I’ll have to say that when I started this series, I was going to be thrilled with a few posts and a lukewarm response … but WOW! The uptake has been phenomenal, and it’s not over yet … not by a longshot from what I can tell. It looks like you can expect at least one more guest post this week here on Sourcing Innovation, and maybe even a few posts on a couple of non-spend-and-supply-management specific blogs as well! And the benefit to you, the reader, is priceless – with so many great minds tackling the subject and sharing their views, you can’t help but get a better understanding of the space you’re in, where it is going, and where you need to go. Talk about having one heck of an edge over your web 1.0 technophobic friends! (Maybe we should sick Phil with his mighty spoon upon them! (Sorry Mr. Adams, I couldn’t resist!)
Anyway, back to the point. Charles Dominick’s post on “Sourcing Innovation for Single-Customer Contracts” over on the Purchasing Certification Blog (now the NLPA blog) and Kevin Brook’s post on The Future of Sourcing here on Sourcing Innovation were great!
Kevin got straight to the point – that innovation in sourcing will trend toward doing less rather than doing more. Even though future sourcing tools will contain advanced decision optimization, business process management, default sourcing strategies, next-generation templates, and a dozen technologies we haven’t thought of yet … they will be easier to use than the automatic four-wheeled vehicle you use to get to work everyday. A wheel, a shift, a gas, and a brake. They will let you focus on your job, and your customer, because great service is what makes a great company.
Charles doesn’t waste any time either in pointing out that he sees major changes in how non-traditional categories will be handled in the future. Specifically, he sees migration across a sourcing maturity model, meaning that sourcing of the categories will be handled differently and will require different skills. He then walks us through the sourcing maturity model from Totally Decentralized to Totally Centralized to Center Managed to Center Led where each level requires a different skill set and represents a different step in thinking about sourcing. I have to agree with Charles – although I believe that center led procurement is the way of the future (see my 3-part weekend series over at e-sourcing forum last month “An Introduction”, “A Center of Excellence”, and “Best Practices”), I see the need for a company to progress through the stages, since, as Charles states, If progression is done too fast, a company could jeopardize its competitive position for years. Before a center can lead sourcing, it has to be excellent at what it does. Before it can be excellent at what it does, it has to actually do it .. and bring all relevant purchasing functions into itself. Hence the progression. Note that this does not mean that your purchasing organization has to go through this progression globally, just that every category, and your non-traditional ones in particularly, need to go through this progression locally. Thus, while some of your key categories are center-led, some of your non-strategic low-cost categories might still be decentralized as you work your way through the process category-by-category. As Charles points out, organizations need to learn to walk before they learn to run, and a process will help them get there faster and prevent them from stumbling badly and hurting themselves along the way. ( [Shameless Plug Alert!] And if you need some help, in addition to being able to reach out to thedoctor<at>sourcinginnovation<dot>com consulting organizations like the NLPA and Azul Partners [former parent company of Spend Matters] are always there to help! )