurement. The problems have to do with the employee participation as much as the technical aspect of procurement. This paper is focused on identifying the various problems or hitches that are experienced in the retail store, the sources and the possible remedies to them and of greater interest is the employee association and coordination in order to help solve the problems.

The shortcomings of the procurement department

One of the problems encountered in the retail store is the issue of buying without plan. The people responsible for the buying of items will just purchase items without a purchasing list hence ends up buying things just because the supplier or distributor has a discount on the items. At the end of the day the items may not be sold out at the rate foreseen. Most of these decisions I realized were made unilaterally by the procurement manager without consultation from the others in the same department, yet it is a trend that taints the entire procurement department.

The other major problem in the department is the habit of buying without counter-checking the inventory. In the procurement department, this is made worse by the fact that this retail store deals in items that are highly perishable. This leads into various problems like the items running out of the expiration period and the retail store throwing out unused items that were bought yet there was already one in store.

The other issue in the department is the lack of coordination in times of placing orders. Each individual makes orders independently in the department without consulting the other colleagues hence the high frequency of double orders and piling up of items that may go bad at the end of the day or never get used at all, or even worse get misused since they are available which costs the company money.

The procurement department also never gets much into researching the market prospects before they settle for a supplier and they always tend to stick to the most popular supplier. This makes them buy items that are more expensive from the popular supplier even though there could be another supplier in the market offering more competitive prices and same quality of items, yet I feel doing some research can save quite a lot for the company.

The last problem that I felt was of significance is the notion of the procurement department buying items just because of the price and not looking at the commensurate value for the money they spend. This is a practice that is peculiarly here since it is rare to find a company that is willing to give up on their quality of products.

Having studied the above six major problems among many others, there is an apparent concern over in the procurement department. The analysis that I had, bearing the qualified procurement staff there are in the department, is that there is need for better coordination and a leadership that will enable the department function as a unit would be the best. Alongside the six specialists in procurement, the following leadership approaches with the accompanying reasons were found to be fitting in the department. There are three basic leadership skills that we found to be fitting best for this group to use so as to sort out their problems, having noted that there can be application of various styles in tandem, the three were considered best applied in a go; The participative leadership, transactional leadership and transformational leadership.

i. The participative leadership style.

Since the department already has qualified people, there is need for them to be performance oriented, improve on quality of their work, be creative in making their orders and argue out in complex decisions like the supplier to choose regardless of the standing in the market as suggested by Center for Creative Leadership, (2009). These are qualities that cannot be forced into a team neither can one teach the team but there can be participation by the manager in leading others in achieving those. It will involve the manager working together with the team in striving to achieve the above qualities that are needed in the department; the leaders participate in goal achieving together with the employees.

ii. The transformational leadership

This is the leadership that focuses on making change happen and spreading as far as possible within the organization. It is a style that is seen as possible and important in cupping up the previously mentioned two. It will act as a tool or medium of affecting the other two. In this method, there is a focus on the change beginning with us, then to others, then influencing groups or departments as the procurement and finally to the whole organization as postulated by Legacee Management System (2011) . If the individuals are encouraged to adapt to the changes that will sort out the problems noted above, then each person will strive to influence and be that change that is desired. This will not only show great improvement in the procurement department but the whole organization will start borrowing ideas from the procurement department.

When the above three leadership skills are carefully implemented in this particular case scenario it is certain that there will be a noticeable change in the department and an improved performance.

Reference

Center for Creative Leadership, (2009). Developing a Leadership Strategy:A Critical Ingredient

for Organizational Success. Retrieved April 10, 2011 from http://www.ccl.org/leadership/pdf/research/LeadershipStrategy.pdf

Legacee Management System (2011). Types of Leadership Styles. Retrieved April 10, 2011

from http://www.legacee.com/Info/Leadership/LeadershipStyles.html

Leadership and Motivation Training, (2010). Transactional Leadership. Retrieved April 10, 2011

from http://www.leadership-and-motivation-training.com/transactional-leadership.html