Monthly Archives: June 2011

Ariba Vision 2020: Today’s Blues

The following six predictions from “Vision 2020 – The Future of Procurement”, which would have been good if made before 2005 for 2010, are outdated and clearly come from Procurement professionals in organizations that are still in the laggard category as they define situtations that should either now be, or be in the process of becoming, standard modus operandi for a leading Supply Management organization.

04. Communities collaborate

Not only have we had virtual communities since 1996 when Geocities (which launched as BHI in 1995) hit the scene, but we have had collaborating communities in the enterprise for over 10 years now. Even Innocentive has been around since 2001! And while it’s true that communities haven’t been around nearly as long in Supply Chain, with the help of Ariba (and the Ariba Exchange), Kinaxis (and the Supply Chain Expert Community), RollStream (and its social supply chain solution that was recently acquired by GXS), communities are now normal operating procedure in leading Supply Managment organizations.

17. Talent competition heats up

The Talent Competition is already at the boiling point. Now that the economy is recovering, the last of the baby boomers are about to recover in droves at a time when there aren’t enough Supply Management professionals to begin with (as there are no programs out there that mint new Supply Management professionals for your organization to hire, as per SI’s post on the derth of Supply Chain Education). In fact, by 2014, the problem will be so bad that it will be #1 on every CPO list. And any organization that is struggling that does not address the problem now will not be around by 2020 to deal with it.

19. Enter the extended enterprise

For many global multi-nationals and leading Supply Management organizations that have outsourced, offshored, and rightshored over the last few years, the extended enterprise is already here and part of daily operational life. And this holds true for a number of product and service companies in the Global 3000.

22. Bye products, hello solutions

The crunch of the last few years resulted in many suppliers adopting a solution focus as they attempted to retain what little business their was. They went beyond simply providing a product to providing a solution around that product, including repair and warranty services, training services, and, in some cases, even consulting services. They embraced not only VMI (Vendor Managed Inventory) but VMS (Vendor Managed Services) in an effort to make themselves indispensible to their clients.

28. Contracts motivate

Well designed contracts that offer the right incentives and allocate the risks appropriately already motivate top tier suppliers to perform better to get a larger slice of the pie. If a contract offers a supplier a 10% reward for a 3% increase in service level, then, as long as it doesn’t increase the supplier’s costs by 10% to achieve a 3% increase in service level, it happens. It might take a while, but motivated suppliers get the job done when monetary rewards are involved.

29. Firms wake up to supply risk

The recent volcanic eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull and Puyehue that have grounded flights across the better part of a continent, the recent tsunami that devastated Japan and resulted in nuclear disasters in addition to long term supply disruptions, and the recent increase in droughts, fires, and hurricanes (thanks to global warming) that have resulted in decreased crop levels and huge spikes in basic food commodity costs have already woken up any supply management professional that is still breathing to supply risk and the need to address it. And even though most firms may not yet have the answers, they know they need them.

The next post will address Tomorrow’s Shoes.

Contracts Capture Value (Key NPX Take Away 3)

This post continues our discussion of the key take aways from The Mpower Group‘s Next Practices Xchange and its discussion of what is required to get to the next level of supply management. On monday, we started with a discussion of value and how the views of Supply Management are not always aligned with that of the internal customer and stakeholders. Yesterday, we discussed how to align those views and get to value. This post will discuss how an appropriately drafted contract will capture soft, and hard, value in the eyese of all parties and how such value can be communicated.

In many organizations, contracts are viewed as roadblocks. However, as Brad Peterson from Mayer Brown points out, this is a viewpoint that Supply Management needs to overcome because good contract terms create value by improving business outcomes. Supply Management needs to learn how to communicate this value because many companies don’t often recognize the value of contract terms in decsion making. Having a quick out clause with little or no penalty in the case of a major disruptive event that will prevent the supplier from insuring a continuity of supply can often save the organization millions of dollars. For example, if war breaks out in the country that your supplier’s production facilities are located in and roadblocks are put up, you will need to shift orders quickly in order to be sure of supply continuity. Not having the right to do this will put the organization at serious risk.

Well designed contracts create value and reduce risk as they will

  • bind suppliers to commitments to provide specified products & services at firm prices (and eliminate price risks for the contract term)
  • give the buyer options to flex, change, or terminate under conditions that the buyer knows would require flexing, changing, or termination to insure organizational profitability
  • provide the supplier with incentives to perform in ways that increase value or reduce risk
  • specify how alignment will be achieved (through governance and IP rights that will prevent problems later)
  • define when, where, and how the products and services will be provided and address logistics concerns in advance

But, most importantly, failing to recognize the value of good contract terms is wht leads to poor business outcomes in most organizations as

  • projected savings get eaten up by change orders
  • service levels stay green even though the customer is red (and stuck in an unhappy relationship for a long time)
  • the promised innovation never materializes
  • the contract turns out to be unexpectedly costly to govern
  • the supplier makes unilateral changes that don’t violate the poor contract terms

That’s why Supply Management has to work on communicating the value of good contracts (that include key clauses that are identified well before negotiations begin) which address the customer’s value points, the key risks, and the overall business strategy. Specifically, Supply Management needs to point out that, with a good contract,

  • suppliers work to keep their promises
  • suppliers do whatever they can to get their incentives
  • options allow the organization to steer to better outcomes
  • alignment allows both parties to work together efficiently
  • removal of uncertainties saves soft and hard dollars

And the value of each benefit can be estimated using expected value, actuarial calculations, economic calculations, and/or monte carlo simulation even when a fixed price is not included. So focus on better terms, and realize better outcomes.

