The Buyer's Toolkit

An Easy-to-Use Approach for Effective Buying

Jonathan O'Brien

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780749479824
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Operations
• Index: Business

In order to buy well it is important to understand a few basic principles and apply a series of tools and approaches in given situations. The Buyer's Toolkit distills all the best practice tools for professional buying and negotiating into a simple, jargon-free framework that can be picked up and applied by anyone who buys. The book seeks to transform how individuals view and practise buying so they know when to influence a situation and what to do to buy well. The Buyer's Toolkit has a simple chapter layout, contains graphics and models, and a simple flow of tools through the book with an overarching framework, that glues them together. Covering different buying scenarios, understanding and defining the requirements, choosing the right deal and supplier, negotiation, managing the contract and the suppliers, fixing problems and sustainable buying, this comprehensive guide will help you boost your advantage as a buyer.

05

Step 1 – define the need

This chapter explores step 1 of the 5D power buying process and is concerned with clarifying and then defining the need behind what we are setting out to buy. It covers the three tools contained in step 1 – Define – and examines the start of any buying exercise with a simple tool to understand any overarching objectives that we must meet and clarify the degree to which we can influence the purchase. We will look at how good buying requires us to consult and engage with others and finally we will explore how we reach a final, agreed definition of our needs, and wants which will form the basis to guide what and how we buy.

Pathway question addressed in this chapter

1. 6 How do we define what we need and want?

Buying is fundamentally about satisfying a need, and maybe some wants through the exchange of value. For example, imagine we set out to buy a pair of shoes because our old ones have worn out and we need a new pair because we have an important interview coming up. The need is clear and the value is not having to turn up in bare feet and hopefully making a great first impression. Or maybe we might not need a pair of shoes as we have many already, but instead harbour a desire or want for yet another new pair of shoes by our favourite designer that we have just spotted in a shop window. The degree to which this is a need or want might be a conversation with ourselves, supported by lots of self-justification and later the subject of a domestic debate with a loved one. Nevertheless, owning and wearing the latest designer shoes might bring value by engendering confidence and lofty feelings of success and betterment that makes it all worthwhile.

Just buying shoes might be something we do without any conscious thought that our choice and action might be driven by formulation of needs and wants in our minds, but this will undoubtedly be happening in order to reach our decision. It is this fact that drives the world of marketing and selling to convince us of our need, even where we weren’t previously aware it existed.

Needs, wants and the value we get when we buy are specific to the purchase and our situation, but there may also be background factors that drive how we make our buying decision. For example, if we have little money, but need shoes for an interview, then our driving objective will be only to get shoes that are smart enough at the lowest cost, but if money is not really a constraint and instead making a fashion statement every time we walk outside is our goal, then our guiding objective will be different.

Finally, our buying decision might be one where we need to engage others before we buy. Others may need a say in what gets bought or could provide helpful advice and knowledge to help us. Buying a new pair of shoes might seem a solitary pursuit, and perhaps so, but if they are new school shoes being bought by a parent then there may be an expectation that the shoes would be appropriate for school. The child may find he or she has some choice, but only amongst the styles the parent deems acceptable. Here, both the child and parent have their own individual needs and wants, and expectations of value they are seeking, for the purchase. These may not be one and the same. The child desiring a pair of bright yellow steel toe capped boots in order to look different might find this being tempered by a more conforming parent. What gets bought in the end is born out of discussion, debate, challenge and ultimately a merging, alignment and agreement of new ‘consolidated needs and wants’, eg black shoes that are a bit ‘boot-like’. All of this is about meeting the overall objective, which might be ‘best value for money’.

Perhaps this may sound familiar but I wonder if you have ever stopped to think about all the things that happen when we buy shoes and how we arrive at our buying choice. Shoes are a personal example, but the dynamics behind our buying are the same for both personal and corporate buying. When we buy for an organization there are needs and wants to be satisfied, with many interested parties, each of which will hold opinions, perhaps about what we should buy and from whom, as well as overall objectives of the organization that need to be satisfied.

Good buying is therefore about being able to navigate through this to define the need and not just the need we start out thinking we have, but the need we come to finally determine as the right one (eg black boot-like shoes, not yellow). Step 1 of the power buying process contains the three key tools that work in concert to do this (see Figure 5.1), which are to clarify and define the objective, consult and engage, and finally define a single, consolidated and agreed definition of the specific needs and wants for our purchase.

Figure 5.1 Step 1 – Define

Step 1 – Define

A core thread that runs through step 1 is the degree to which we are able to question and challenge exactly what the underlying need is, to influence our guiding objectives and perhaps change the preconceptions of those who have an interest in what we buy. This can open up alternative and greater value, adding possibilities around what and how we buy. Organizations that buy what they always bought in the way they always bought it, will always get what they’ve always got!

The opportunity for better buying often lies in something as simple as asking: ‘Why?’ Recently, and back to our shoe example, I found myself in a shoe shop having a discussion about what I felt was the real need my teenage son should be focusing on. While attempting to find new ways to try and make my point understood, I overheard another father making it very clear he wanted a traditional shoe for his son and anything using modern materials was rejected immediately. The assistant attempted to suggest that some of the synthetic materials were more mainstream and provided better and safer grip, were more durable and water resistant but this didn’t seem to land with the father who insisted ‘that’s what I’ve always had so that’s what we want’, while his disengaged son stared into the distance. Right there is one of the main culprits behind poor buying. ‘Because that is what we have always bought’, along with ‘because the drawing or specification says so’, ‘because someone said so’, ‘I didn’t know there was another way’ and ‘I didn’t really think about it’ are all beliefs or states of mind that can stand in our way. Add to this the fact that if there are lots of people who have an interest in what we are buying, they may have different agendas, ideas and interests – whether obvious or not. Finance people might prefer lowest cost, engineers might gravitate towards the best specification, and so on.

Therefore, the theme that runs through the three tools in this chapter, and indeed the entire process, is considering how we might do it differently, secure more value and take others with us on that journey. To be good at buying, you need to be ready to challenge. If you can do that you will be able to buy really well.

Tool 1 – define objective

Purpose – to determine the overall need, to gath...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the author
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 01 How to buy well
• 02 The size of the prize
• 03 What stops us being good at this?
• 04 The 5D Power Buying Process
• 05 Step 1 – define the need
• 06 Step 2 – discover our position
• 07 Step 3 – determine how to buy
• 08 Step 4 – Securing the best deal
• 09 Step 5 – delivery: ensuring we get what we agreed
• 10 Making power buying a success
• Appendix
• Glossary
• References
• Index
• Backcover