In this brief interview, Speaker B explains Diebold’s approach to category management, emphasizing that it is not solely a procurement function but a cross‑functional exercise that requires involvement from relevant stakeholders, such as IT, when dealing with specific product categories. The process is designed to create overall value for the category rather than focusing exclusively on cost reduction, although cost savings may naturally emerge as a by‑product of the broader value‑creation activities.
Chapters
Can you tell us about your category management approach and how it affects procurement results at Diebold?
So when we talk about the category management approach, I would say first and foremost, category management is not a procurement activity, or it's not solely a procurement activity. When we talk about category management, for us, for me, category management is a cross-functional exercise, meaning If you are talking about a product category, say, and I'll just take an example, say IT as an example, right? IT is something where we need, when we are preparing the category approach or we are preparing a category management plan, you need the right IT stakeholders involved in the process. So that's the first and the foremost thing. It is not an exercise where, uh, to be done in isolation and a siloed exercise by procurement. It's an exercise that needs to be done by a cross-functional team first. Second, it is, it is to be looked at as an activity to create value in the category. It is not an activity only to drive out cost savings. It's not just an exercise in cost reduction, right? You know, if you want to do cost, one of the outcomes of that could be or will always be cost reduction activities or projects that come out of it. But the activity of the whole approach towards category management should not be in terms of just looking at it as cost reduction.
