The Mpower Group‘s next Next Practices Xchange (NPX) is two weeks from tomorrow, Friday, November 4, which means that if you are a Supply Management VP or CPO that wants to discuss pressing issues relating to next practice identification and adoption, you should be on a plane in fourteen days time.

And yes, the doctor will be there. As most of my regular readers know, I’m not that big on conferences. Most of the regular conferences in this space have become, or have always been, fairly mediocre from a Supply Management improvement perspective as they are focussed on appealing to the lowest common denominator to maximize their potential audience, attendance, and $$$’s in their pockets. Just like the now-defunct Purchasing, the content has been watered down like a soda at the KWIK-E-MART to the point where you really don’t want to drink it if your goal is to be a leader in that top 20%, 10%, or 8% (however you want to define it). Given that SI’s goal is education and innovation, they just don’t fit.

However, there are still a few shining lights in the darkness, and the NPX has repeatedly proven itself to be one of those shining lights. In the same league of leading Supply Management consulting firms like Greybeard Advisors (led by Bob Rudzki who recently published Next Level Supply Management Excellence) and Archstone (who were recently acquired by The Hackett Group), The Mpower Group has been trying to take Supply Management into the teens in a big way by defining what the Next Level is and what Supply Management organizations need to do to get there. And while it is a work in progress, a number of the issues they have hit upon in the last couple of years are dead on.

For example, the second last NPX focussed on Training and Transition and the last one focussed on Value. In between, The MPower group has been defining a new methodology for improving performance based on AEIOU: Adoption, Execution, Implementation, Optimization, and Utilization — noting that many of the benefits of new processes and technologies go unrealized because of lack of adoption or proper execution.

For full details, check out the NPX website or contact Theodore Brown at 1-888-5-Mpower or theodoreb <at> thempowergroup <dot> com.

See you there.