Lead-in statement
Created by Aiden Platt, the presentation titled “Procurement: An Emerged Profession” concerned the specified phenomenon and covers the significance of procurement within an organization, as well as defines the role of the former in a company.
Platt also discusses procurement methods as applied to a very specific area of entrepreneurship (i.e., the production and provision of liquor burners)1.
Insights on topic of reflection
The fact that the significance of negotiation is emphasized several times throughout the presentation leaves a lot of food for thoughts. I have always felt that negotiation affects the success of procurement strategies, yet I have never managed to put my finger on why it does.
Therefore, when watching the presentation, I felt finally relieved, as the secret was eventually disclosed. Platt recognizes the significance of negotiation fully by mentioning the importance of negotiation in his presentation several times.
The fact that negotiating allows for increasing the amount of orders processed from 25 to literally thousands per day2 served as an eye-opened on the significance of negotiation in procurement for me. It seems that negotiation used to be taken for granted by most of the students up until the presentation in question changed their perception of the phenomenon, which impresses me beyond belief.
Relation to theory/ Prior knowledge
It would be wrong to claim that the presentation in question has broken new grounds in strategizing the company’s performance. Quite on the contrary, the significance of negotiation as an essential process in the company’s organizational and production processes has been discussed in a range of papers.
For example, the article by Huang, Kauffman, Xu and Zhao mentions the need for a company to develop a viable negotiation strategy3, which allows fur suggesting that the issue raised by Platt has a solid theoretical basis.
The theory of negotiation, in its turn, is quite old. Presupposing that the perfect approach towards negotiation (compromising) occurs at the cross-section of the four key strategies (competitive, integrative, avoiding and accommodating ones), the traditional Negotiation Theory allows for defining the method of communicating with the organization’s key stakeholders.
Concept in future
The information concerning the role of negotiation in procurement has clearly been a good lesson for me. The description of negotiation as viewed through the lens of a procurement specialist has shed a lot of light on the responsibilities of the latter.
This information will help me become a more efficient [procurement specialist and develop unique approaches for solving specific problems related to procurement. To be more specific, I will be able to train my flexibility and consider specific conflicts and issues related to procurement from different angles, therefore, being more objective.
Finally, Platt’s presentation has encouraged me to reconsider the negotiation approach, which I currently adopt in the situations that need a conflict resolution. While previously, I relied on the accommodating approach admittedly too much, after seeing the presentation, I finally decided to introduce several competitive elements into it as well.
It seems that the presentation has helped me change not only my perception of the negotiation process, but also my entire idea of the goals that the negotiation process pursues. The emphasis has clearly been shifted from the need to maintain perfect relationships with the parties involved to the need to make sustainable decisions.
Bibliography
Huang, He, Robert J. Kauffman, Hongyan Xu and Lan Zhao, “Mechanism Design for E-procurement Auctions: On the Efficacy of Post-Auction Negotiation and Quality Effort Incentives,” Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 10, no. 6 (2011): 650–672.
Platt, Aiden. “Procurement: An Emerged Profession.” Presentation at the ChE 423 Process Economics & Management.” Booragoon, Western Australia, 2014.
Footnotes
1. Aiden Platt, “Procurement: An Emerged Profession,” (presentation at the ChE 423 Process Economics & Management,” Booragoon, Western Australia, 2014).
2. Aiden Platt, “Procurement: An Emerged Profession,” (presentation at the ChE 423 Process Economics & Management,” Booragoon, Western Australia, 2014), p. 14.
3. He Huang, Robert J. Kauffman, Hongyan Xu and Lan Zhao, “Mechanism Design for E-procurement Auctions: On the Efficacy of Post-Auction Negotiation and Quality Effort Incentives,” Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 10, no. 6 (2011): 652.