Sales staff who sell the product and make the company earn money can get promoted faster than the others.
Can purchasing staff who have quite big impact of product pricing and consequently success of selling products compete with sales staff in this race?
“earn when you buy it” is an expression which is used a lot in the daily life of commerce. It means that if you can buy a product lower than its market price, you can make more profit when you sell it.
For the companies which sell finished goods such as car dealers are relatively more easy to apply above expression. But manufacturers which generally buy semifinished or raw material have to keep the price of their finished goods in competitive range by managing price of material, labor , fixed costs,..etc.
When we take into consideration that approximately %40 of product cost is materials, importance of purchasing department in this process shows itself here.
Purchasing department applies direct influence on the performance, cost and profit of company. Many small and middle range companies can not utilize the assets in order to run purchasing and logistic departments effectively or since they are focused on their main activities , they can not put enough effort for developing those kind of departments.
Head of firm or executive managers usually pays more attention the words of people who are more close to them or have ability to persuade them positively.
At this point Sales staff have a clear advantage. Since they gain a lot of experience while presenting the product which they sell , they can use this presentation skills when they have conversation with their managers.
Logistic or purchasing staff play passive listener role in the meetings due to nature of their position. As a result, this leads them behind the sales staff, because, they could not improve their presentation skills.
As a matter of fact, purchasing departments create expenses and bosses naturally like incomes rather then expenses. This also brings an extra disadvantage to purchasing dep. However, if they can show the savings hidden in the procurements which they do, they will get the promotions what they deserve in the company.
