The wrong question first
"Do we need a procurement manager" is usually asked when someone has noticed that supplier costs are rising and nobody owns them. That is a real problem, but a job title is only one of several possible answers, and it is the most expensive one to reverse.
The better first question is: what work is not being done, and what would it be worth if it were? Write down the actual tasks. Contract renewals being missed. No visibility of spend. Tenders nobody has time to run. Suppliers being managed reactively. Once the work is on paper, the shape of the answer is usually obvious.
Three tests
1. Is external spend material?
In many growing businesses, everything bought from third parties (materials, subcontractors, logistics, IT, professional services, utilities, facilities) is second only to payroll. When that is the case, a small percentage improvement is worth more than most other operational initiatives available to you, and the case for someone owning it is straightforward.
2. Has the volume of decisions outgrown the people making them?
Buying decisions are usually made by whoever needs the thing. That works well at one scale and badly at another. The tipping point is normally when the same category is being bought by several people, or when the Finance Director is approving spend they have no practical way of challenging.
3. What is the senior time worth?
Founders and Managing Directors are frequently still negotiating supplier contracts long after they should have stopped. That is not a small cost. It is the highest-value hours in the business spent on work that a competent specialist would do better and faster.
If the answer is yes, what to hire
Be specific about the level. A procurement manager executes: runs sourcing events, manages suppliers, handles renewals, builds the register. A procurement director decides: sets category strategy, owns the commercial relationship with major suppliers, has a seat at the table when the business commits money. Hiring a manager and expecting director-level judgement is one of the more common and expensive mistakes.
Also be honest about what the role can achieve alone. A first procurement hire into a business with no data, no contract register and no mandate spends their first six months building foundations. That is fine, provided everybody expects it.
If the answer is not yet
There is a real middle ground, and for businesses in the £5m–£25m range it is often the better economic answer:
- Fractional leadership. An experienced procurement director for a small number of days a month, setting direction and handling the big commercial moments.
- Project-based support. Bring in specialist help for the specific categories or tenders that carry the value, and leave the rest alone.
- Build the person you have. Someone in finance or operations often has the aptitude. What they lack is method and market exposure, both of which can be supplied.
The common thread is that you get the judgement without the fixed cost, and you find out what the role really needs to be before you write the job description.
A reasonable sequence
Analyse the spend. Build a contract register. Fix the two or three categories with the most obvious value. Then look at what is left, and hire against that: a role defined by evidence rather than instinct.