The last six posts in the series have explored in detail Ariba’s recently released Vision 2020 – The Future of Procurement report, which was intended to define what the Procurement function is going to look like in 2020. While a valiant effort, the report doesn’t live up to SI’s expecations, which only gives it a B-^*. Next Generation Supply Management is going to be a lot more intensive than most Supply Management professionals are predicting and many of the realites are going to be substantially different than they are today in but a few short years.

As SI will make clear in the months ahead, both on this blog and in an upcoming white-paper, a leading Supply Management organization will have to make significant improvements in sourcing process, organization, finance, IT, product management, risk management, asset management, relationships, and metrics, in addition to adopting a value focus, in order to reach the next level of Supply Management. It will have to go well beyond a realization that more automation, financial sophistication, strategy, supplier integration, and risk management is needed. Even the leaders will have to revolutionize their approach to Supply Management and take their talent to the next level. It’s fortunate that 2020 is still 9 years away as an average Supply Management organization still has a long way to go.

^*
SI calculated the final grade of B- as follows. It assigned each entry a score from 1 (for effort) to 5 (for being on the mark) depending upon where it ranked on the scale of I Hope It’s Just a Ruse to Tomorrow’s Shoes. The precise calculation is as follows: