Late last month I had the opportunity to attend the 27th
semi-annual Supply Chain Resource Cooperative meeting at NC State. For those unfamiliar with the Cooperative, it is a partnership between NC
State and a group of large businesses, built to help develop and nurture the
next generation of supply chain professionals.
Besides getting to meet the students and learn about the projects they
have been working on, the meetings include presentations from some cutting edge
supply chain professionals, and the topic for this event was “Future of
Procurement”.
As a Supply Chain professional, I consider these presentations my version of the TED talks, and I was not disappointed. There were plenty of great concepts presented, but a few weeks later a few really stuck with me.
William Knittle, Global Procurement Director for BP weighed in on his approach to creating a comprehensive (and value-added) supplier management program. Key takeaway – all suppliers require management, but not all require the same level of management. BP has four tiers of supplier management, and determines the level a particular supplier requires based not just on spend, but also supplier segmentation (Leveraged, Strategic, etc) , current working relationship and the supplier’s willingness to work on an innovative/strategic basis with BP – which can mean changing the way they do business.
Ronald Reising, VP and CPO of Duke Energy, discussed the organizational structure of the procurement group at Duke, which includes functional procurement operations tied to the business unit, along with “Centers of Excellence and Support” that allow the procurement function to more strategically align their goals with the organization as a whole.
Pat Murzyn, Director of Procurement Excellence at Caterpillar, Inc. talked about procurement transformation at CAT, which included staffing his team with a videographer to help market the value procurement can bring to the organization. In my favorite analogy from the conference, Pat compared procurement transformation at CAT to the butterfly metamorphosis process (this works on many levels). While I can’t give his description justice, the basic concept is that the transformation is going to look much uglier before you start to see an improvement. Mr. Murzyn also aptly gave the group the proper starting point for transformation – data. If you can’t measure it, you can’t show improvement. This time, his analogy was that of a 17th century surgeon taking out his scalpel and starting to cut. Sure, something is going to happen, but it might not be good.
Outside the presentations, several other things stuck in my mind from the conference. First, the titles. The folks I met at this conference had titles such as “Procurement Excellence Manager”, “Supply Chain Knowledge Manager” and “Director of Vendor Analytics”. These titles reflect the changing environment, but also lead me to wonder, what’s in a name? If we don’t back up these titles with new processes, clearly defined objectives and the right skillsets, their meaning will quickly deteriorate.
Second, I heard a lot about how all students in the supply chain group are required to take several accounting and finance classes beyond the 100 level courses. Teaching accounting to the supply chain folks makes sense, particularly since over 80% of the meeting attendees report to the finance group – speaking the same language is important.
One common theme that came up multiple times at the conference was the challenge of publicizing procurement’s value in the organization, and how to change the perception of supply chain/procurement/sourcing from that of a tactical cost cutter to a strategic partner, focused on value. There weren’t a lot of direct answers to this question, as the roadmap for procurement transformation depends on where your organization is starting from. One thing is for certain, future supply chain graduates will need to add marketing classes to their curriculum.
For those that haven’t attended an SCRC meeting, I highly recommend it. The program is led by Dr. Robert Handfield, and he and his team are truly creating a generation of supply chain professionals that will be able to address the Future of Procurement in ways have yet to be considered. Based on the foundation being built at NC State, the future does look exciting to me.
As a Supply Chain professional, I consider these presentations my version of the TED talks, and I was not disappointed. There were plenty of great concepts presented, but a few weeks later a few really stuck with me.
William Knittle, Global Procurement Director for BP weighed in on his approach to creating a comprehensive (and value-added) supplier management program. Key takeaway – all suppliers require management, but not all require the same level of management. BP has four tiers of supplier management, and determines the level a particular supplier requires based not just on spend, but also supplier segmentation (Leveraged, Strategic, etc) , current working relationship and the supplier’s willingness to work on an innovative/strategic basis with BP – which can mean changing the way they do business.
Ronald Reising, VP and CPO of Duke Energy, discussed the organizational structure of the procurement group at Duke, which includes functional procurement operations tied to the business unit, along with “Centers of Excellence and Support” that allow the procurement function to more strategically align their goals with the organization as a whole.
