Procurement as a Strategic Driver | Q&A with Procurement Director Hayley Merry

Procurement is no longer just about cost control - it’s becoming a core driver of business performance, resilience, and long-term value. But what does that look like in practice?

In this Q&A, Procurement Director Hayley Merry shares her perspective on how procurement functions evolve as businesses grow, contract, and transform. Drawing on experience across infrastructure, telecoms, and engineering, she explores what separates transactional procurement from truly strategic leadership - and how businesses can build functions that deliver real commercial impact.

What are the first signals you look for to understand whether a business views procurement as a strategic driver or still seen as a support function?

The clearest signal is when procurement gets involved. If it's early, during planning, budgeting, or shaping supplier strategy, it's usually seen as strategic. If it's brought in after decisions are already made, it's still operating more as a support function.

You can also tell by the quality of the discussion. In more mature businesses, procurement is expected to contribute to risk, scalability, and long-term value.

For me, the real difference is simple, is procurement shaping commercial outcomes, or just processing them.

You’ve worked across organisations at different stages of growth - what fundamentally changes in procurement when a business scales up quickly?

When a business scales quickly, procurement has to mature quickly too. Informal ways of working, that are manageable in a smaller business, start to create cost leakage, inconsistency and risk. 

What changes is that procurement has to become more deliberate. You need better spend visibility, clearer supplier strategies, stronger governance, and more structure around contracts, stock, and operational planning. But the key is doing that without creating unnecessary drag on the business.

Importantly, transformation isn't just about scaling up. It's also about stabilising and preparing to rescale effectively when conditions change. At County Broadband, procurement also had to respond to changing investment conditions and prepare the business to rescale effectively. That meant protecting continuity, tightening control, improving visibility, and making sure the procurement and supply chain model could support both a more constrained period and future growth. Your job then becomes not just to support expansion, but to preserve the foundations the business will need when it moves again. So the shift is away from purely transactional procurement capability and more towards people who can combine procurement expertise with business partnering and change leadership.

When scaling a procurement team, what roles or capabilities do you prioritise first - and why? As some tasks become automated, what are the specific skills you look for today that you weren't looking for five years ago?

I start with the capabilities that create the most control and the most credibility. That usually means strong sourcing and negotiation capability, contract and supplier governance, and operational discipline around purchasing, stock, and process consistency.

The structure depends on the pressure points in the business. In some organisations the biggest gap is strategic procurement. In others, it's data visibility, systems discipline, supplier accountability, or stakeholder alignment.

What I look for more today than I did five years ago is commercial judgement, adaptability, and confidence with systems and data. As more transactional activity becomes automated, the real value comes from people who can interpret information, influence decisions, challenge constructively, and operate well in ambiguity.

What are the most common mistakes businesses make when trying to transform their procurement function?

One of the biggest mistakes is seeing procurement transformation purely as a savings exercise. Savings matter, but if that is the only lens, you miss the wider value around resilience, governance, supplier performance, inventory discipline, and commercial risk.

Another common mistake is trying to impose a system or process before understanding the problem. Good transformation starts with the business reality, where visibility is weak, where controls are inconsistent, where suppliers are under-managed, or where operations are carrying avoidable risk.

I also think businesses often underestimate the importance of pace. If you try to do everything at once, the business disengages. The most successful procurement transformations are usually phased, practical, and tied to real operational priorities.

On the flip side, what does “good” procurement leadership look like when a business is scaling down or going through cost pressure?

Good procurement leadership during cost pressure is calm, commercially disciplined, and realistic. It's not about cutting for the sake of it. It's about protecting delivery while making smart decisions on cost, supplier commitments, stock, and risk.

That means understanding what is truly critical, where flexibility exists, and which actions will help the business now without weakening it later. Sometimes the role of procurement is to help a business grow. At other times, it is to help the business contract in a controlled way, preserve supplier relationships, improve visibility, and avoid decisions that create bigger operational problems down the line.

That side of leadership is often underrated. Scaling down well is just as important as scaling up well.

