Category Archives: Best Practices

Procurement Won’t Advance Until We F*CK SAVINGS!

… and, in the same breath, F*CK CONSULTANCIES THAT ONLY PUSH SAVINGS!

Recently there’s been a big push by some parties, including Procurious, to lead Procurement into the future, and in Procurious case, it was through an online Big Ideas Summit where they convinced a number of individuals to webcast to digital attendees on the same day on Procurement topics. But Procurement is not going to go anywhere until we first deal with the number one problem, and that is our continual focus on savings because of management’s continual mis-focus on savings.

the doctor is as appalled as the public defender (who blogged his dismay in “Bain Company Insights”) to find out that yet another big consultancy, in this case Bain & Company, recently published an article on Unearthing the Hidden Treasure of Procurement that classified the value of Procurement as the good old consultant’s snake-oil of basic spend aggregation, consolidation, and tough-negotiation to find savings.

Which is another crock of bullsh!t. (Seems we’ve been blogging about those quite a bit lately! But I guess someone has to!) The value of Procurement is cost-control (not savings), demand management, product-and-service-normalization, and overall value generation and maximization. NOT SAVINGS! First of all, there is no such thing as savings — “savings” just means you are paying more than you should. Secondly, anyone who applies proper Procurement principles to a category for the first time can quickly get prices down (near) to market pricing. Thirdly, and most importantly, as the public defender points out, there is no such thing as savings anyway as all savings, and especially those savings that resulted from bringing initial prices below market average, will be clawed back by suppliers, or the [the] new supplier / product [will] turn[s] out to be unsuitable, or oil prices [will] rise or something else happens (like a disruption from new supplier / carrier unreliability).

And this brings us back to our secondary thesis, not only do we have to F*CK SAVINGS but F*CK CONSULTANTS THAT ONLY PUSH SAVINGS! Only two types of consultants push savings, those that don’t know any better (and will not help your organization grow over the long term) and those that have learned the best way to make easy money is to just push the savings agenda because that means that you can re-source the same category every two or three years and if you split the categories appropriately, you will have re-sourcing work negotiating savings on the same categories forever more (because, as costs rise, new, fake savings opportunities will re-appear)!

The only way to move Procurement forward is to shift the focus from cost savings to value creation, with a focus on cost-control (and avoidance, but not savings), demand management, appropriate value-add selection, new supplier identification, and joint product/service innovation — where the real organizational savings will come from. And, as we indicated at the beginning of this post, the only way this will happen is if Procurement forces the conversation away from savings and towards value, regardless of the cost and how many big consultancies we have to tell off in the process!

OEM Software Maintenance: Should I Stay or Should I Go? Part III

After working your way through Torey’s 2-part series, you have probably figured out that it’s a tough decision. It all comes down to ROI, which is a two part calculation. The first part is what does it cost to stay, and what does it cost to go:

This calculation requires filling out the following table at the very least and getting a good feel for total cost outlay either way:

Provider 3rd Party
Annual Maintenance Cost Usually % of License Often Fixed Amount
Estimated LifeSpan Annual Maintenance Cost * (Years-1) Usually fixed amount, sometimes lower for longer lifespans
Required 3rd Party Software Upgrades Extra Provider Costs Extra Third Party Costs
Forced Provider Upgrades Provider Costs 3rd Party Costs
Extra Training Costs if not included if not included
Extra Customization Costs if not included if not in base support
Grand Total $$$ $$$

If the third party cost is significantly less (at least 20%, preferably more, because there are always unknowns and gotchas and switching costs), then you consider switching. But only if there is also value.

Cost alone should not be a consideration. What sort of value will the new vendor bring with them? Will they bring best-in-class processes? Do they have any needed industry and category expertise? Do they consistently out-perform the vendor in areas of inefficiency in the organization? If they don’t also bring value, the savings will be limited compared to what is expected. But if they bring added value, then it’s a totally different story, and one that needs to be read.

A Great UIX is MORE than just a Version Number

… and MUCH MORE than just a minor version number!!! Soon after the doctor and the prophet published the first part of their UIX guide, the doctor received a copy of a mass email from a vendor claiming that they couldn’t agree more and that their new release, X.Y+0.1 now met that requirement. Pretty bold claim!

As we haven’t yet reviewed the current release, we can’t comment, but we imagine that it would not be that much different than X+Y, which we did see. Now, we’re not saying in this case that X+Y wasn’t good, it was, or that the vendor won’t be a leader if it participates in the upcoming solution maps, as it has as good of a shot as anyone else, and probably better in some ways, but UI and UIX doesn’t change over night, and definitely doesn’t change much on a minor, almost quarterly, release cycle.

And a bold claim like this, especially a bold claim coupled with a minor release, can cause the vendor more harm than good as it can lead to unrealistic expectations in the mind of analysts and, more importantly, potential customers that might then hold it to an unrealistic standard when evaluating the solution than the analysts, and more importantly, customers would otherwise convey upon the solution. This could cause the vendor’s solution to be scored lower than it should be, and even lower than an inferior solution from a competitor (as compared against the customer’s specific needs) which would then be, incorrectly (with respect to the customer’s specific needs) chosen.

Moreover, a great UI / UIX does not need to be sold — one look and the UI/UIX and it sells itself. All a vendor with a great UIX needs to do is promote all of the great things the solution can do and all of the processes that it solves and get in front of the potential customer. That’s it.

Remember, as Scotty always said, under-promise, over-deliver. After all, how else do you expect to get a reputation as a miracle worker?

Classic (Friday) Rant: The Key to a Successful (Virtual) Procurement Center of Excellence? No MBAs and No PMPs!

