Rather than rant about yet another article from Purchasing.com that had me foaming at the mouth, I thought that, for a change, I’d offer Purchasing some constructive feedback and free advice. Hire Geraint John as Editor-in-Chief. For the past few years, I had tremendous respect for two supply management publications that consistently delivered high quality supply management content month-in and month-out. One is the Supply Chain Management Review, which has Robert Rudzki as one of its lead bloggers. The other is CPO Agenda, at which Geraint was Editor-in-Chief until May 2009.
To be honest, I used to think that Purchasing was a good magazine. But then again, 5 years ago, Doug Smock, who co-wrote the book (Straight to the Bottom Line), used to be the Editor-in-Chief. And ever since he left, as far as I’m concerned, it’s been a slow and steady decline for Purchasing Magazine. We’ve gone from creme brulee telling us “What Supply Chain Management Is” and that we need to “Think Like a CPO” to gruel that tells us that “spend analysis is good, but expensive” and that “it is good to be a tweeting Twit”. Sure you can live on gruel, but after eating creme brulee, do you really want to?
That’s why I’m recommending Geraint John for Editor in Chief. He did great work at CPO Agenda, has what it takes to return Purchasing to the glory days they experienced back when Doug Smock was in charge, and, to the best of my knowledge, isn’t attached to any publications. If Purchasing really wants to reach Purchasing 3.0, they’re going to need someone like him running the show. They might have good editors, but, as we’ve seen, good editors only make a great publication under great leadership. Time to bring some back. (Otherwise, I would bet that Purchasing can continue to kiss its web-traffic goodbye, as I predict that such traffic will continue to migrate to blogs like Metal Miner, Transformation Leadership, Supply Chain Matters, and Sourcing Innovation as long as Purchasing maintains the status quo.)
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this post are solely the opinions of the doctor. Furthermore, Geraint John had no prior knowledge of this post or the doctor‘s opinions.