Heads of Procurement · Sample dossier
Building a B2B retail-tech pipeline at a major UK chain
Example client: a B2B retail technology company building a pipeline of conversations with Heads of Procurement at major UK supermarket chains.
Illustrative example. Names, company details, signals and guidance shown here are fictional content that mirrors the structure of a real Folklore dossier.
Anonymised UK grocery group
Top-five UK supermarket – fresh & grocery procurement
Green – Strong ICP Fit- Contact
- Anonymised – Head of Procurement (Fresh & Grocery)
- Role
- Head of Procurement, Fresh & Grocery
- Location
- Hertfordshire, UK
Company snapshot
Legal entity
UK plc subsidiary
Group revenue £20bn+
Function
Fresh & Grocery
~110 buyers, 6 category leads
Tenure
4 yrs in role
Promoted internally 2022
Reporting line
Trading Director
Three layers from CEO
Public profile
IGD Live speaker, 2026
Active on LinkedIn
Stack signal
Mid SAP Ariba estate
Onboarding still semi-manual
Recent hires
2 senior buyers
Fresh produce category, last 90 days
Buying window
Annual review Q1
Vendor lock-up Oct–Feb
Key people
Head of Procurement (target)
Decision-maker for category tooling
Spoke at IGD Live on supplier admin burden – explicit pain around 11-week onboarding cycles. Direct, numbers-led communication style. Reads own messages between 6:30–8:00am most weekdays.
Trading Director
Reports to Group COO
Holds budget for procurement transformation. Not a primary recipient, but referenced repeatedly in the target’s public commentary. Mentioning them by name in a first message would over-reach.
Senior Buyer, Fresh Produce
Recent internal hire
Likely operational sponsor for any onboarding-tooling initiative. Their tenure is recent enough that a "we’ve helped your peers" angle should pair the target with a peer chain, not a peer hire.
Succession assessment: No immediate succession question. The interest is operational autonomy and category KPIs, not exit or restructure.
The operation
Core services
Sector specialisms
Regional reach
UK-wide. Buying decisions made centrally from a Hertfordshire head office.
Technical credentials
Group is BRCGS and Sedex-audited. Procurement function holds CIPS certification baseline across senior buyer level.
Notable work
Group has publicly committed to a 12-week supplier-onboarding target for FY26 – the target referenced this number on IGD Live.
Key signals
- IGD Live talk on supplier admin burden: Specifically referenced the 11-week onboarding figure and the cost-to-serve impact on suppliers under £5m turnover.
- Two senior buyer hires in fresh produce: Internal pressure to standardise onboarding rather than absorb the cost into the new headcount.
- Public LinkedIn post – supplier diversity: Hinted that smaller suppliers were being excluded by admin overhead, not by commercial criteria. Strong values signal.
- Vendor lock-up window opening Oct: Buying decisions for FY27 category tooling will be made in the 4 weeks leading into Q1 review.
Profile classification
Profile A – Active buyer in evaluation window
The IGD Live talk + new senior hires + Q1 review cycle create a six-week window where this person is genuinely receptive to a category-tooling conversation. Not a "qualify later" target – a "reach now" target.
Outreach hooks
1. The 11-week onboarding number
The cleanest hook. They quoted it publicly. Referencing it shows you watched the talk – not the topic. Lead with it.
2. Senior buyer hires
The internal context: new people inheriting an already-broken process. A peer-chain anecdote here lands harder than a feature list.
3. 12-week target
The group has set this as a public commitment. Anyone helping them get there is materially useful – not theoretical.
Strategy & talking points
Operational, not strategic
They are not buying a vision. They are buying weeks off a specific cycle. Lead with the operational outcome they’ve already named.
Numbers-led
Communication style is direct. Long preamble loses them. The strongest first sentence is the one that quotes them back to themselves.
No name-dropping the boss
Mentioning the Trading Director in a first message reads as social engineering. Keep the conversation between peers.
Peer-chain reference
One concrete peer-chain anecdote (anonymised) outweighs three feature paragraphs. Pick the most adjacent one.
Peer mirror – adjacent top-12 chain
A peer chain reduced their onboarding cycle from 14 weeks to 5 by replacing the manual document hand-off with structured supplier intake. The relevant figure here is the consultation-time number our copywriter would carry into the message.
Suggested questions
- “You mentioned the 11-week number at IGD Live – is it still 11 in practice now, or has the senior buyer intake changed it?”
- “How much of the onboarding compression is process change vs. tooling change, in your view?”
- “Of the suppliers you’d like in your range but can’t currently absorb at the admin cost, what proportion are sub-£5m turnover?”
Concerns & flags
⚠ Procurement transformation already underway
Group announced a multi-year programme in Q4 last year. If a vendor is already engaged, our message has to position alongside, not against.
⚠ No public direct email
Outreach has to go via LinkedIn first; a follow-up via a verified group address should be paired as touch 2.
Touch 1 & 2 guidance
Messages aren’t drafted inside the dossier. Our strategic copywriters write every touchpoint from scratch using the research above; what follows is the light-touch direction we hand them.
Lead with the 11-week number from IGD Live. Touch 1: LinkedIn – two short paragraphs, no attachments, name a peer-chain anecdote. Touch 2: Email follow-up – surface the question of whether the new senior buyers have changed the cycle in practice. Always frame as a category-team conversation, not a procurement-transformation pitch.
Sources used by our research pipeline: Companies House · IGD Live recording · group annual report · group press desk · LinkedIn (target, two senior hires, Trading Director) · Apollo · BusinessMagnet · trade press archive
Apply this to your pipeline