We can all communicate, but how well do we generally do it? In our personal lives, the answer seems to be not as well as we like to think. Why else are divorce rates so high or bookshop shelves stacked with relationship self-help manuals advising us how to communicate better?

Things are no different in business. As purchasers, we have traditionally been poor at explaining what we do and why it is worth doing. But whereas in the past this may have been frustrating, now it is holding us back as individuals and as a profession.

My experience over the years has convinced me that communication is a specialist skill. So when a purchasing team wants to engage the business in some way, a critical part of the equation is effective communications. And that needs professional help.

Why? Well, for a start we have a lot of barriers to overcome. A perennial one is that most people reckon they are good at buying things (one recent assignment brought me into contact with a company that referred to its purchasing function disdainfully as “strategic shopping”!). Another is the heavy baggage that purchasing carries - our transactional roots, the credibility of our numbers and the quality of the people we have traditionally employed.

So even when purchasers are given an opportunity to be in the spotlight, the environment can be hostile. Quite simply, they are not wanted by the people with whom they are supposed to work. A classic example is mergers. Purchasing synergies are often quoted as a headline benefit, but when we start trying to deliver them we often drive into areas where we are unwelcome.

Yet another barrier is our own inbred scepticism about spin and sales speak. We don’t value its contribution, and hence we don’t do it. Most purchasing people work hard to deliver results. But this is not necessarily a guaranteed route to success. You also need to ensure that the right audience is aware that something good has happened and that a certain group of people - in our case, purchasing - were responsible.

Even when we understand the value of good communications, we lack the skills and the resources to do it properly. Some purchasing functions have assigned responsibility for communications to internal staff and have had some success in getting their messages through. However, this can have the effect of raising the demands on purchasing, resulting in such individuals being diverted back to getting the delivery done.

In contrast, external communications people are specialists. They know how to get the right messages to the right audience in a manner that appeals to them. They bring a critical, independent eye and a professional toolkit. They also understand how to measure the effectiveness of their communications and to ensure that these are sustained over time.

Managing perceptions and influencing people about any form of purchasing delivery requires a clear and effective communications strategy. During the merger to create Aventis, I was astonished that most people I met across the organisation, whether internal customers or on the plane between Frankfurt and Paris, were aware of what purchasing was doing. They may not have liked it or agreed with it, but they certainly knew about our activities to deliver merger synergies.

On reflection, I should not have been surprised as we had a number of communications specialists co-ordinating our activities. These included videos in lobbies and lifts, posters, articles, presentations, interviews on company television, badges, intranet bulletins and white paper fairs in staff restaurants (a particularly good place to capture the French audience!).

So rather than resisting communications specialists as unwelcome outsiders, purchasing departments should seize on the skills they offer to improve not only the message, but also the way it is presented.

Malcolm Smith is managing director of the CIPS Corporate Partnership Programme and a former global procurement director at Aventis Pharma