Procurement for the Real World

The market you face is rarely the market the textbook describes.

Procurement strategies often begin with neat assumptions: healthy competition, credible alternatives, willing suppliers and enough leverage to negotiate.

The real world is messier.

Incumbent advantage. Concentrated supply markets. Weak BATNAs. High switching costs. Sole-source situations. Stakeholders demanding competition where meaningful competition barely exists.

Build the Strategy is a practical guide to developing a procurement strategy around the market you actually have - rather than the one the model assumes.

Part of the Procurement for the Real World series, this book explores how to:

- Understand the commercial reality before choosing your sourcing approach
- Assess market concentration, supplier power and genuine competitive tension
- Recognise where your leverage actually comes from - and where it doesn't
- Decide when to aggregate, consolidate, compete or negotiate
- Approach incumbent and sole-supplier situations intelligently
- Identify hollow competitions before wasting everyone's time running one
- Turn analysis into a commercial strategy that can actually be executed

No theory for theory's sake. No pretending every sourcing exercise fits neatly into a matrix.

Just practical procurement principles, commercial judgement and better decisions.

Because a procurement strategy that ignores market reality isn't a strategy. It's a plan waiting to fail.