Buyer and business partner relationship supporting purchasing performance

Abstract

Purpose

In purchasing field, the author would like to demonstrate that purchasing performance can be improved by something else than hard skills. The soft skills have at present an important role to reach the objectives as a buyer, and more focus should be on that aspect of skills. The author proved, by facts and figures, that the soft skills are not used enough and can really improve purchasing performance.

Design/methodology/approach

The methodology used was to interview professional people, manager, directors and buyer in purchasing function to prove the link between performance and soft skills. Indeed, the soft skills are linked to the personality and relationship build between the buyer and the business partner. The author investigated to see what is currently the relation between buyer function and business partner, based on their soft skills.

Findings

The author demonstrated through his interview, reading and analysis that there is a real link between the soft skills – relationship build between buyer and business partner – and purchasing performance.

Originality/value

The value of this paper is that he add a new skill to use to improve the purchasing performance. Indeed, instead of focusing only on saving or on hard skills, a focus can be used on the soft skills which will really improve the relationship and the performance-results in the purchasing function. The main aspect focusing on soft skill will be to act and react differently than we use to, started by listening to the business partner first, listening to their needs, understand their world, their job and their issues. The main change will be to listen before doing anything else. It is necessary to be in an active listening posture with them to be able then to give them answer and improve the own purchasing performance.

Citation

Zanardi, M. (2017), "Buyer and business partner relationship supporting purchasing performance", Strategic Direction, Vol. 33 No. 2, pp. 30-32. https://doi.org/10.1108/SD-11-2016-0152