CPO Circle is a peer-to-peer community, facilitated by Accenture, which brings together senior executives ultimately responsible for sourcing and procurement strategy and execution.
Our latest survey focuses on the role of the chief procurement officer, examining the backgrounds, challenges and career paths of CPOs. This report explores the findings in more detail, attempts to paint a portrait of CPOs today and offers insight into where they are headed tomorrow.
Introduction
Previous Accenture research1 has shown that winning companies—those that outperformed their industry for six years following the recession of the early 1990s—take a bold path. While remaining attentive to the current cost structure, they keep their eyes on the broader prize: building sustainable future value for the company and its shareholders. Further Accenture research2 into the characteristics of high performance through procurement has shown that companies that successfully position procurement as a strategic capability outperform the competition.
C-level executives in today’s business environment are living in unprecedented times. While most seasoned leaders have lived through economic volatility in the past, the current scale of the crisis in global markets has resulted in dual performance pressures—on the individual and the organization. Potentially tasked with balancing innovation, growth and cost containment, procurement mastery is not for the faint hearted.
With the help of the CPO Circle community, Accenture decided to investigate just how the role of chief procurement officers is evolving. The results begin to paint a striking portrait of the current generation of CPOs.
Survey demographics
Our survey findings are based on 78 respondents who matched our stringent reporting and leadership qualification criteria. They were drawn from companies headquartered in a wide range of geographies. A little over two-thirds—68 percent—came from companies headquartered in Europe. North America accounted for 21 percent of the responses. Asia Pacific was represented by 9 percent of respondents and the remaining 3 percent were from Africa and Brazil.
Respondents were from companies representing a diverse range of industries. At 15 percent, the consumer products sector was best represented, followed by communications (telecommunications) at 13 percent and industrial equipment and insurance at 12 percent. Other industries included utilities—9 percent—energy, automotive and travel and transportation—8 percent—and banking and pharmaceuticals and medical products at 6 percent. Representatives from retail, forest products, metals and mining, chemicals, capital markets, electronics and high tech, media and entertainment and health providers (private and government) also completed the survey .
Respondents were drawn from organizations with a wide range of annual corporate revenues. Twenty-seven percent of respondents came from companies with global corporate revenues of $10 billion or more during the fiscal year 2008. The majority, 55 percent were from companies of between $1 and $10 billion revenues. An additional 5 percent had revenues of $500 million to $1 billion and 13 percent stated their company revenues were under $500 million.
In terms of responsibilities, the majority of respondents, 83 percent, had company or enterprise-wide responsibilities. Ten percent applied to both geographic region responsibilities and business unit responsibilities. Four percent of respondents indicated a corporate area, group-wide or shared services responsibility. However, as identified in a qualifying question, each respondent was the most senior executive ultimately responsible for procurement within his or her individual company.
Career characteristics
Initial survey results contain interesting insights into the path to and from the CPO role, with responses showing there is a greater degree of movement and variety than we have found in previous research.