Business Requirements in Procurement: RAQSCI 2.0
I remember the day I met the RAQSCI framework to evaluate business requirements from stakeholders toward procurement. Regulatory, Assurance of Supply, Quality, Service, Cost, and Innovation – I know it by heart.
It was a mystery because, as a coach for procurement & category strategy at that point in time, I struggled by myself to understand how to apply it in practice. Building dialog with procurement stakeholders, especially with the top management, was hard work. My clients and I often got lost in translation between the business and procurement.
A couple of years later (after 10.000+ category strategies and 1.000+ interviews with stakeholders), I discovered the full beauty and challenge of that concept.
If you would ask me today what is the biggest problem with procurement over the last decades – it is hitting the wrong mark. Top-down “savings” targets often do not align with the business requirements for categories and suppliers. I barely heard senior stakeholders in categories and top suppliers talking about cost reductions. Serving unbalanced business requirements is mission impossible, and of the main reasons procurement never got that extended trust.
It took me a decade to understand how to:
a) LISTEN, b) IDENTIFY, c) DE-CONFLICT, d) PRIORITIZE, e) BALANCE, f) VALIDATE, and g) ADDRESS business requirements with appropriate procurement strategies. I can tell; it is a rare skill.
Extending the RAQSCI Model
There are two exciting insights I would like to share with you:
1) We at Cirtuo have recently needed to extend the RAQSCI model in our Guided Strategy Creation Technology for SUSTAINABILITY, DIVERSITY, and BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT. I never thought that RAQSCI would become RAQSCISUDBD. I love it! Regarding “Business Development / BD,” I recently met with a few advanced procurement organizations which understood how to leverage contextualized procurement intel to support business and help to build the top line proactively.
2) Cascading of business requirements and de-conflicting it top-down and bottom-up is a new holy grail of procurement. Procurement strategy, category & supplier strategy become a side effect of well-balanced business requirements at all levels. Top management and middle management get a moderation of their own expectations driven by procurement. That is how to enter the extended trust and get that seat at the table. Not as a firefighter but as a business partner.
Don’t hesitate to contact me to discuss how Cirtuo can help your teams successfully leverage a RAQSCISUDBD model.
