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7:30 AM. Your coffee is still hot when the first supplier email lands: "Dear Partner, we regret to inform you that due to rising raw material costs, we are forced to implement an 8% price increase..."
Sound familiar? If you're a retail buyer in Hungary or the CEE region, it probably sounds all too familiar. And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to modern procurement challenges.
Your job description says you're a "Strategic Buyer." You optimize categories, build long-term supplier relationships, and lead innovative cost-saving initiatives. That might be true in theory, but in reality, you spend 70-80% of your time putting out fires and drowning in repetitive admin work.
While you were studying complex sourcing strategies at university, you're now writing Excel macros at 7 PM to pull together an RFP that should have been sent out yesterday. Instead of being a "strategic partner," you've become an administrative executor, constantly running from one crisis to the next.
In 2025, Hungarian inflation is still hovering around 4%, but the psychological impact is far greater. Every single one of your suppliers feels justified in demanding a price increase—and often, they're right. The problem is, while they can easily pass their rising costs on to you, you can't do the same.
Hungarian consumers are brutally price-sensitive. Research shows that more than half of the people in the CEE region have virtually no savings after covering their monthly expenses. What does this mean for you? Every supplier negotiation is a bloody battle for your company's profit margin.
The pressure from all sides:
Let's talk about what nobody likes to talk about: the time-consuming, soul-crushing administrative work. An average day looks something like this:
Where is the strategic sourcing in all of this? The supplier innovation? The category optimization? Nowhere to be found.
"Our raw material costs have gone up," the supplier says. Have they really? By how much? Why? Do you have market data to back that up?
The answer is usually: you have no idea. You don't have access to real-time commodity prices, should-cost models, or even a simple benchmark database. While your supplier knows exactly what they're charging your competitors for the same product, you're flying completely blind. This leads to a weak negotiating position and lost savings opportunities.
A real-world example: A major FMCG supplier requests a 12% price increase, citing "rising energy costs." Meanwhile, energy prices are actually falling. But since you don't have the tools to instantly verify this and back it up with data, you're forced to haggle, bluff, or worse—accept the rise.
Remember the toilet paper shortages during COVID? That was procurement's nightmare in real-time. And while the pandemic is over, the supply chain uncertainty remains.
The war in Ukraine, shipping issues in the Red Sea, lockdowns in Chinese ports—anything can disrupt your supply chain at any moment. And who takes the blame when the shelves are empty? You, of course. You often only find out about a problem when it's already too late. There's no early warning system, no real-time tracking, and no Plan B. Just panic and a frantic scramble to call alternative suppliers.
The marketing department has once again placed a direct order with their "old, trusted" supplier—for three times the price you negotiated in your framework agreement. The sales team bypassed the procurement process for an "urgent" need. The logistics team "just quickly" bought something because there was "no time" for the proper procedure.
This isn't just a waste of money. It's a compliance risk, a loss of control, and a personal failure. It doesn't matter that you spent weeks negotiating a favorable contract if no one uses it.
New EU regulations (like CSRD and EUDR) are no longer just recommendations—they are legally binding and come with the threat of hefty fines. But how do you prove that your supplier's factory in Bangladesh doesn't use child labor? How do you document your entire carbon footprint when you can barely get data from your tier-1 suppliers?
And for a little local flavor: while you're trying to meet EU environmental standards, you also have to navigate the world's highest VAT at 27% and unpredictable sector-specific taxes here in Hungary.
When everything runs smoothly, no one notices. When something goes wrong, all fingers point at you. Management still sees procurement as a "cost center," not a strategic function.
Your savings? "A result of teamwork." A stock-out? "Procurement's fault."
This isn't just frustrating—it's a career dead-end.
What if you had time for actual strategic work? What if you could make data-driven decisions in minutes? What if you could focus on supplier innovation instead of administration?
Imagine this:
Constant firefighting doesn't just cost the company money. It costs you.
You go home in the evening knowing you once again failed to do the job you were hired for. You didn't study strategic procurement to become an administrator. The overtime, the stress, the constant state of alert—it's not sustainable.
What would it mean for you if you could:
Procurement in the Hungarian and CEE retail sector is at a crossroads. We can either remain stuck in the current, reactive firefighter mode, or we can take the leap toward a genuine digital transformation.
This isn't a luxury. It's a matter of survival.
The "margin compression trap" isn't going away. Inflation, geopolitical uncertainty, and supply chain volatility are all part of the "new normal." But the way we handle them can change.
The question isn't whether you need to change. The question is:
If you've read this far, you probably found some parts of this article relatable. Perhaps too many.
The good news is, you're not alone. Every one of your peers in retail procurement is facing the same challenges.
The even better news is, there are solutions. Not magic wands, but real, proven technologies and methods that are available today.
Three things you can do tomorrow:
Strategic procurement isn't a utopia. It's not a distant dream. It's an achievable reality—but only if we're willing to step out of the endless cycle of firefighting.
Because the question isn't whether you can afford to change. It's whether you can afford not to.
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