Your Journey to Commercial Excellence

Posted by / February 1st, 2017 / No responses

I have been discussing with a client this week how best to revitalise and restructure its commercial/ procurement/legal function

We started with the “Why?”.

– Why is this important and why have you decided to do it ‘now’?

– Why do you think you are experiencing problems within the current team and structure?

Hey – those  pesky “Why” questions are tricky, aren’t they?

“What?” questions help. In this particular case, we began to explore:

– What does the concept of commercial excellence mean to you and the management team?

– What would a commercially excellent structure look like and how would it help the business to perform better?

– What is the team doing now which you would like to see done differently (and equally, what is working well which you want to enhance and accelerate?)

– What different results would you like to achieve and how could we make this happen?

Here are some of the visions this particular client had about “commercial excellence”:

  • High quality commercial advice from the Commercial and legal team, proactive and fact based, aligned to overall strategy;
  • Strong compliance and governance processes, enabling informed decision making and management reporting;
  • Detailed analytic data available for contract reporting and to assess performance and delivery success (and accurately linked to financial information);
  • Reports and summary information which actually reflect the current position – dealing honestly with contractual risks and issues and including mitigation plans agreed with delivery function;
  • Crystal clear commercial strategy, forward thinking and aligned to overall business objectives;
  • In depth understanding of the supplier/market/customer environment, with strong stakeholder relationships in key areas;
  • A culture of partnership working across functions, in particular between sales/delivery and legal/commercial/procurement;
  • A “cradle to grave” approach to contracting, where the journey from idea to signed contract to delivery (and eventually exit) has a consistent commercial guiding presence;
  • Access to external legal advice to address specific issues, rather than reactive (and expensive) engagement
  • A resulting environment with increased performance, reduced costs, empowered managers and creative thinking.

A great list, isn’t it? I loved this discussion.

It is not an exhaustive list, of course, and the concept of “commercial excellence” will be different for different organisations.

REMEMBER –

What will always matter on your journey to commercial excellence is WHO you choose to lead and work within the commercial and procurement functions.  Commercial success has a lot to do with the people you hold accountable for it. In sourcing the right people, knowledge and appropriate experience is only part of what you should be looking for.

What about:

  • Passion for the business and its products/services;
  • an excitement and understanding for where the business needs to go;
  • an engaging personality appropriate to the organisation’s culture and values, with the ability to collaborate at all levels;
  • a desire to use and share commercial skills and expertise in order to educate and inspire the wider organisation to make the right commercial decisions;
  • balance of risk awareness and pragmatism in order to challenge appropriately.

So….here’s some homework questions for you:

What would “commercial excellence” look like in your organisation?

Where are you on your journey to “commercial excellence”?

Who is leading and championing that journey for you?

And….

Why haven’t you reached “Destination Commercial Excellence already?” (Yep – I warned you the “Why’s” are the tricky ones)

Grow. Strengthen. Protect. Let’s keep powering ahead.

hello@serenwood.co.uk