With double-digit growth every year since 2017, the intellectual services sector is worth more than 7 billion euros in France according to Syntec Conseil figures in 2020. Due to the strong tensions in this sector, experienced profiles are becoming increasingly rare, and it is becoming more and more complex to find the talent that corresponds to your company’s needs.

More than just expertise, finding a profile that matches your project and your values has become an increasingly complex mission for buyers. How have companies adapted by boosting their skills management? And what are the best practices to implement to follow the same path? Let’s decipher.

Redefine your priorities.

Given the rapid evolution of practices in recent years, the labor market is constantly changing. A company that wants to stay in the game must now strive to adapt and anticipate the challenges of tomorrow.

Some companies have taken the right reflexes since the great “digitalization” of the last few years and continue to keep abreast of new trends in the sector. Moreover, these are often companies that have strengthened their R&D, IT or marketing departments by investing in real human skills.

An intellectual service purchase must meet specific and strategic objectives. The most complex part of the process often lies in understanding and analyzing your intellectual services needs. By nature intangible and immaterial, it is often necessary to be accompanied by companies like COLEVER whose expertise is not limited to sourcing expert profiles.

Indeed, the intervention upstream of your intellectual services purchasing project to structure your research and understand your needs in the short, medium and long term are structuring steps for the continuation of your intellectual services purchasing project. Our advice: use our services from the beginning in order to obtain optimal support.

CSR, a new challenge for intellectual services purchasing.

Because intellectual services purchases are becoming increasingly important in budgets and CSR is gradually becoming an integral part of purchasing organizations, the buyer in charge of this category must innovate by integrating new criteria.

Enabling purchasing to contribute to reducing the company’s negative externalities while generating positive externalities – in other words, integrating impact into purchasing policies – is a challenge in itself. Purchasing is more dependent on human and relational factors than on material or technical ones, which makes the task even more complicated.

But what criteria should you integrate to comply with CSR specifications?

Created in 2010, the Responsible Supplier Relations Charter aims to encourage companies, public and private organizations to adopt responsible practices towards their suppliers. It is currently steered by the Corporate Ombudsman and the CNA (National Purchasing Council).

The charter was updated in October 2021 to become the Responsible Purchasing and Supplier Relations charter (RFAR). Relying on this document according to your sector would be a good start!

Control the entire decision chain.

Turning to expert sourcing talent will not be enough to ensure the continuity of your services or the smooth running of your project. You must take the time to master each step of the decision chain or delegate it to the right provider.

At COLEVER, we follow each step of your intellectual service purchase to strengthen your team:

• Definition of needs and specifications
• Sourcing and qualification of service providers
• Negotiation
• The follow-up of the service.
• Payment deadlines
• Guarantees
• Negotiation of framework agreements
• Definition of the intellectual property related to the service
• The terms and conditions for terminating the contract

Intellectual services’ purchasing: evaluation criteria

Price, delivery, and quality are the pillars of purchasing performance measurement. Purchasing departments must therefore define precise objectives that correspond to these criteria. The buyer must determine the requirements and deliverables expected from the service provider beforehand.

To do this, purchasing departments must establish a real procurement strategy, by determining an SLA (Service Level Agreement) which will be the performance plan of the purchasing department.

The SLA must stipulate :

• General information: the description of the contract binding the two parties, its signatories, the dates and deadlines for completion.
• The criteria for measuring supplier performance (price, deadlines, quality and any other criteria adapted to the contract binding the two parties) as well as the method for evaluating and monitoring these criteria.
• Handling of difficulties: the support and resources allocated by both parties in case of need, the description of the procedures for managing disagreements and crisis situations.
• Sanction clauses to be applied in case of poor supplier performance.
• Amendments specifying the procedures for minor changes in case of reorganization within one of the two parties.

This scoping stage will allow you to establish precise KPI’s and monitor the progress of your project.

Do you have questions, ideas, or a project? Contact our teams: colever.fr