{"id":1365,"date":"2025-10-13T19:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T17:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reducio.com\/how-to-develop-skills-in-your-purchasing-department\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T08:09:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T07:09:26","slug":"how-to-develop-skills-in-your-purchasing-department","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reducio.com\/en\/how-to-develop-skills-in-your-purchasing-department\/","title":{"rendered":"How to develop skills in your Purchasing department?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"et_pb_section_0 et_pb_section et_section_regular et_flex_section\">\n<div class=\"et_pb_row_0 et_pb_row et_flex_row\">\n<div class=\"et_pb_column_0 et_pb_column et-last-child et_flex_column et_pb_css_mix_blend_mode_passthrough et_flex_column_24_24 et_flex_column_24_24_tablet et_flex_column_24_24_phone\">\n<div class=\"et_pb_text_0 et_pb_text et_pb_bg_layout_light et_pb_module et_flex_module\"><div class=\"et_pb_text_inner\"><h2><strong>Within the Purchasing department, skills development is essential to enable employees to effectively manage their tasks.<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The acquisition and development of the 'skills' necessary for the role of<strong> buyer <\/strong>is a key success factor for a Purchasing department.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It is obviously necessary to identify the skills needed to enable their acquisition, and to offer employees career development opportunities that allow them to deploy their talents.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The 9 key skills of a buyer<\/h3>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\">\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><strong>Key Skills<\/p>\n<td>Description<\/td>\n<p><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>1. Leadership &amp; Management<\/td>\n<td>Listening, influence, conflict management, delegation, motivation, organization<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>2. Process &amp; Project<\/td>\n<td>Persuasion, languages, creativity, project management, risk management, regulatory compliance, cultural adaptability<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>3. Customer Expertise<\/td>\n<td>Understanding of objectives, processes, and constraints; ability to develop specifications<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>4. Market Expertise<\/td>\n<td>Rapid acquisition of new technologies or standards, benchmarking, networking, knowledge of key players including their strengths and weaknesses<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>5. Technical Expertise<\/td>\n<td>Dependent on the sector and products<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>6. Analysis<\/td>\n<td>Cost structure, use of internal and external databases, purchasing portfolio, use of IT tools (ERP, office automation, internet)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>7. Negotiation<\/td>\n<td>Preparation, behavior, SWOT analysis, tactics, strategy, persuasion<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>8. Tender Expertise<\/td>\n<td>Mastery of operating procedures, e-RFx tools, influence, legal matters, finance<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>9. SRM and Category Management<\/td>\n<td>Purchasing policy, time and priority management, dashboards and indicators, TCO, conflict resolution, motivation, creativity<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/figure>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h3>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h3>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The 70:20:10 model of skills development<\/h3>\n<p>This model originated in the mid-1990s in the work of Morgan McCall, Robert Eichinger and Michael Lombardo of the Center for Creative Leadership in North Carolina.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n<div class=\"et_pb_image_0 et_pb_image et_pb_module et_flex_module\"><span class=\"et_pb_image_wrap\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/reducio.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/developpement-des-competences-achats.png\" alt=\"Le mod\u00e8le 70 : 20 : 10 de d\u00e9veloppement des comp\u00e9tences\" width=\"496\" height=\"472\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reducio.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/developpement-des-competences-achats.png 496w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 496px) 100vw, 496px\" class=\"wp-image-696\" \/><\/span><\/div>\n\n<div class=\"et_pb_text_1 et_pb_text et_pb_bg_layout_light et_pb_module et_flex_module\"><div class=\"et_pb_text_inner\"><p>A book published by Eichinger and Lombardo in 1996 lays the foundations of the model as follows:<\/p>\n<p><em>Successful managers attribute the acquisition of their skills to:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u2022 70% of difficult missions and professional challenges<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u2022 20% their professional network, mainly their superior<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u2022 10% traditional education and their readings<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Regularly, every year or two, a review is conducted with the <strong>director\/head of the Purchasing department,<\/strong> in order to jointly determine a development plan, which aligns the skills to be developed (for example: negotiating internationally, or developing leadership\u2026), the necessary steps, the missions that will allow the implementation of this skill (with success indicators), and the training if necessary.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">The career plan<\/h3>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">After a few years in the same position, it is wise to \"push\" a buyer towards other positions internally, or at least towards other missions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">These career development opportunities are important for renewing relationships with suppliers, which can create new momentum. As the tools and technical aspects of the profession evolve very rapidly, it is crucial to be able to renew available resources and skills. <\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00a9 Reducio (with the participation of Qwesta) \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.qwesta.fr\/informations\/comment-developper-les-competences-dans-votre-service-achat-\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Link to the Qwesta platform<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Reducio invites you to take a few minutes to assess the quality of your company's purchasing organization for FREE: <a href=\"https:\/\/reducio-organisation.qwesta.fr\/questionnaire-mb\/c10e7f6f474e3e9c3110befcc412aa16\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">access the diagnostic<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-evaluate-the-quality-of-the-purchasing-organization-in-your-company"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reducio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reducio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reducio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reducio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reducio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/reducio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1366,"href":"https:\/\/reducio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1365\/revisions\/1366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reducio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reducio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reducio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reducio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}