Monthly Archives: March 2012

The Procurement Game Plan: A Review Part I.1

Charles Dominick of Next Level Purchasing and Soheila R. Lunney of Lunney Advisory Group recently released The Procurement Game Plan: Winning Strategies and Techniques for Supply Management Professionals. We’re going to do a fairly detailed review of this book over four to five posts, but to start, we’re simply going to cover the purchasing professional’s 10 commandments because they do a great job of covering the basic mindset a Procurement or Supply Management professional has to have if she is to expect a successful career.

The Purchasing Professional’s 10 Commandments

  1. Thou shalt always make decisions in the best interest of thy employer.
    Good purchasing agents avoid any real, and even perceived, conflicts of interest.
  2. Thous shalt always involve thy internal customers throughout the purchasing process.
    Good purchasing professionals never act alone.
  3. Thou shalt never make price the only criterion in a purchasing decision.
    Good purchasing agents take quality, delivery, and other relevant criteria into consideration also.
  4. Thou shalt measure thy performance and communicate thy performance to management.
    Good purchasing professionals know and show their value.
  5. Thou shalt treat suppliers fairly.
    Good purchasing professionals don’t attempt to take advantage of suppliers’ mistakes nor trick them into accepting unfavourable terms.
  6. Thou shalt embrace change and new technologies.
    Thou shalt not resist them.
  7. Thou shalt negotiate with the understanding that there may someday need to be a close relationship with the supplier across the table.
    Thou shalt not burn thy bridges, especially before crossing them.
  8. Thou shalt realize it is a global economy.
    Thou shalt never make assumptions that thou knoweth every supplier available.
  9. Thou shalt acknowledge that thy manager’s job is to develop and implement a strategy for development.
    Therefore, thy shalt challenge thyself to solve problems independently rather than involve thy manager in tactical crises that can be reasonably resolved at your level.
  10. Thou shalt commit to continuous improvement of thy skills.
    Thou shalt never let a year go by without learning new practices used by other purchasing professionals.
  11. Thou shalt always exceed expectations, consistently delivering more than anticipated.
    Good purchasing professionals will also fulfill obligations sooner than expected.

In our next post, we’ll review first part of the book on organizational role, supply management strategy, talent, and social responsibility — the stage that a modern supply management professional has to act upon.

Is Your Desk Job Killing You?


Today’s guest post is from Joe Nguyen and originally appeared on “Online University” (Is Your Job Killing You?).

The past 40 years have seen a lot of changes to the American lifestyle, including the way we work. People are sitting more, getting less exercise, engaging with computers on a daily basis, and finding new ways to get stressed out. So how has this shift in the way we work affected Americans? A lack of exercise coupled with sitting down for eight or more hours at a time have contributed to a variety of health issues in America, not the least of these being the obesity epidemic. People sitting at a computer all day are at a heightened risk for packing on pounds, developing heart disease, and dying young — and yet over 80% of Americans report to a desk job every morning. In a nation that extolls working hard and working often, many may be displeased to find that at the end of the day, all that work just might be killing you.

And that’s why you should do your own supplier visits!

Thanks, Joe.

Commodity Prices Have Exceed the Peak of World War I

And it doesn’t look like they are going to decrease any time soon. But more importantly, recent analysis by the McKinsey Quarterly indicates that commodity prices will remain high and volatile for at least the next 20 years. As per this recent article in the McKinsey Quarterly on “a new era for commodities”, demand for energy, food, metals and water will continue to rise inexorably as three billion new middle-class consumers emerge in the next two decades.

And the changes will be significant. As per the article, the global car fleet will double by 2030. Calorie intake per person in India will increase 20%, per capita meat consumption in China could increase by 60%, and urban infrastructure demand will soar in both countries. A hundred years ago, this was not that big of an issue as improvements in exploration, extraction, and cultivation techniques kept the world ahead of ever-increasing global needs. But today, the potential climatic impact of carbon emissions associated with surging resource use limits exploration and extraction because we’re already at a level where global carbon emissions are significantly above the level required to keep increases in the global temperature below 2° Celsius — the threshold which has been identified as potentially catastrophic. Plus, current cultivation technology is pretty much at its limit as only so much food can be grown in a fixed space.

And everything is connected. The ripple effects of water shortfalls at a time when 70% of water is consumed by agriculture and 12% is consumed by energy production can be catastrophic. For example, in Uganda, water shortages led to escalating energy prices which led to the use of more wood fuels which led to deforestation and soil degradation that threatened the agricultural food supply.

As a result, for the short term, commodity prices are going to stay high and your organization had better be prepared.

Today Is A Historic Day For Extra-Planetary Supply Management

One year ago today, the Space Shuttle Discovery (OV-103) made its final landing after 39 flights. Discovery, which flew the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit, performed both research and International Space Station assembly missions.

It was the first operational shuttle to be retired and its decommissioning was a historic event. It’s good that it will soon be on display at the Smithsonian Institution‘s National Air and Space Museum at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia (even though it will replace Enterprise which, hopefully, won’t be lost in the archives) as it’s an important piece of scientific history and supply management history. The official welcoming ceremony will take place next month on April 19th and it will be on public display soon after.

With the creation of the International Space Station, Supply Management, for the first time, became an extra-planetary concern in November of 2000 when the first resident crew, Expedition 1, arrived. Since then, the five cooperating space agencies (NASA, RKA, JAXA, ESA, and CSA) have had to insure not only the capability to continuously supply the crew with the supplies they needed, but have had to insure that the materials necessary for the station’s maintenance and continued instruction arrive in a timely fashion. Discovery was a key component in the station’s maintenance, having delivered modules and supplies over the last twelve years.

The twenty-first century introduced us to the beginnings of Solar Supply Management, and if Space Adventures has its way, the ISS and the Supply Management challenges it created are just the beginning. Space Adventures is proposing a Lunar Mission and the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG) is proposing a Lunar Ark. If either of these projects, or a replacement project, come to fruition, we may soon be managing orbital supply chains. It could be a very interesting century for Supply Management indeed!

No Service, No Tax: Haligonians Demand Your Money Back!

My apologies to my global readers, but this is a local issue that is growing more pressing by the day and I feel the need to get the message out any way I can.

HRM residents pay 0.156% of the value of their property on their
property tax bill each year in the form of an area tax for Metro
Transit. Last year, the HRM collected 34 Million dollars to fund Metro
Transit, and this year the HRM expects to collect over 35 Million
dollars for the same purpose. In other words, we are paying almost 3
Million dollars per month for a service we are not getting.

We, the residents of HRM, demand that one twelfth of the are tax be
credited back to us for each month that Metro Transit is not running.

There is no reason that the strike should be prolonged unnecessarily.
We should not be responsible for the failings of management. Almost
100,000 people are affected by the lack of service, and their voice is
not being heard. Students are being forced to drop out of school and
people are losing their jobs. We feel that the only way our collective
voices will be heard is if we unite and demand our money back.
Furthermore, we are tired of all of the in-camera sessions and secret
negotiations. It’s our money, and our service, and we want some
transparency and accountability.

No Service, No Tax, One Voice!

If you agree, please sign our petition at Petition Online Canada.