Enterprise prospecting : Procurement Directors
Enterprise procurement directors are an interesting target for several products & services
5/18/20265 min read
Cold Calling Procurement Directors
Chief Procurement Officer, Head of Sourcing, Procurement Director, Merchandise Director...
So many different job titles for essentially the same role: the person responsible for purchasing.
These are interesting personas to target within large corporations and mid-sized companies, particularly for certain types of products and services.
Because yes, cold calling still works.
Let's take a look at how this industry operates and where the opportunities lie.
I. Which Procurement Directors Should You Target in Which Industries?
Procurement Directors can be found across many different industries, particularly where supplier spending is significant, purchasing volumes are high, and procurement plays a strategic role.
We're talking about manufacturing, retail, energy, automotive, telecommunications, banking, insurance, transportation, aerospace, and many more.
When it comes to indirect procurement (software, IT, consulting, cloud, marketing, fleet management, cybersecurity, etc.), you'll find plenty of these professionals in banks, insurance companies, IT services companies, and large service corporations.
Many Procurement Directors also work in the public and semi-public sectors. However, this is generally less interesting for us, as their role often revolves around managing public tenders (unless, of course, you're selling a solution specifically designed for this market).
Be careful, though: there are many different types of Procurement Directors, with very different areas of responsibility.
If you don't target them properly based on your product and the specific needs it addresses, you risk speaking to plenty of Procurement Directors whose responsibilities have nothing to do with what you're selling.
This will make prospecting considerably more difficult.
See here for more information on how to define your target audience and build a high-quality prospecting list.
Here are a few examples:
Oil & Gas Procurement Director: Focused exclusively on energy and fuel purchasing.
Indirect Procurement Director: Responsible for IT, consulting, cloud services, marketing, office supplies, and other indirect purchases.
General Procurement Director: Similar responsibilities to indirect procurement.
Merchandise Director: Retail sector.
Fresh Produce Procurement Director: Retail sector, with its own specific purchasing requirements.
Fresh Food Procurement Director: Retail sector.
Non-Merchandise Procurement Director: Focused on indirect procurement.
II. How Difficult Are They to Reach?
Having prospecting experience with this audience across several different industries, I'd rate them as upper-intermediate to advanced in terms of difficulty.
I wouldn't classify them as extremely difficult, as some other personas are even harder to reach.
Generally speaking, C-level executives in large corporations and mid-sized companies (and sometimes even SMEs) are particularly challenging to cold-call. The more frequently a persona gets cold-called, the harder it becomes to reach them.
On top of that, Procurement Directors tend to have very busy schedules.
That said, in the vast majority of cases, I believe it's still possible to book between 1 and 4 meetings per day with them.
See here for more information on how to succeed at B2B cold calling.
To stand a chance of having a meaningful conversation with them, you'll need very short, direct opening lines. Always approach them as a professional equal.
Your pitch should follow the same principle: keep it concise, get straight to the point, and establish the market fit immediately.
However, some segments can be easier to prospect than others.
I won't go into too much detail, but I once came across a particular segment that seemed significantly less well-served than others when it came to a certain type of software.
With this segment, I could regularly book at least 2 meetings per day, sometimes as many as 4.
See here how to build an effective cold-calling pitch.
On the other hand, some segments can be more difficult to approach, or simply operate differently.
For example, procurement in the mass retail sector has undergone major transformations in recent years:
Centralization of purchasing through large multi-brand buying organizations, designed to strengthen their bargaining power against suppliers.
As a result, there are fewer prospects than you might initially expect, because purchasing responsibilities across entire retail sectors have been concentrated into a maximum of around five major buying organizations.
Of course, prospecting is still possible, but the addressable market is much smaller, and you'll encounter more objections in this area.
Procurement Directors aren't necessarily the most attractive audience for cold email prospecting, simply because there are only a few thousand or perhaps a few tens of thousands of them.
However, multichannel prospecting is still very interesting for amplifying your cold-calling results and generating a significant number of additional meetings.
See here for more information on B2B email prospecting.
III. What Products and Services Can You Sell to Them?
Procurement Directors are particularly interesting targets for companies selling complete Source-to-Pay (S2P) suites or more specialized solutions covering parts of the process, such as Procure-to-Pay (P2P), Supplier Relationship Management (SRM), Spend Analytics, or Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM).
Large corporations have often developed their own custom solutions in this area. Others rely on procurement modules integrated into their ERP systems.
Mid-sized companies aren't always equipped with dedicated procurement solutions, although some also use the procurement modules included in their ERP systems.
Specialized software can often help companies save money compared with ERP procurement modules, which can be extremely expensive.
There are countless software solutions available, some specifically designed for particular industries and their unique challenges.
Here are the main categories.
A) Source-to-Pay (S2P)
These solutions cover almost the entire procurement lifecycle:
Sourcing.
Tender management.
Supplier selection.
Contract management.
Procurement.
Approval workflows.
Invoicing.
Payments.
Analytics.
Supplier management.
S2P platforms provide comprehensive enterprise procurement suites.
The average contract value can reach several hundred thousand euros per year, and sometimes even one or several million euros annually.
B) Procure-to-Pay (P2P)
P2P solutions cover a more operational part of the process.
They're focused specifically on purchase requests and approvals, automated purchase order and invoice management, as well as payments.
They're generally less strategic than full Source-to-Pay solutions, often faster to implement, and less expensive.
Annual contracts typically amount to several tens of thousands of euros.
C) Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)
SRM solutions aim to improve the management of relationships with suppliers, service providers, and business partners.
Typical functionalities include:
Triple-net cost calculations and supplier performance tracking.
Centralization of all supplier communications and interactions, much like a CRM.
Supplier compliance checks and risk management.
Supplier and service provider scoring.
D) Spend Analytics
These software solutions primarily focus on providing a visual representation of company spending.
They allow procurement teams to break down expenses by purchasing category and supplier, identify off-contract spending, detect anomalies, and uncover potential cost savings.
E) Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM)
These solutions focus exclusively on contract management throughout the entire lifecycle:
Contract drafting.
Contract signing.
Renewals.
Billing and invoicing.
F) IT Services Companies & Consulting: Avoid This Target
When prospecting for an IT services company (ESN) that supplies freelance developers, CTOs and CIOs will often tell you to contact Procurement Directors instead.
This is a trap.
IT Procurement Directors are primarily administrative and operational decision-makers in the vast majority of cases.
If a CTO or CIO is interested in working with an IT services company or hiring a particular technical profile, they'll ask Procurement to bring the supplier into the process.
It's therefore often completely pointless to prospect Procurement Directors for IT services companies or other types of consulting.
They don't make the actual business decisions themselves.
The business teams are always the ones deciding what they need, which makes perfect sense. Procurement professionals aren't technical experts and generally won't know which technical profiles or providers should be prioritized.
Conclusion
Procurement departments are an interesting target audience, particularly for solutions directly related to their responsibilities: contracts, supplier management, negotiations, spend analytics, and so on.
However, they're generally not the right target for IT services companies or consulting firms.
It's often possible to book between 1 and 4 meetings per day through cold calling Procurement Directors, even though they're certainly not the easiest audience to reach.
If you're interested in launching a prospecting campaign targeting Procurement Directors, feel free to send me an email on louis@outbound-machine.com