How do you balance quick wins (cost savings, supplier renegotiations) with longer-term transformation that actually sticks?

Quick wins matter because they build confidence early. They show the business that procurement can create value and solve problems. But quick wins alone are not transformation.

The real test is whether those early actions also strengthen the long-term model. For example, supplier renegotiation can reduce cost now, but if it also improves contract clarity, performance accountability, and supplier segmentation, then it creates lasting value.

For transformation to stick procurement also has to work cross-functionally and build strong partnerships with internal stakeholders. Lasting change is much easier to embed when finance, operations, delivery teams, and leadership understand the value procurement is creating and are part of the journey, rather than feeling like change is being imposed on them.

I always look at sequencing. What can we do now that helps immediately, while also moving us towards a more stable, scalable procurement function.

Have you ever had to reset or rebuild a procurement function? What did you do differently the second time around?

Yes, and one and the biggest lesson is that resetting a procurement function is less about redesigning it, and more about understanding what the business actually needed at that point in time. 

Earlier in my career, I  probably focused more on what “good” looked like from a procurement perspective. With more experience, I approach it differently, starting with where the business is feeling the pressure. 

That might be lack of visibility, inconsistent processes, supplier performance issues, or operational risk. 

The second time round, I was much more deliberate about three things:

• First, prioritisation, focusing on the areas that would make the biggest immediate difference, rather than trying to fix everything at once. 
• Second, proportionality, introducing the right level of structure for the stage of the business is in. Not everything needs a full framework on day one. Stabilising and simplifying can be just as important as building.
• And third, engagement, working closely with stakeholders so procurement is seen as solving problems with the business, not introducing change to it.

I’ve also learned that resetting a function isn’t always about growth. Sometimes its about stabilising during periods of change or preparing the business to scale again. In those situations, procurement plays a key role in protecting continuity, improving visibility, and making sure foundations are in place for what comes next. 

What role does supplier relationship management play in transformation-and how does that evolve as a business grows or contracts?

Supplier relationship management is central to transformation because suppliers are not just vendors, they are part of how a business delivers.

As a business grows, SRM becomes more structured and more strategic. You need clarity on which suppliers are critical, how performance is measured, where the risks are, and where greater collaboration is needed around capacity, service, or continuity.

In more constrained periods, SRM becomes equally important but with a different emphasis. The focus moves more towards transparency, flexibility, service protection, and commercial discipline. For me, effective SRM is about being deliberate. Not every supplier relationship should be managed in the same way, but the important ones should never be left to drift.

How do you ensure procurement remains commercially aligned with the wider business, particularly during periods of rapid change?

Procurement stays aligned by staying close to the business. That means understanding what is changing operationally, where the financial pressure sits, what the delivery risks are, and how supplier decisions affect the bigger picture.

It also means using the right measures. If procurement only talks about savings, it risks sounding disconnected. The conversation needs to include risk, service performance, stock visibility, contract exposure, and supplier reliability as well.

During rapid change, the role of procurement is not to slow the business down. It is to help it make better decisions, faster and with more control.

Looking ahead, how do you see the role of procurement leaders changing as businesses continue to navigate uncertainty and transformation?

I think the role is becoming much broader. Procurement leaders are no longer just expected to source well or negotiate hard. They are increasingly expected to help businesses navigate uncertainty, improve resilience, strengthen commercial controls, and support wider transformation.

That means being more data-led, more cross-functional, and more operationally aware. It also means being able to translate complexity into practical decisions the business can act on.

I think the strongest procurement leaders going forward will be the ones who can combine strategic thinking with hands-on delivery, people who can see the bigger picture, but also know how to make change work in the real world.

Hayley Merry is a Procurement Director with extensive experience across transformation, supplier strategy, and commercial leadership. Her background spans infrastructure, telecoms, engineering, and construction supply chains, with experience supporting businesses through growth, restructuring, and merger preparation. She specialises in building scalable procurement functions, improving supplier performance, strengthening commercial and operational control, and developing strong cross-functional partnerships that help procurement deliver wider business value.