The CPO In 2011: The Toughest Job In The Global 1000

Chief procurement officers (CPOs) may have the toughest corporate job in the world.  Their internal stakeholders are a raucous group who require everything from enterprise-class software to staplers and McKinsey consultants to TV advertising now!

Their current potential suppliers deploy well-trained sales staff to do nothing else but woo internal stakeholders.  Their CFOs demand bottom-line savings, not squishy avoidance/soft savings, which causes cash-strapped business units to budget less specifically, limiting the ability to drive savings to the bottom line.  A CPO’s qualified internal staff is notoriously hard to find, spread far too thin across the most complex categories, and frequently lack sufficent visiability into quality spend data.  All the while, contracts are getting riskier and Wall Street analysts are asking more questions about supply chain risk than ever before.