Daily Archives: April 28, 2007

The Talent Series XI: The War is Still Going Strong

Just in case you missed it, I wanted to point out the recent article declaring that there is no end in sight for the ‘war for talent’ over on the European Leaders Network site.

According to the article, the ‘war for talent’ in procurement is being fought as fiercely as ever on battlefields as diverse as Mumbai, Shanghai and Singapore and that a recent survey from McKinsey suggested the logistics industry is facing an annual demand for 75,000 employees, not a huge number until you consider at present, the industry graduates just 5,000. In other words, the demand is fifteen times as great as the supply!

The article concludes by noting that the next 12 months do, however, promise to offer further challenges to an industry function that has come a long way but still has further to travel and whether it’s changing the mindset of existing procurement staff, to ensure that strategic thinking becomes second nature, or attracting the new breed of employee necessary to drive forward change at an exciting time, the ‘war for talent’ shows no sign of abating.

What I’m wondering is why all these articles that acknowledge the war is worsening fail to mention that good eSourcing and eProcurement systems can help these companies by allowing their current staff to do significantly more with less while they search and fight for new talent. (And, more importantly, when are companies north of the border going to realize this fact? I’ve been back in Canada for three and a half years, but have spent the last two and a half working exclusively with companies south of the border.)

The Biofuel Blunder

Normally biofuel is the right choice. I discuss it in almost all of my green posts and Tim Minahan has also blogged a post or two extolling its virtues.

But there’s more than one type of biofuel. There’s the kind that powers your car – and there’s the kind that powers you! (After all, we’re biological organisms that need fuel too!) And you should never put your car ahead of yourself.

And more importantly, you should never put someone else’s car ahead of a German’s need to drink! I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to be the reason Hans and Franz can’t have their suds after a long day at the gym! Might inspire a whole new meaning to pump you up.

But that’s just what farmers are doing in Germany. After an extremely poor barley harvest in 2006, many farmers are converting their fields to rapeseed, a common ingredient in biofuel. As a result, production is dropping and prices are going up in a country where the average daily consumption of beer is 111.6 litres per head, equivalent to every single man, woman, and child drinking a 0.31 litre glass everyday.

That’s a lot of beer … and a lot of angry Germans if prices spike and they can’t afford their beer anymore. I wouldn’t want to be standing across from that angry mob!