The factors that contribute to the performance of procurement staff in Holcim Malaysia Sdn. Bhd. / Mohd Fahmy Mohd Abdul Rahman and Nur Fatimah Razali

The purchasing profession has been gaining recognition in developed countries faster than in developing countries and to compare with other profession, the procurement profession has received only limited attention in developing countries (Matechack, 2009). In many developing countries, many companies have not managed to advance the purchasing profession either because of lack of manager to recognize the procurement profession or because top management does not support and fully understand the requirement competencies for effective development of the purchasing and supply chain function (Msimangira, 2003).
Nowadays, the profession of procurement staff is getting good response from public in developing countries. This is due to procurement function has been increasingly gaining importance as a crucial role within organizations. Most of the companies are very particular in choosing their procurement staff because procurement staff is important in increasing company profitability and reducing cost. Every decision that taken by departments has involved procurement staff that can gave impact on overall cost when a decisions is made. Furthermore, in Holcim Malaysia, procurement is view as one of the strategic function in department logistic and imports. The existence of procurement section is to improve and increase the company profitability. It can be achieve through procurement function and their responsibility, for instance by helping to reduce material prices and cost, and also help in identifying better supplier that can give good quality of goods with best price. In this research, the researcher wants to study which are the factors that contribute to the performance of procurement staff in Holcim Malaysia. The procurement staff will be evaluated by all Holcim workers that 3

are usually dealing with procurement department. The questionnaire will be distributed to all respondents via email.
The issues of performance among procurement in Malaysia still arises and this issue become more prominent within company in Malaysia especially in Holcim Malaysia because the service quality considered as important for the user in all departments. Organizations which do not have performance in their process, procedures and plans, will experience lower performance, higher customer dissatisfaction and employee turnover (Artly & Stroh, 2001, Amaratunga & Baldry, 2002, and CIPS Australia, 2005). Measuring the performance of the purchasing function yields benefits to organization such as cost reduction, enhanced profitability, assured supplies, quality improvement and competitive advantage as was noted by Batenburg & Vasendaal (2006). According to Hudson (2008), in order to attain superior performance in an evolving role, procurement staff must have varied mix of both technical and behavioral competencies. In addition, the procurement must identify, develop and disseminate relevant competencies at the appropriate levels within the procurement hierarchy (Boyatzis, 2007; Hudson, 2008; Humphreys et al., 1998). Furthermore, a procurement staff is expected to have in-depth knowledge of their specialized area of responsibility and broad knowledge and experience of the practical application of current best practice and aware of the tools and techniques used in supply chain management and be professionally competent in applying them (Noor Hisham, 2012). Usually to be a procurement staff, they need to have competencies, expertise, experience and relevant qualification to perform their role and responsibility as procurement. Normally, most people are likely to engage in task or activities that they know they can be competent at those task or activities. It means that, procurement staff also is likely to engage with task and activity that they have a sense of efficacy to perform in better task. Nevertheless, due to the changes from an operational function to strategic function, the challenges and problem still exist in order to maintain performance because it not easy to matched with corresponding competencies that already existing among procurement staff. In addition, failure to determine and investigate the factors that contribute to performance among procurement staff has continued to undermine the staff capability to learn how to cope more effectively with the increasing demand to demonstrate long term strategic value (Hudson, 2008). As the result, there are irregularities in the procurement process including inadequate procurement planning, poor record keeping and abuse of process such that even the highly talented procurement cannot perform their job effectively (Heslin & Klehe, 2006; Atkinson, 2003).