"I look at building a business case in terms of storytelling, and the story that you have to be able to tell in procurement is around better, faster, and cheaper." – Pratik Patel, Director - Category Management - Labor/North America Technology Spend, Mastercard

Understanding how to address skeptics, overcome objections, and communicate procurement's value will ultimately determine how much buy-in (and resources) procurement receives. This holds true whether you are building a business case to establish a new procurement function or lobbying corporate leadership in a well-established team.

In this episode, Philip Ideson talks with Pratik Patel, Director - Category Management - Labor/North America Technology Spend at Mastercard, about how procurement can use everyone's desire to eliminate waste to build a strong business case for investment and support.

Pratik also discusses:

• How procurement can utilize the "DOWNTIME" acronym to tackle waste and apply lean principles to procurement
• Ways to build stronger relationships and contracts by level-setting expectations and avoiding over-specifying
• Refining your approach to problem solving by focusing on the root cause and minimizing unnecessary steps

Links:

• Pratik Patel on LinkedIn
• Subscribe to This Week in Procurement
• Subscribe to Art of Procurement on YouTube