Pat Murzyn, Director of Procurement Excellence at Caterpillar, Inc. talked about procurement transformation at CAT, which included staffing his team with a videographer to help market the value procurement can bring to the organization. In my favorite analogy from the conference, Pat compared procurement transformation at CAT to the butterfly metamorphosis process (this works on many levels). While I can’t give his description justice, the basic concept is that the transformation is going to look much uglier before you start to see an improvement. Mr. Murzyn also aptly gave the group the proper starting point for transformation – data. If you can’t measure it, you can’t show improvement. This time, his analogy was that of a 17th century surgeon taking out his scalpel and starting to cut. Sure, something is going to happen, but it might not be good.
Outside the presentations, several other things stuck in my mind from the conference. First, the titles. The folks I met at this conference had titles such as “Procurement Excellence Manager”, “Supply Chain Knowledge Manager” and “Director of Vendor Analytics”. These titles reflect the changing environment, but also lead me to wonder, what’s in a name? If we don’t back up these titles with new processes, clearly defined objectives and the right skillsets, their meaning will quickly deteriorate.
Second, I heard a lot about how all students in the supply chain group are required to take several accounting and finance classes beyond the 100 level courses. Teaching accounting to the supply chain folks makes sense, particularly since over 80% of the meeting attendees report to the finance group – speaking the same language is important.
One common theme that came up multiple times at the conference was the challenge of publicizing procurement’s value in the organization, and how to change the perception of supply chain/procurement/sourcing from that of a tactical cost cutter to a strategic partner, focused on value. There weren’t a lot of direct answers to this question, as the roadmap for procurement transformation depends on where your organization is starting from. One thing is for certain, future supply chain graduates will need to add marketing classes to their curriculum.
For those that haven’t attended an SCRC meeting, I highly recommend it. The program is led by Dr. Robert Handfield, and he and his team are truly creating a generation of supply chain professionals that will be able to address the Future of Procurement in ways have yet to be considered. Based on the foundation being built at NC State, the future does look exciting to me.
ReplyDeleteWhen an organization needed one or two phone extensions, it had few choices for telephony services. You install PBX ( Private Branch Exchange ) at the facility and passed out user manuals full of hard to fathom keypad combinations for various call functions. You can now combine analog and digital calls by switching to VoIP ( Voice over IP ) phone. Now you have two choices. You can choose between an on-site IP-based phone system including an IP PBX or a cloud-based service hosted by a telephone provider who delivers the functions over the internet. There are 10 rules to follow before you choose the telephony system for your organization.
1. Your company’s telephony system requirements. – IP-based system depends on number of employees you need to support. Choose system where you can easily add new user. You do not need a high cost system and paying more for it also.
2. Call feature and functionality you need. – Most phone systems have same basic functions but advance feature can vary. Features like call management and routing, conferencing, directory services, customer greetings and on-hold music and auto-attendant are few choices.
3. Include SaaS ( Software-as-a-Service ) solution in the decision. – Many telephony vendors offer hosted VoIP services which includes call routing, voice mail and other features from an installed IP-based system. In new infrastructure, SaaS require very little extra investment and can easily be installed on site and can be easily upgraded to include new services when you need it.
4. What is the roadmap of each telephony systems. – Last year many companies announced mergers. Because of that some phone systems were discontinued and other have been consolidated within other products. Telephony companies like Avaya, HP, NEC, Nortel or 3Com were affected by the changes. So ask the plans the vendors have for their products. Both long and short term.
5. Future plan of the organization. – You need a phone system that can keep pace with the new technologies and communications. Do not think about the number of employees now but six months from now what is the new growth. How easily you can add new extensions. If you add new location, will system can support it?
6. Other communications solutions of the vendors. – Once the VoIP system is installed, you might need a unified communications solutions later on. So ask the telephony providers that the system you are buying can support unified messaging, advanced collaboration, presence services and more can be added painlessly as you need them.
7. Mobility services. – Consider the smartphone integrated telephony system if the employees are highly moving around on the road, working from home etc.
8. Partnership with other software vendors. – Ask if phone system integrates with application like video conferencing, collaboration tools, or customer relationship management ( CRM ).
9. How is vendor’s technical support and customer support service. – Once the VoIP system is installed, ask vendor what kind of technical support you can get from the team. Ask for the contact info. for the recent installation and call them.
10. Compare different telephony systems. – Decide which system you want. Host or cloud-based telephony system. Also look for discounts offered and if you bundle services also more discounts?
-Yagnesh out!