Procurement and sales are two vital business functions with varied processes that are often described as opposites. Some companies may find these two departments at odds with each other as they argue which one is more important for the vitality of the organization.
Leadership by Storytelling: The Best Way to Learn Good Leadership Skills, by Dr. Tom DePaoli, is the latest in a long line of books that are firmly based in reality and provide advice that is easy to ...
The uncertainty surrounding Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) can be frightening for all employees involved, but often overlooked is the potential a merger can bring for procurement to hit the “RESET...
Last week I was interviewed by Scott Luton, host of the Supply Chain Now podcast, for their ‘Full Access’ series. (You can listen to the podcast here.) Scott and I go ‘way back’ so it was easy to find things to talk about, but he also asked me some great questions about how I reached this point in my career and what advice I would give to people just getting started.
Sometimes a post on social media connects with people such that it takes on a life of its own. That happened this week in the wake of the Ivalua NOW event in Paris.
Philip Ideson shared a picture of Duncan Jones from Forrester Research sharing a striking statistic about procurement’s self-assessed v. actual maturity. You can see the image above, but here are the raw numbers:
- Procurement organizations who self-assess as at the beginning of their maturity curve: 4%
- Procurement organizations who are actually at the beginning of their maturity curve: 60%
- Procurement organizations who self-assess as advanced: 65%
- Procurement organizations who are actually advanced: 16%
While it is fair to ask questions about the Forrester methodology and maturity framework that might explain away some of the discrepancy, the fact remains that procurement’s perception of our own maturity is significantly skewed from reality. As a profession, we are significantly overestimating our organizational maturity by a huge margin.
“Managing others is not for the faint-hearted or the inattentive.” (P. 147) The Self Determined Manager: A Manifesto for Exceptional People Managers by David Deacon is exactly the kind of book ...
In a new Art of Procurement podcast series, Philip Ideson and I will stop each month and take a look back at the podcasts, news, and topics of the previous four weeks. You can hear the January episode here: Leveraging Storytelling To Better Connect With Your Stakeholders.
It’s interesting how different an idea can look when you consider it in the context of other information. Most of us read a few articles and posts and listen to a podcast of two during the month. When you have to look back at them, two things quickly become apparent:
- Even the best ideas fade from your memory much faster than you might expect. Something you read four weeks ago will practically seem new if you read it again.
- The best ideas live in the space between pieces of content. When you compare, contrast and summarize, you end up with an independent point of view that is much more valuable than any one source piece.
The links to this month’s podcasts are below, but here are some of the insights I found ‘in between’…
These are tough times to be in business. Costs are rising but selling prices are not, mainly due to global competition. The arithmetic is simple: profits are being squeezed. Finding ways to drive down...
I recently read about ‘Broken Windows Theory’ from a 1982 Atlantic article by George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson. It is a criminological theory that suggests small but visible signs of public disar...
“…we need to be prepared to think the unthinkable, even if we subsequently have no plan to deal with it now, as we may have in the future.” (p. 62) Soft Skills for Hard Business by David Loseby (FCMI,...
A Guide to Positive Disruption: How to Thrive and Make an Impact in the Churn of Today’s Corporate World by Joanna Martinez delivers a striking combination of advice, tough love, and hope. With this o...
Procurement organizations often note one pursuit above all else: getting a seat at the table. I think we have coined this phrase more than any other in the procurement space in the last decade. If you...
It had been a particularly hard week for the whole team. Factory audits had been going on with the accuracy of a Swiss watch (plane, factory, hotel, plane, factory, hotel...). That Friday night we wer...
Can buyers create value for customers and reduce costs? The two main objectives of a buyer in most organizations are: Reducing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) or Life Cycle Costs (LCC)Creating va...
I created the Lavergne Management Matrix to make it possible to share and discuss ‘Benevolent Leadership’. The managerial aptitude of a person can be evaluated according to two criteria: The satisfact...
Editor’s note: March 8, 2017 has been designated International Women’s Day. This year’s theme: #BeBoldforChange is a call to women in all walks of life to push boundaries and recognize the inspiring w...
Editor’s note: Scott Jancy is a multi-faceted professional, with experience as a historian, an architect, a Naval Officer, a planner, and a consultant. He blogs often on innovation, leadership, and de...
I live in the Boston area, so when the 2016 Nobel Prize for Economics was awarded to Dr. Bengt Holmstrom, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Dr. Oliver Hart, a professor at Harvard, it made a considerable splash in the local news. I love economics in action, so I started reading more - but I never expected to find contracts as the center of their work.
Each of the newly selected Nobel laureates has a different area of focus, but both are relevant to procurement and supply chain professionals.
This guest post is part of The Procurement Revolution. To share your thoughts or join the conversation, use #ProcureRev on Twitter or use the comment functionality below. I'm Ovidiu Slimac and ...
“There’s a false dichotomy between cost and safety. Are we willing and able to account for the many costs of not having a quality operation: lack of cooperation, poor leadership, waste, and incidents and accidents? If we really and truly account for them, then safety can pay for itself. Getting it wrong is more expensive than doing it right the first time.” – Capt. ‘Sully’ Sullenberger