Legal Operations

The Procurement Dilemma: Should The Person Who Orders Office Supplies Also Order Technology?

If you leverage technology properly in your work, your organization will likely grow more productive.

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While everyone else was standing in line to see the new Avengers movie or reading the Mueller report trying to find some nugget of information upon which our president might have been indicted, somewhere there was a procurement manager trying to determine the best technology to meet the modern needs of a corporate legal department.

As a project manager, I’m all about efficiency. And cost-savings is rarely a bad thing, but there’s something inherently wrong about the guy or gal who orders paper clips identifying and buying technology solutions or vendor services. It has always rubbed me the wrong way.

Frankly, it does not make sense. I get that people who work in procurement departments are experts at administering RFIs and RFPs, and they typically are great negotiators as well. But we don’t call a plumber to fix an electrical problem, do we? And I’m pretty confident that procurement people would prefer not to be tasked with buying something that they do not fully understand either. Who wants to be put in a position to fail? That’s what typically happens when folks who don’t have enough information are put in a position to make buying decisions.

My friends in sales are likely to be annoyed by this, but they are partly to blame, too. In their zeal to sell, some salespeople will talk to anyone. In a prior life, I’ve answered my phone only to hear a sales person trying to sell me something wholly unrelated to my department.

Technology plays a critical role in most business operations. It is incredibly important to keep it in context. Business operations include the processes of doing the work and the people who work in the process. It’s not just a question of what technology is chosen, but also how technology and vendor services integrate and are implemented within a broader context. The point of course is to plan carefully the use of technology and ensure that it fits into the context of an organizations business needs and processes before making a purchase.

Here’s a few ideas on how to get started. First, get the right people to the table. Most software purchases begin with an enterprising staffer or manger who sees a need to automate a process. That does not mean they prepare a requisition and wait for the software to arrive. Get the IT, operations, and finance folks and other specialists involved. Perform a true needs assessment.

Second, make sure you are solving the right problem. A lot of companies make technology purchasing decisions in an effort to make people more efficient or productive. Experience shows software does not solve all problems. Before making any buying decision, leaders and operations people need to review existing processes and determine how the software or service fulfills a need or compliments the process.

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Next, survey existing technology assets. Examine technology that is already in place and make sure you’re not buying something that another business unit already has. Keep the IT people involved and try to avoid building silos of technology that may lead to poor and inefficient data and information management practices.

Additionally, it usually makes sense to find technology solutions that compliment existing systems. Many organizations buy software to solve a discreet problem only to find out afterwards that some important part of their process is not covered by the technology, or the tool does not integrate well with other systems.

I watched the hour-long Future of Work feature on Vice News this weekend. Amidst automated hamburger flippers, contract review machine learning programs, and robotic surgical tools, a few themes rang true. Computers are better at math, pattern matching, transactional work, and record keeping. Humans, however, have better problem-solving, communication, and judgment skills.

If you leverage technology properly in your work, your organization will likely grow more productive. But it’s necessary to make sure the right people are involved and they are using their best judgment and communication skills.

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Mike Quartararo

Mike Quartararo is the managing director of eDPM Advisory Services, a consulting firm providing e-discovery, project management and legal technology advisory and training services to the legal industry. He is also the author of the 2016 book Project Management in Electronic Discovery. Mike has many years of experience delivering e-discovery, project management, and legal technology solutions to law firms and Fortune 500 corporations across the globe and is widely considered an expert on project management, e-discovery and legal matter management. You can reach him via email at mquartararo@edpmadvisory.com. Follow him on twitter @edpmadvisory.

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