Agencies hit with ‘mindless’ form filling as panel flags lack of skills in marketing procurement
A lack of marketing procurement expertise is causing agencies to fill out “mindless” multi-page forms which often do not relate to the services that are being pitched for, according to industry experts.
Jason Penrose, principal consultant at Jamecam Consulting, told a panel discussion that the bulk of Australian firms “do not have a marketing procurement function” with their procurement teams lacking an understanding of how marketing operations work.
The result is Request for Proposals (RFP) to agencies that barely differ from RFPs sent to agencies handling other functions.
He told The Source New Biz breakfast panel this week: “In a lot of procurement functions that aren’t so savvy in the marketing space, they simply roll out a template. They may change a couple of sentences and the statement of requirement, change the date and out it goes. It will be a 50-page RFP that will look the same as the one they sent out for travel the previous month.
Our company is an offender, but if it’s any consolation, we don’t like it either ! Our research agencies are also required to complete a form (admittedly, only one page) for every project. We assume that our marketing and research professionals haven’t already negotiated on price and that someone in procurement – with little to no knowledge – is able to do a better job at that negotiation. It also assumes that (i) our agencies aren’t savvy to this practice and are subtly raising their prices to account for the additional form-filling-in head hour wastage as well as (ii) giving them a lever to negotiate their price back down to their original price-point so that procurement folk can pat themselves on the back for their good work. Please procurement, give us all a break.