Professional procurement skill sets are emerging

The procurement industry is changing at a rapid pace and a whole set of new and different professional procurement skill sets are emerging. This is evidenced by EY LLP’s 2015 report which anticipated an increase in a number of educational and professional backgrounds in procurement. It said that in a field that already includes engineers and chemists, there will be statisticians, financial risk specialists, social scientists and physicists added to the ranks of procurement professionals. EY LLP expected this influx of new backgrounds to bring new ideas and change to procurement teams, as well as creating a new people management challenge for CPOs as procurement becomes the most intellectually diverse area in an enterprise.