Bring procurement early into your marketing planning

It is clear that procurement will be playing an increasing role in the marketing process.A World Federation of Advertisers survey done amongst marketers last year showed that in 2014, 51% of respondents said that procurement led the agency remuneration process as opposed to 2011 – where only 43% said so.While this initially did not sit well with agencies, who tended to oppose the cost-cutting tendencies of procurement, the trend is slowly gaining favour with marketers.Madhav Nayak, the marketing director for fabric conditioners – Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand – at Unilever, said that he sees procurement getting involved in Unilever’s big spend markets earlier and earlier in the discussion of marketing strategies.“There’s a huge opportunity (in involving procurement early). What we don’t do well enough is talk about it on a three to four-year basis,” said Nayak (pictured, left).Have a view of where you want to go and involve procurement early, he advised, speaking on a panel at Marketing magazine’s Futurist Live 2014 conference held in December last year. Moderated by Sunil Yadav, president of Amplifi at Dentsu Aegis Network, the discussion revolved around the impact of the increasing involvement of procurement in marketing.(Read other discussions that went on at Futurist Live:The Futurist Live 2014: Branding, e-commerce, procurement and more [VIDEO]Cut the jargon, let’s just call it growth)Ideally, marketing plays a big role in agenda setting and can influence many stakeholders, including procurement, said Nayak.“Procurement can be an ally. One important thing that we should realise is that cost is as important to marketing as it is to procurement. Do we have procurement partners today who are looking at where the costs are, where the leakages are and where we can save money?”However, DDB’s Asia Pacific chairman John Zeigler (pictured, right) warned against disappearing into a procurement-driven world where cost-effectiveness drives the agency relationship – and ultimately, the work for the client.At present, agencies are already facing a talent drain as client-side roles prove a stronger lure for agency staffers, especially with clients being able to offer more attractive pay packages.“I asked my team, asking if anyone was happy to do what they are doing now for half their salary. No one raised up their hand. The reality is that there is no balance in general. With the way things are going, agency staff are working hard for more time. But there will come a breaking point,” Zeigler said.“We lose a lot of people to the client-side of the business, where they can get paid on average 40-70% more per month.“If you’re just talking to your media agency about efficiency and media spend, or just being creative, that lack of connectivity will kill the possibility of significant change.”