Leave it to a Big 5 Player, and Accenture to be particular, to decide we need yet another set of terminology to describe the same old Procurement goal. In their recent piece on Compulsive Contributors, they focus on Procurement Masters and Procurement Contenders, differentiated by TCO vs TVO (no, not TiVo, but that was my first take too . Picking up on the Total Value Management (TVM) concept that leading bloggers like yours truly have been preaching for five or so years now, they have decided to embrace it as a cornerstone of Procurement Mastery, but relabel it Total Value of Ownership (TVO). This is good, because TVM is necessary for mastery, while simultaneously annoying, as we don’t need new acronyms for established concepts. (I know, I know. You can’t use someone else’s acronym as then you can’t take credit for the idea.)

However, I must say that I like the fact that they state that masters, who go beyond simple TCO in their award considerations, also take into account the need to:

• enhance materials sourcing and labor
• reduce fixed cost structures
• optimize processes
• eliminate non-value add activities
• increase working capital efficiency
• eliminate unnecessary demand
• accelerate new product introduction
• increase revenue
• reduce risks to supply and brand
• reduce the carbon footprint

Even if they re-invent the language wheel, it’s important that the big firms (with the big marketing budgets) get the word out that Procurement Mastery is