Congrats to P&G

When you really think about what it takes to manage the spend at a company like Procter & Gamble, it’s almost dizzying, given the array of products and brands they manufacture. P&G’s products are in every household and have been for a long time. When I was a child, I remember my mother using Ivory Soap. It was a white package with blue lettering on it. It was such a large bar that my mother once wrote P&G to make the soap where you could break it in half and have two smaller bars. I don’t know why I would remember this after so many years. Ivory is still in my household however it is liquid Ivory.

It is interesting to note that according to the story on P&G’s winning the Purchasing Medal of Professional Excellence, P&G’s 1,400 buyers are divided by category of spend with one manager. Division by category seems to have taken hold lately as many companies are reassigning buyers by category. Possibly it is because we keep hearing about risk factors and that is worked on and managed by categories.

When you walk through the aisles at the stores, you don’t look for P&G products; you buy by the product name: Ivory Liquid, Tide, Cheer and many others. I had to go check out my Actonel prescription that I had been taking for several years. At least since I fell off a platform and broke some stuff. With brand advertising these days, we buy by the name, not so much as who the manufacturer is. When in doubt on a product, certainly we look as to who makes it. P&G is a name we trust.

Reading the article about P&G is like reading a supply management text book. They are putting to use all the things you read about in articles and procedures. This clearly indicates good reason for receiving the 2008 Medal of Professional Excellence.

“Communication” is a word that flows through the article which definitely leads to success.

Congratulations to all of the 1,400 buyers at P&G in being the best.