Today we continue with our list of 20 Things You Can Do in 20 Minutes to Be More Successful at Work, tweaked to the supply management profession, to help you improve your game in 2009.

• Knock on a New Door
  In order to provide strategic value, you have to understand how the business operates. Find out what drives profit and revenue, why the business spends on the products and services it buys, and if there are alternatives that could save money while providing the same level of value to the organization.
• Is This The Job For You?
  Even if you’re in charge of the supply management organization, you don’t have to go down with the ship. If it’s not the right job for you, if you find that you’re just going through the motions or that you’re not excited when you get into work in the morning, you need to re-evaluate your position and whether you intend to go forward in your current organization, or a different one.
• Peace, Love, and Understanding
  Pick a stakeholder in your organization and invite him or her to give you and your team a quick 15 minute presentation at what he or she does at your next 20-minute meeting. The more you understand your stakeholders’ needs, the better you’ll be at your job.
• Get Linked-In
  The networking, discussion, and presentation tools may still be first generation, but they provide a great way to get in contact, and stay in contact, with your peers, share information, and ask questions that can lead to new and provocative insights. Don’t forget to join some groups.
• Secure Your Data
  Your data is often the source of your competitive advantage. It should stay in your secure systems, and not in spreadsheets on your insecure laptop. Take the time to remove any sensitive data that might be lying around unsecured on your laptop, importing any that you need to save into your secure applications.
• Talk to IT
  Make sure they understand what applications you use, and what you need to do your job effectively.
• Listen to New Grads
  Ask your new recruits for ideas to improve the efficiency, productivity, and quality of your processes and workplace. They might lack experience, but today’s graduates are highly educated, tapped into new technology, and often very creative. Their ideas, seasoned with your experience, are often what you need to get out of a rut.
• “Get” Your Vendor
  Your solution providers can improve your processes and technologies, and find savings you never knew existed, but the only way you can maximize your return is if you understand what they need from you to be the best they can be. Just about any best-of-breed consulting firm can come in and take 10% off the top of any category that’s in their area of expertise, but if you want 30% off the top, you have to understand how they work, what information they need, and how you help them help you.
• Get Mobile
  Make sure everyone on the team has an iPhone or BlackBerry so that they can communicate and collaborate from wherever they happen to be. Remember, this is the networked generation, and they don’t always work in an office.
• Go SaaS
  And your applications go with you.

And, finally,

• Read Sourcing Innovation every day.
  Go back and read a post from the archives in addition to the day’s post. Not only are most posts bursting at the seams with educational content, but you’ll often take away more from a second read than you will from the first.