Ariba Vision 2020: Yesterday’s News

The following three predictions from Vision 2020 – The Future of Procurement were totally off the mark and, in SI’s view, could only have been made by someone living in a Procurement cave for the last 10 years as any organization that thinks these define a future state of Procurement has a lot of catching up to do.

03. Work goes mobile
Work has been mobile among the IT crowd for about a decade now and among the (management) consulting crowd for over five years. Just because some organizations are slow to catch on to the fact that modern technology allows you to work anywhere, anytime and keep in touch 24/7 through real-time video conferencing does not mean that it is visionary for an organization to finally latch on to this fact. Furthermore, any organization that takes another 10 years to latch on to this realization is probably not going to be in good shape in 10 years.

19. It’s complicated

Uhm, it’s been complicated for over a decade. It’s been complicated ever since the first Fortune 500’s first started to outsource critical manufacturing processes to India and China a couple of decades ago. And while the risks and complications will continue to change as the focus shifts to different emerging economies, it’s not going to get any riskier or complicated as a whole. There’ll be more awareness of the risks, which will appear to materialize more frequently as more operations are shifted global, but the risks and complications will be fundamentally no different than they were 20+ years ago.

20. It takes a network

Just like it’s been complicated since global sourcing started to materialize among the Supply Management leaders in the late 80s, it’s taken a network ever since the manufacturing giants (in automotive and consumer goods in particular) started outsourcing assemblies to tier 1 suppliers that integrated components from tier 2 suppliers. And the major Consumer Goods companies realized in the 90’s that in house was not enough. P&G laid the foundations for Innocentive in the 90s at the same time Unilever was focussed on developing better supplier networks across its global markets.

The next post will address Today’s Blues.

Getting to Value (Key NPX Take Away 2)

As per yesterday’s post, last week I attended The Mpower Group‘s Next Practices Xchange and took part in the discussion of what is required to get to the next level of supply management. There are no easy answers, as value is often context and situation dependent, but there are good questions and appropriate starting points in the quest for answers. Yesterday we discussed our perceptions of value and how they often differ from the stakeholder’s perceptions of value and how we need to speak a common language to make headway. Today we will discuss some of the steps an organization can take to get to value.

The first step is to align perspectives on value. To do this, the Supply Management organization needs to go beyond simply understanding the stakeholder’s view of value and genuinely explore value from their perspective. Supply Management needs to engage in an open conversation about what value really is to the internal customer and what Supply Management can do to help the customer realize that value. Once the shared vision is understood, then Supply Management needs to work with the organization to make sure that the key points of the shared vision are reached. For example, if the customer needs a deal in three weeks, then Supply Management may have to make cost or contract concessions to make sure that a deal is reached in three weeks. It’s not perfect, but it will give Supply Management credibility and increase the chances that Supply Management is not only approached much earlier in the contract cycle for the next category, but will be more trusted to work on issues that the customer organization does not yet see as highly valuable.

The next step is to do whatever it takes to accelerate from planning to actual execution. While Supply Management may see value in extended planning, analysis, negotiation, and contracting, the customer only sees value in the result. In early projects wth a customer organization, Supply Management will need to identify only the most critical issues that it feels need to be addressed and sacrifice the rest of its concerns to get to a contract that delivers value in the eyes of the customer as soon as possible. This may mean that it will have to restrict its attention to the current supply base, start with supplier’s paper, or trust the customer that the supplier does deliver best-in-class quality.

The third, and most important step, is to take the best deal in the customer’s eyes, even if it costs more, increases certain risks, or violates Supply Management standard operating practice, especially if it’s a first project from, or critical project for, the internal customer. For example, even if another firm offers to defend a case for $50,000 less, management must be comfortable with the firm selected. Sometimes $50,000 is a small price to pay to keep management happy. A key point that is often overlooked is that Supply Management must be seen as the go-to organization for advice and support where procurement and suppy is concerned and the central cog in the organizational wheel that keeps everything turning. That is going to require a lot of trust and respect from the other organizational units, and it will take time to build.

Along the way, the Supply Management organization has to make the finance organization a partner, garner and keep the support of top management, promote the competencies of its customers, and, most importantly, communicate the value it delivers in customer and organizational terms. For example, we got the best firm on the case for only $50,000 above market average is actually a win in the Chief Council’s eyes.

Ariba Needs to Get Its Prescription Checked

Ariba recently released “Vision 2020 – The Future of Procurement”, which was intended to define what the Procurement function is going to look like in 2020. While it was a noble effort, it would appear that Ariba needs to get its prescription checked. While almost half of the predictions were on the mark, and others were close, some define the state of Procurement today, some define the state of Procurement yesterday, and some were just out to lunch. Since you know I can’t leave unanswered any report that I know is going to be taken as influential when it is not 100%, I am going to address each prediction one by one over the next six posts.

In particular, this series will divide the predictions into five categories:

  • Yesterday’s News
    These predictions clearly missed the boat that sailed a long time ago. Any organization that thinks this is Supply Management 2020 needs to take a close look at Supply Management 2000.
  • Today’s Blues
    These predictions would have been good if made in 2005 for 2010, as even though many of the capabilities have been around for a few years, most did not start to be adopted by leading Supply Management organizations until after 2005.
  • Tomorrow’s Shoes
    These predictions hit the mark. Leading Supply Management organizations are starting to embark on the journey that will see them realize these capabilities within 10 years, as they are necessary for these organizations to get to the next level of supply management.
  • Close, but no Cigar
    These predictions were close, but either went a little too far or a little to the side.
  • I Hope it’s Just a Ruse
    I don’t know where these predictions came from. They’re totally off base and anyone banking on them is in for a surprise.

Stay tuned! Agree or disagree, you can chime in with a comment or, according to the paper, join the conversation on the Ariba Exchange if you’re a registered member. SI prefers open discussions, but to each his own.