Can I use social media in procurement and supply chain?, Tim Hughes

When Adam Gray and I started DLA Ignite we had a clear vision on how we were going to change the world, which is very much alive today. This vision is that social media can change the way that business works.

We know that social media has changed the world, in terms of society and in terms of the way we do business. But over the last 5 years, running our own business we have proven that social media (with client after client) can transform the internal processes of a business.

It's worth noting that transformation means we have stripped out cost and made companies more efficient and effective. They are able to do more for less.

I get social can transform sales - I have read about social selling

When I wrote my first book, "social selling - techniques to influence buyers and changemakers" I explained how a business can use social media to create commercial interactions. Here at DLA Ignite we have helped transform thousands of businesses to use social media as their main sales methodology. From prospecting to closing, these business use social to find leads, accelerate their pipeline and close business.

Transforming your business with social media

Back in 2018, we found that our social selling methodology was reliable, predictable and scalable. Every time we ran it, we got a 30% increase in revenue and a 40% reduction in the sales cycle.

It was at that point that we created, built and launched, Social Human Resources and Social Marketing.

This wasn't about taking your existing analogue processes and laying digital on top, we completely redesigned HR and Marketing for the digital age. A complete ground up process re-engineering and business model.

Social Procurement and Social Supply Chain

Before I was CEO of DLA Ignite, I was on the UK Board of a US Software company and amongst other things they sold, Supply Chain software. This role took me across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and enriched me in terms of travel and the number of countries I visited, the people I meant, but also, I was immersed in the business issues that people have in procurement and supply chain.

Social in procurement and supply chain, really?

Up to this point, if you talk to people in procurement and supply chain "social media" is dismissed. Mainly as people don't understand what it means to be "social". But also because social media is seen as the domain of sales and we have had the usual battle lines between "sales" and "procurement" have been drawn for tens of years.

If you talk to somebody in procurement and said, let's see if social can help you. Most people in procurement will say

"as soon as I put my head above the parapet I will be inundated with salespeople pitching at me."

How about if we changed all that around?

(But note, as a salesperson, if I could go to LinkedIn and find, quickly the people that are buying my product and service, would that be great? )

Procurement people buying on LinkedIn, a case study

Here is Mario Bruggmann he works at Jakob Müller Holding AG and he has set up his LinkedIn profile very differently.

He is telling people he is buying and why wouldn't you if you wanted to find more suppliers, that might have a better price and a high quality?

You will also note the yellow banner #Iambuying, this is something he has created himself and Mario is hoping that other buyers take this up.

He is also using "key words" in his Linkedin profile, so that if people are selling the products he wants to buy, then they should find him.

He is also using the hashtags #socialprocurement #iambuying and #wearebuying

What is Mario buying?

Mario has posted on his profile, details of what he is looking to buy. To look at one of these posts in more detail.

Very similar to a procurement post in something like the European Journal (OJEC)

It details the requirements at a high level and provides a photo, Mario is also using certain hashtags so these requirements can be found.

His "call to action" asks for suppliers to respond and he asks for referrals to be tagged.

In a recent blog, Mario stated

Social procurement is that simple.

Mario goes onto say "

"Modern social media platforms' algorithms might even learn and bring the right posts straight to their feed."

Which is a great point as platforms are currently biased for selling, rather than buying.

Mario concludes his blog with this statement

To conclude with a statement from Mario

"But why are buyers not widely using social media for their supplier searches already?"

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