As you know, the doctor is pushing for platform-powered Virtual Procurement Centers of Excellence, and some of you might be wondering how to staff them.  The answer is, with the best Procurement Pros you can get.  Who are they? The answer is often industry, Company, and sometimes even category specific, but to get you started, we’re going to reprint this classic post that defines who they are not and, in traditional SI style, pulls no punches.

Regular readers will know I’ve been blasting MBAs (Master of Business Administration) for years and feel that the degree on its own is worthless (a belief that has started to be echoed by many progressive US companies who realize that MBAs have too much training on the coastline of business and not enough on the mainland, as pointed out by Robert Kaplan on The Hollow Science). In a nutshell, if all you have is an MBA, then, as far as I’m concerned, you’re just a Master of Business Annihilation!

But what regular readers don’t know is that I hold project / product managers with no education or skill in what they are attempting to manage in the same regard and believe that PMPs (Project Management Professional, as certified by PMI for e.g.) with no other skills are nothing more than certified, legitimized, pimps. (Think about it. All you are to them is a resource with a skill to be sold to the highest bidder. The only difference between them and a street pimp is that, while the street pimp is selling a resource with physical skills to the highest bidder or favoured client, they are selling a resource with mental skills to the highest bidder, or favoured executive.) The reason that I’ve been quiet is, until now, I’ve had no proof. But thanks to a recent Hackett Group study, nicely summarized in this Information Week article on “Project Management Offices: A Waste of Money”, we now know that not only are you not expected to get better business outcomes or project delivery performance if you use a PMO (Project Management Office) staffed with PMPs, but using one might actually decrease outcomes and/or performance. In fact, the study found that an IT organization’s performance actually improved once the PMO was eliminated.

What everyone seems to be forgetting is that, especially today when the level of process and technical sophistication in most fields is higher than its ever been and the pace of advancement is still relentless, you cannot effectively manage what you do not understand. While the basic principles of good business and project management are the same across disciplines at the high-level, 30,000 foot view, the implementations vary, and the knowledge needed to understand if a project is really on schedule or if a disruption is serious or not is different across every industry, organization, and project — especially in software and engineering. Every project comes with its own unique challenges, many of which will be deeply technical or process oriented. And if you don’t even understand the ramifications of the second law of thermodynamics, don’t expect to understand the challenges your design engineer is facing when the system keeps overheating at normal usage levels and how long those challenges might take to resolve.

Now, to be clear, I’m not denying the usefulness of MBA skills or project management skills, as they are useful when layered on top of a deep understanding of the organization’s supply chain or a relevant engineering degree (when one is managing an engineering project) — as they are incredibly useful in these circumstances, just denying that these degrees and/or certifications have any value on their own. In fact, as some recent studies have shown, on their own they can be down-right destructive!

So if you want a successful Supply Management Center of Excellence, forget about the MBAs and the PMPs and look for people with the skills in the disciplines necessary to create and deliver your products and services. If you produce electronics, look for designers, electrical and electronics engineers, risk management experts (to prevent supply disruptions from your dependence on rare earth metals), finance experts (to help manage working capital until the first product is sold), and any other cross-functional expertise necessary for a successful product. If you find the right experts, you can then train them in the project management and business skills that are required. And since these skills require substantially less capability and training than the disciplines the experts have already mastered, your experts will be able to master these skills given sufficient time and proper training. (On the flip-side, the chances that a PMP with only an associate’s degree in psychology is going to gain a sufficient mastery of power electronics to truly understand the project requirements to design a new overload reset switch for a local power grid are slim to none.)

To Truly Be Successful at Supplier Risk Management, ADMIRE!

Now that we’ve carefully explained that you’re just not up to the task of preventing a black swan event, hopefully you have made risk management a priority. So, to help you understand, at a high level, what this is, we’re reprinting this classic post from 2010. Most of the articles out there get the basics wrong, but if you get them right, it’s not that hard to do a decent job (especially if you get a good platform to help you out). Enjoy!

Not only is supplier risk at the forefront of thought these days, but articles on it are at the forefront of online publications as well, including this recent article in Supply Chain Digest on the key drivers of successful supplier risk management. However, most of the articles miss the point.

For example, according to this article, the trick to successful supplier risk management is to:

  1. engage top-level management,
  2. segment suppliers based on relative risk,
  3. rigorously measure and manage risk,
  4. give category managers tools and training, and
  5. collaborate with key suppliers.

Which is all good advice that is fine and dandy, but it misses the point. Risk management is all about identify risks, identifying mitigations, monitoring risks, and executing mitigations at the appropriate time. Management support is important, but it doesn’t have anything to do with risk identification or mitigation. Segmentation is a good tactic as more attention needs to be placed on suppliers which represent more significant risks, but again it has nothing to do with risk identification or mitigation. The same goes for giving category managers tools and training. Collaboration is relevant only if the mitigation requires collaboration. In other words, in this list, the only key driver is the “rigorous management and mitigation of risk”.

The reality is that success depends on your ability to ADMIRE the situation. Specifically, the ability to:

  • Ascertain the risks,
  • Define the risks that could cause significant damage,
  • Monitor those risks,
  • Identify appropriate mitigations,
  • React when signs of the risk begin to materialize, and
  • Engage the supplier when collaboration is required to mitigate the risks and
  • rinse and repeat

That’s it. But don’t forget the rinse and repeat. The biggest risks today are not the biggest risks tomorrow, so you always have to be actively engaged in risk management. Always. And since there are always more risks than you can actively address and mitigate, at any particular time you need to focus on the major ones (but still monitor for, and evaluate, the rest and as soon as they become likely or potentially costly, elevate the priority so that a mitigation plan is prepared in time).

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