648: Tackling Procurement’s Perception Problem w/ Nishish Saxena

“Today, if we’re recruiting fresh talent, the right resource pool is not available. That talent incubation is not happening, which primarily means we need universities recognizing procurement as a discipline and making sure that individuals acquire a certain level of skills and are ready to be injected into the corporate setup.” - Nishish Saxena, Head of Terminals Procurement, India and Middle East, Maersk For years now, procurement has often been seen as a back-office function responsible for finding and managing suppliers and cutting costs, and not as a strategic superpower that can support the overall goals and growth of the entire business.  In part, procurement’s ‘perception problem’ and reputation as an undervalued and misunderstood function has to do with the way talent is, or isn’t, developed and how a lack of institutional and educational support is doing a collective disservice to procurement leaders and the discipline as a whole.  Philip Ideson recently spoke with Nishish Saxena, Head of Terminals Procurement, India and Middle East, at Maersk, about his personal views on why procurement is so often undervalued as a strategic partner. In this episode, they discuss:  The evolution of procurement’s value creation potential beyond supply chain and cost management How educational institutions can help establish procurement as a critical strategic business discipline and stop the perpetuation of misconceptions about their value potential The core skill set procurement needs to strengthen their capabilities and elevate their brand Links: Nishish Saxena on LinkedIn