Organizing for Supply Chain
Procurement Leadership Workshop: Addressing the Need for a New Stakeholder Influence Model
Some of the typical complaints I hear from procurement colleagues are the same ones I heard 20 years ago, and it seems as if nothing has changed. “Procurement doesn’t get any respect! I can’t get people in the business to […]
Assessing the True Return of Procurement Transformation on Total Shareholder Return: A Tough Proposition
In my earlier book with Gerard Chick on “The Procurement Value Proposition“, we advance the notion that buildoing a business case for investing in people, process, and technology improvement in procurement is key. Many procurement assessments developed by consultants seek […]
Procurement Leaders Blog Post: Cross-Functional Teaming is Easier Said Then Done
Continuing my reporting of the Procurement Leaders meeting in Miami, I sat in on a very interesting session that included three professionals from very different walks of life: Captain Harry Thetford – Defense Logistics Agency Robin Shahani – CPO, TD […]
Procurement Leaders '17: Supplier enabled innovation is a foundation for procurement's strategic repositioning
I had the opportunity to sit in on a number of sessions at Procurement Leaders American Congress 2017 in Miami this week. Despite the snowstorms that prevented many from making it down, there was a full house at the opening […]
Best Practice: Creating a Governance Mechanism for Analytical Learning in Organizations
I recently interviewed a large semiconductor company that developed a cross-enterprise initiative to drive analytical learning across its entire supply chain. The company established a supply chain IT organization that reports up to the CIO. It focuses on leveraging the corporate […]
More Insights on Deploying the Digital Supply Chain
On the second day of our executive focus group on the LIVING Supply Chain, the group took the opportunity to share insights regarding the emerging trends in the future of supply chains, with a focus on digitization, development of analytics and […]
Who Owns Contract Management of Major Projects: Procurement or the Business?
Proponents of integrated supply management propose that successful Contract Management (both pre and post award) requires a collaboration between the business functions (Engineering, Operations, Maintenance) that have the need (demand, specifications & service levels) that require contracting with third party […]
SCRC Meeting Insights Part II: Management Principles for Executing Visibility Strategies
As organizations move towards visible, high velocity, transparent supply chains, a number of questions arise that are fundamental to the business, but which executive often struggle to answer with any clarity. How do we extend the concept visibility and control […]
Outsourcing : Tesla is Bucking the Trend
Debates over outsourcing are appearing with more frequency in the press. Companies have outsourced so many of their processes, through “Business Process Outsourcing”, that many now just sit as marketing companies. Examples include Apple, Google, Amazon, IBM, and many others, […]
"Collaboration" is becoming a bad word…in some circles
The concept of “Collaboration” has been getting a lot of grief lately. For instance, recent articles in the Harvard Business Review and the Economist emphasize that collaboration has reached the point of “godliness” in modern business, and that managers are […]