Track8
The Strategic Procurement Toolkit
Get your procurement team performing
Future Purchasing has been a centre of excellence in the design and implementation of strategic procurement processes since 2003. Track8 is the FP procurement toolkit covering category management, supplier management and strategic alignment activities, used by 12,000 procurement professionals worldwide.
Market leading processes that work and toolkits that teams want to use
We spent 5,000+ hours developing the materials within the Track8 procurement toolkit.They are continuously being updated from more than 200 client implementations. Our design team includes specialists in lean processes, creative design and semiotics. The Track8 procurement toolkit is being used by more than 100 clients and 12,000 procurement professionals around the world to build enduring capability long after we’ve moved on, so we know it works.
What is the Track8 Procurement Toolkit?
The Track8 process and toolkit contains high impact and compelling summaries of each of the critical steps and tools in the processes of category management, supplier management and strategic alignment. Appealing to both procurement professionals and business stakeholders, these toolkits can be readily customised to supplement client materials as required.
The model is totally flexible, and we work with client design teams to understand current ways of working and align with related procurement and stakeholder processes. This ensures that new processes and toolkits are adapted to team’s needs and feel like they are “client owned”.
Track8 Methodology Structure
Process steps: Clearly defined actions that provide easy-to-grasp roadmaps. They have multiple levels of detail for different audiences – from simple one-page summaries for stakeholders through to level 4 detail project plans. They define where specific templates and guides should be used and define all agreed modulation for different category complexity – super quick, quick, standard and major.
Templates: Clear, attractive, easy to complete and relating directly to defined process steps and guides. They are designed to prompt insight, opportunity identification, and storytelling and they consolidate into attractive strategy documents that are easy for stakeholders to consume. Completed templates are presented at decision gates. As a record of all information gathered, they are a key tool in knowledge management. ·
‘How-to’ guides: Templates are supported by easy-to-understand guides that provide category and supplier managers with information on every step, activity, tool and template in the processes. They are designed to provide a learning resource that can be regularly accessed when using related templates. Practical checklists are used to drive application and the language used is simple and consistent. ·
Governance and certification: Regular reporting and progress reviews are built into the processes. This covers completion of activity steps and key outcomes such as stakeholder engagement, insight development and value delivery. The FP Category Strategy Assessment reinforces learning and ensures consistency in expectations and strategy documents. It is used to evaluate category and supplier strategies and set the ‘standards’ for an organisation.
Digital Category Management
Recently we have been utilising an AI-driven approach that dramatically accelerates category strategies’ delivery with some of our most progressive clients.
AI analyses your category managers’ view of the marketplace, existing and future spending, and your business needs to deliver a draft category strategy in hours of work, not weeks. This approach frees up your category managers to focus on activity that sets your procurement operation apart, such as innovation, stakeholder engagement and business alignment.
Procurement Training
Expert led training and development in procurement category management, supplier management, procurement negotiation and strategic alignment that transforms your procurement team with a tangible return on Investment.
“The FP tool kit is already delivering better results for us and I am confident that we will embed category management successfully this time.”
Global industrial gases and engineering company