Nicely put. Peter is one of those who takes a broad view – looking at how procurement fits into the big picture in the business world and not afraid to face reality.

It seems obvious what his answer to his own question would be. Procurement people should avoid the temptation to build castle walls around themselves based on notions of a spurious kind of professionalism.

Real professionalism means offering your skills and support while being aware when and how others can take responsibility for themselves.

Accepting that procurement is something many colleagues undertake, and that this is unlikely to change dramatically, is the reality.

It’s up to procurement professionals to make clear what they can to do help, while convincing others that their skills and experience are crucial to success.

Saving money is one of the traditional objectives of procurement so well done to those universities who have achieved substantial savings.

Hopefully, however, this will have been done in a way that has not damaged the academic side of university operations. That is the kind of thing that sometimes gives procurement a bad name.

That seems about right. In today’s world of the e-procurement, e-auctions, e-this and e-that, the business of business remains the same. There’s just more information, being transmitted more quickly to more people.

So the basics of procurement remain the same: buying most effectively – ie the right purchases of the right quality at the right price. All the rest is refinement and elaboration of that basic formula.

Absolutely. It always seems incredible when major functions such as procurement and finance – or procurement and HR – fail to communicate. Why is this? One can only put it down to the old “silo mentality”. People just want to batten down the hatches and get on with it.

This can’t be good. It’s not productive and not good for business. Maybe procurement people can start to break down the barriers?