Procurement Blog by Procurement Leaders highlights Procter & Gamble's productive but apparently unusual relationship between Procurement and Marketing. 

The Procurement Leaders Excellence Award provided a forum for Rick Hughes, head of global purchases at P&G to explain how the two business units work together to improve the return on their marketing and advertising investment.

P&G, the world's largest consumer goods company which spends $8b on marketing and advertising annually is of course heavily motivated to find ways to improve ROI.

But traditionally, purchasing and marketing have struggled to get along in some other companies.

"Marketing is different" is typically cited as the reason for marketing's resistance to efforts from purchasing for closer integration.

So how have P&G managed to get it so right?  

Hughes promotes an agreed joint commitment to improving results, weekly meetings between himself and P&G's chief marketing officer and engaging advertising agencies in the process to identify and implement new systems to manage measurables and deliverables, as important to the successful relationship. 

Source: Procurementblog May 21