And start by downloading the new BravoSolution sponsored Sourcing Innovation WhitePaper on Taking the First Step on Your Next Supply Management Journey [registration required] today!
Lamenting that the acronyms and acclamations are flying fast and furious in the Supply Management space, with phrases like VFS. Hi-Def Sourcing. Next Level Supply Management. Next Practices. leading the way, this paper, which notes that even world class Supply Management organizations have to do something more to maintain their year-over-year contributions to the bottom line with the perfect Procurement storm of high demand, low supply, and high market volatility brewing off of the coast, provides a roadmap for those Supply Management organizations that are looking to begin, or continue, a Next Level Supply Management Journey.
For an average organization, this will be a long journey that could take the better part of a decade. There’s a reason that only 8% of the Procurement organizations make the best-in-class cut (defined as being in the top quartile of both efficiency and effectiveness) in the Hackett Group rankings (which benchmark 73% of the Fortune 100). It’s tough to be the best. (But not out of reach for the dedicated. That’s why the rankings change year over year.)
In order to help a Supply Management organization begin its Next Level journey, this paper starts by defining a 3-Level Maturity Model across nine axes that can be easily understood by any Supply Management organization. While you can argue for 5 (and follow the Hackett Model), or even 7 (and follow a pyramidal model), by breaking the model down at the borders, the reality for most organizations is that they are either are best in class, better than average, or worse than average, and until they are deep in a journey, any classification that is more fine-grained just confuses the issue.
The nine axes are:
- Sourcing Process
- Organization
- Finance
- IT
- Product Management & Marketing
- Risk Management
- Asset Management
- Relationships
- Metrics
And depending on where you fall on the majority of these metrics, this will slot you either into a
- st level organization still in the standardization and complexity reduction stage, a
- nd level organization in the operational excellence stage of Supply Management, or a
- rd level best-in-class organization that has progressed to the head of the pack with its mastery of strategic business enablement.
To find out where you fall, and get some good ideas on how you get there, download the BravoSolution sponsored Sourcing Innovation white-paper on Taking the First Step on Your Next Supply Management Journey [registration required] today!