Members of the purchasing profession are seeing a lot of changes and challenges these days. There's the technology curve to progress, industry consolidations, higher material costs and the lack of resources available in many companies. But at the end of the day, more than three-quarters of buyers (77%) say they would not change their chosen career if given the chance, an increase of 7% from a year ago and a sign that the industry is gaining acceptance.

"I just absolutely love my job," says the director of purchasing at a Midwest manufacturer in the most recent Profile of the Purchasing Professional survey, taken annually by Purchasing to check the pulse of this vibrant and changing industry. "At times I feel guilty, as if I am a professional athlete getting to do what I enjoy doing."

Another buyer said he "loves the interaction with such a variety of people and the constant challenge to continue to make improvements."

"Unlike sales, the improvements in performance/efficiencies we achieve are valued and recognized in purchasing," says a buyer at Wisconsin manufacturing firm. "We're not measured on our numbers only—like salespeople are. But, like sales, it is varied, exciting and challenging."

For example, when asked which part of their job gives them the most satisfaction, the overwhelming majority of buyers cited negotiations and cost savings as the areas they felt most satisfied with. Responses around problem solving and team management were also very popular. The Lean/JIT movement came through from the buyers who cited inventory reduction as their most satisfying responsibility—and perhaps most quantifiable.

Some buyers were very specific about the projects from which they gained the most satisfaction. "The successful recruitment and start-up of a new supplier to replace a failed one," said one buyer. Another, more competitive buyer, said he gained the most satisfaction out of "securing chemicals during this time of force majeure when my competitors cannot."

One buyer summed it up simply by saying he received the most satisfaction from "making the impossible happen."

Biggest gripes. But it's not all warm and fuzzies in today's procurement organization. Many buyers still feel the industry is not given the respect it deserves and financial compensation is still a major issue with buyers.

"[Purchasing] generally doesn't have the visibility to top management," says one survey respondent. "It's not a strongly established career path to general/executive management."

Another procurement professional echoed those sentiments, saying: "Our company is not aware of the impact purchasing can have and we have no real control on spend. There is no understanding of integrated product teams."

When asked what the biggest problems facing their jobs today, the most often seen responses were: price of materials, controlling costs, and finding adequate supply. No real surprises there. But some of the other responses to that question included:

• Lack of standard language among high-tech electronic manufacturers
• Age/sex discrimination among prospective employers
• The inequality of how men and women are promoted

Communication problems showed up a lot on the survey as a major challenge. "Our biggest headache is business units that are reluctant to allow procurement to source their products/services," says one respondent. "Communication is lacking throughout the department on company activities that relate to management of my categories."

Another buyer complains that departments are doing their own negotiations and are not taking full advantage of volume buying. "Communications between departments has to flourish before this can happen.

Lack of resources is a perennial complaint among buyers and it again surfaced in the 2005 survey. One buyer said his biggest challenge is "Transitioning to a strategic organization equipped with resources and skills to perform" while another said, "Not having the budget or time required to implement programs that could significantly increase the impact of purchasing in our organization."

And a handful of others simply said there aren't enough hours in the day to get everything done.

Education and job history. In 2005, 73% of buyers said they have a four-year college degree, up 5% from the year before. Again, the overwhelming majority (57%) said their degree is in business, followed by liberal arts and engineering. More purchasing professionals have advanced degrees today (29.2%) compared with the 2004 survey, when only 22% of respondents did. More than 88% of buyers either have a CPM or CPIM certification in 2005, a dramatic increase from the 2004 report.

Some buyers feel too much emphasis is put on degrees. One chemicals buyer, for example, said her major challenge was, "Changing jobs and not having a degree. The years of experience don't really seem to matter. As long as you have a degree, that is what employers want. They don't seem to care what the degree is in. The focus should also be on years of experience, not only degrees."

The majority of buyers responding to the survey have been in purchasing for more than 20 years, but 43% said they have been with their current company less than five years, an indication of the job shopping going on in the market today.

Forty percent of survey respondents said they got into purchasing as a deliberate choice for their long-term career. Another 27% said they were assigned to the function by their company and 22% said they chose purchasing as a step towards higher management opportunities.

"I saw it as an opportunity for a career change from the manufacturing industry to more secure employment with a job opening in contracts/purchasing in a quasi municipality," said one survey respondent.

"It was a way to reinvent myself from a marketing product manager," says another survey respondent.

A buyer at a Midwest manufacturer said he was the project manager in the R&D and purchasing was having difficulty getting materials to R&D on time. "So I took it upon myself to obtain the needed materials. Next thing I knew I was in the purchasing department, assigned as purchasing agent," he says.

Titles and responsibilities. Industry titles are changing, but most survey respondents say their title is purchasing manager or supervisor. However, the percentage using this title dropped from 36% in 2004 to 27% in 2005. The senior buyer title was down quite a bit as well, with only 12% claiming it in 2005, down from 21% in 2004's survey.

So what other titles are increasing in use? In the 2005 survey, 20% reported being a buyer or purchasing agent, up significantly from the 8% that claimed that title in the 2004 survey. The "other" selection provided a wider variety in the 2005 survey as well: commodity manager, vendor relationship manager, corporate sourcing and contract agent, project manager, and global sourcing titles were among the most often cited.

The majority of buyers said the term "sourcing" best describes their job responsibilities, followed by "procurement" and "supply management." When it comes to non-purchasing responsibilities, the highest-ranked duty was inventory, followed by production and quality. In the 2004 report, production and sales were the most often cited non-purchasing responsibilities.

More buyers are responsible for maintaining inventory levels today—56.4% said they were in the 2005 survey, up from only 36% in the previous year's poll. And about half of those polled said they are responsible for buying freight or transportation services in their organization.

There continues to be a wide variety of reporting structures in the industry, with purchasing professionals reporting up through a variety of organizations including operations, supply chain, production, finance and plant management. Several survey respondents said procurement reports to the CIO in their company.

Fewer buyers said they meet daily with top management in 2005 than in 2004, but the percentage that meets with members of the finance organization daily, dramatically increased from 2% to 25%. This may be a reflection of the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley and procurement's role in finance.

Not surprisingly, procurement pros are traveling more today. More than 40% say they travel between six and 20 times per year to either investigate suppliers' factories (70%), negotiate with suppliers or attend a trade show. Countries cited most often include China, Mexico, Taiwan, Germany and India.

Controlling and globalizing spend. The average percentage of spend on long-term contracts today is 38.8%. That is a slight increase from the 2004 poll that found 37% of spend on long-term contracts. Fifty-three percent of buyers say the level of buying on contract is up today compared with five years ago while 25% say their on-contract spend is about the same. And a surprising 11% say less of their spend is on contract today than five years ago.

Buyers are leveraging pcards as a way of controlling spend, with 49% of those polled saying their department uses them. However, that number is a slight dip from the 52% that said they used pcards in the 2004 poll.

An overwhelming majority (85.3%) of buyers said they are taking steps to consolidate their spend with fewer suppliers, but 72% also said they prefer to have more than one source for a given item. These numbers show a good balance of strategy and risk management permeating the industry.

Supplier rating and measurement is an increasing priority for purchasing professionals according to the story. Nearly 70% of buyers have a system in place for rating suppliers' performance, up a full seven points from the survey a year ago.

Almost all (94%) buyers say their percentage of total imports has increased in recent years and 70% of survey respondents are buying globally, citing a variety of materials as targets for global buying: plastics, chemicals, tools, castings, sheet metal, fasteners, PC board, etc.