the doctor recently stumbled on a piece published last year by Jeff Ashcroft over on LinkedIn where he said Logistics is the New Black where he noted that the word “logistics” has subtly worked its way further and further into the common lexicon thanks to massive marketing campaigns of courier, rail, and forwarding companies. This is making it the new black.

However, while it was never the Rodney Dangerfield of the Corporate World, as that distinction is reserved for Procurement, it was the black sheep. Needed, but kept at arms length … just in case.

However, now that savvy merchants are realizing that in their logistics function may lurk the well spring of the truly exceptional customer experience they seek, and must now deliver, logistics is taking center stage. This is good, and bad.

It’s great in that good logistics is a necessary condition for supply chain success, and if it’s not successful, the supply chain will never be, but it’s bad in that it’s only one half of the coin for supply chain success, the other being good Procurement. But, as SI has been saying for years, Procurement is the Rodney Dangerfield that don’t get no respect in the average organization (otherwise, why would almost half of Procurement organizations be without modern platforms).

When there is no easy correlation to the average consumer, when organizations like the Dairy Farmers of Canada say they are supply management, when HR organizations say they do Sourcing, and when even Apple, which has been repeatedly recognized to have the best supply chain in the world doesn’t talk about it (with the closest they come being Supplier Responsibility, probably as a result of breathing all that California smug), how is anyone to be expected to understand what a modern Purchasing, or Procurement, organization does? Especially when the term procure is often used in stories about rebels procuring supplies from the government (and this is the example of procure used on the urban dictionary, the military procuring what it needs from the private sector, or, even worse, often linked to prostitution. And purchasing, that’s what the office manager (in charge of office supplies) does.

In fact, all things considered, Procurement is probably lucky to even be the Rodney Dangerfield of the corporate world. While it might not get any respect, at least it gets recognition.

Maybe someday someone will find a way to bring sexy back to Procurement and then it will get some respect, and take the first step towards becoming the new black.