Reports & Guides

WFA makes Global Marketing Procurement 2020 and Beyond report available to download

Originally published exclusively for WFA members, the Global Marketing Procurement 2020 and Beyond report is now available as an open access document for all interested marketing procurement professionals and businesses to download.

Combining the strength of the World Federation of Advertisers network, which brings together over 1,300 marketing procurement practitioners across the globe, with Tina Fegent’s expertise in building marketing procurement functions and capabilities over the past 25 years, the WFA’s report follows the publication of WFA’s Project Spring and shows the current state of marketing procurement. It also identifies trends in structures and ways of working, investigates the career path of the function and provides some food for thought of how the discipline could evolve beyond 2020.

The report includes information on the current scope and categorisation of marketing by procurement, as well as an insight into the various ways of working and governance in marketing procurement. It also assesses the career path of marketing procurement, looking at diversity and inclusion, talent acquisition, training programs, talent retention and looks at the future of marketing procurement with emerging categories, in-housing strategies, AI and automation.

The report is now available to download HERE. Fill in the form via the link to access your free copy.

Ten highlights from the research

1. The role of marketing procurement has to be continually redefined as not to become obsolete. This was already highlighted in WFA’s Project Spring report based on initial data collected in 2018 and confirmed in this survey 2 years later. Gone are the days where marketing procurement practitioners were only involved to cut costs. Our respondent sample wants to drive value and work in partnership and be a true strategic partner of marketing. This is reflected in the visions and missions of the marketing procurement teams surveyed.
2. Marketing procurement practitioners are needed by their organisations and respondents cannot imagine a world without their function. For most, the number of marketing procurement practitioners will increase or remain the same as we saw evidence that procurement’s role during Covid-19 has been key.
3. There is not a single way to name the marketing procurement function, categorise the marketing spend or allocate the workload amongst team members. Each organisation has their own bespoke set-up taking into account multiple variables. Most of them are built without the help of an external consultant.
4. Marketing categories are constantly evolving: new ones appear, others become obsolete or must evolve and be merged or seen holistically with another area. Very few share rosters of preferred suppliers covering several marketing categories, some want this to change.
5. Marketing procurement practitioners are getting more involved in cross-functional team projects. They would be part of squads bringing various departments with different skill sets together to work on a project or reach for a common goal.
6. Procurement organisations do have to balance global v regional v local needs of their marketers. This balance is quite specific to their business, but the most common structures are split by marketing category or procurement tasks.
7. Marketing procurement practitioners usually fell into their current position, but are proud of their discovery of the discipline and see it as a good career move. Most tend to come from another procurement role; however, managers are increasingly willing to diversify their teams and keen to recruit from other backgrounds. Which reinforces the need to communicate around the function externally and make it more attractive to more diverse and possible new recruits.
8. Required and expected skills include transferable skills such as ‘leadership’, ‘commercial awareness’, ‘communication’ and ‘flexibility’. Gone are the days where you only needed some general procurement knowledge to get the job. This presents a great opportunity for anyone who hasn’t already been working in procurement before to be short-listed for a marketing procurement role.
9. Marketing procurement is seen as being different from the rest of the procurement categories. Training programs must evolve and be more specific to the marketing procurement needs. ‘Digital marketing’, ‘MarTech’ and ‘data management’ are areas where respondents feel they need better knowledge, as they see their involvement growing there.
10. There are loads of opportunities for marketing procurement to improve and/or broaden their range of services brought to the business e.g. by helping in-housing marketing services or embracing AI or e-sourcing to free up some time and overcome the current challenges of lacking of available resources and/or budget to hire them.