Taking part in your own little Schrödinger experiment:
Category Archives: Miscellaneous
How to Ignore Bad Advice
Last month, Forbes ran an article that needs to be in every Supply Manager’s toolkit. Given that the number one priority of most Supply Management organizations is to gain trust across the organization and get more spend under management (SUM), an average Supply Manager, as she gains trust, is going to get a lot of advice from the individuals on the cross-functional teams she is going to build. Some will be good, but some will be bad (and downright ugly). A good Supply Manager knows how to latch onto, implement, and encourage the good advice while carefully avoiding the bad advice.
Ignoring bad advice, especially if is from an individual who’s buy-in you need and who thinks it’s really, really good, can be tough, so I’m glad Forbes ran this article. Even though the article was written more for entrepreneurs about to embark on a startup, it is just as applicable to Supply Managers about to take on a new category. So what was the advice?
- Look Forward – not back.
Study trend lines that correspond to what you need to buy, not historical demand levels. Demand could be falling. The last thing you want to do is be stuck with a warehouse of obsolete inventory. So make sure you don’t just get last quarter’s numbers, ask for the last three years. - Ignore Your Friends – talk to customers.
It’s not what engineering or marketing wants — it’s what the end consumer wants. If you don’t procure the products and services that the end consumer will buy, it doesn’t matter how good you do your job as the organization won’t last long without sales. So no matter how good they claim the advice is, be sure to say that sounds like an awesome idea, let’s run it by our customers to see if they are ready for it. - Consider the source.
Everyone has their own bias and point of view. It’s important that you balance all the views in your sourcing decision to arrive at what’s best for the organization as a whole, not just what’s best for engineering, marketing, or even your own Supply Management organization. The best Supply Management organizations increase overall value. So when engineering gives you a great idea, be sure to say that’s great, now how do we sell it to marketing and vice versa. When everyone gets on the same page, the advice is likely to be better, or at least consistent. - Learn to Love the Word No.
Some requests will be so bad that there will be no way to address them besides just saying no. For example, marketing will insist on a certain print shop which costs 50% more than the next highest bidder because of a great relationship. There’s just no way to deal with this situation delicately. Print is print. It’s not creative, and there is absolutely no rationale argument for such a premium. In this situation, you will just have to say no and move on. - Bet on yourself – always.
At the end of the day, you have to make the decision, and, most importantly, as you are being held accountable, you have to make the right one. If you’ve done your homework, that’s something you will be able to do. You just have to have the confidence that you can do it, even if everyone else is pulling you in a different direction. Don’t expect other organizations to echo your views, they won’t. They have their own goals. Your job is to get everyone on the same page when you can, and make the tough call that is best for the organization when you can’t. C’est la vie de gestion des approvisionnements.
As the article says, simply put – advice is an input. Treat it as one of many.
Happy Procurement Independence Day
It’s the 6th anniversary of Procurement Independence Day, first celebrated at the Coupa Cabana Cafe back in 2006. I hope it was a good one for you!
Coupa is still going strong, as you might have guessed from the flurry of press releases coming out of their doors lately. Before the summer is over, we will be checking in on Coupa to not only see where the past year has taken them, but, more importantly, where the next year is taking them. Their pace of development has not relented, and they have even more cool stuff coming down the pipe later this year.
We will review some of the forthcoming capabilities in detail and see whether they are ready to make the leap to the big-time with the Series E injection they just raised in May. They’ve come a long way from the new kid on the block they were six years ago, going from a few sales in the low end of the mid-market to a lot of sales in the high end of the mid-market to making progress in the Fortune 500, where they recently landed a few significant customers. Will they be able to turn that into a few dozen Fortune 500 customers and become one of the next big pure-plays in the space who fill the void left by the recent acquisitions of Emptoris and Ariba? And will they be able to successfully penetrate the European market? Only time will tell, but I can say that the fact that they have almost 300 customers with a 95%+ renewal rate is certainly nothing to scoff at and pretty telling.
Stay tuned. SI was one of the first blogs to bring you in-depth coverage of their capabilities when they were just starting, and it will be one of the first to bring you in-depth coverage of their new platform capabilities that might just make them a true Fortune 500 / Global 3000 player in the coming years.
While you wait, you can revisit some of the classic posts or sing a few songs from the “A” side:
The (Board) Gamer’s Guide to Supply Management Part I: Ticket to Ride
I’m excited to introduce this brand-new summer series. Running once every week or so, this series will help you understand
- what Supply Management is, if you want to know about this new and exciting career and you are an avid (board) gamer
- how to take your Supply Management game to the next level, if you are new to the job and are having difficulties understanding some of the basics across the many areas that you have to master, and
- how to hone your analytical skills in your-off time to do a better job and, ultimately, master many of the nuances of supply chain management and optimization.
And I know what you’re thinking. Those of you who are avid gamers are saying, “Cool! Not only do I get to put those countless hours mastering Settlers of America, Puerto Rico, and Steam to use, but I finally get an introduction to Supply Management that isn’t as exciting as watching paint dry!” and those of you who (think you) are expert practitioners are saying “Has the doctor finally flipped his gourd? Has he finally downed one pan-galactic gargle blaster too many (while trying to work his way through all the earthly equivalents, given the difficulty of obtaining an Algolian Suntiger tooth) in the presence of the Sourcing Maniacs?” (Keep up, they’ve been missing since leaving for an extended [European] vacation in January of 2010.) To the gamers, I say game on and to the rest of you, I say not yet. Bear with me and you just might learn something. Or at least have fun trying.
Even though (The Settlers of) Catan is the classic board game that is typically used to introduce newbies to the genre of strategic games, and the second game used by Wil Wheaton In Exile in TableTop to introduce you to the world of recreational board gaming, we’re going to start with Ticket to Ride because it’s about the easiest game out there and a great way to introduce you non-gamers to gaming (and you gamers to Supply Management).
As explained by Wil Wheaton in TableTop Episode 4, Ticket to Ride is
so elegant and so simple [that] you can teach it faster than it takes to set it up. You can even convince your wife to play it with you. And even better, if you don’t know anything about Supply Management, you can learn some of the important principles that will stay with you throughout your Supply Management Career.
And not only is it one of the simplest games to start with, as Wil explains, Ticket to ride is the 2004 German game of the year. That’s sort of like winning the Academy Award for board games. It’s kind of a big deal.
So where do we begin? With the basic rules, of course. The best summary of those can be found in TableTop Episode 4. As explained by Wil, when we play Ticket to Ride
| We are railroad barrons attempting to connect cities together across North America in the age of steam. At the end of the game, the player with the most points will be declared the winner. … To get those points, we can perform one of three simple actions on every turn. We can draw cards face up from the board or from the deck of mystery. We can cash in cards of the same colour to play a train down and claim a route. If a player is feeling particularly saucy, he can draw a ticket. If you complete the route outlined on the ticket before the end of the game, you receive bonus points. However, it’s a little risky. Because if you do not complete that route, those bonus points count against you in the final scoring. … Ticket to Ride is a modern day classic. You can learn it in minutes but you will be playing it for the rest of your life. All aboard. |
So how does this help you learn, better understand, and master Supply Management? It’s simple.
If you are a gamer who wants to understand what the new and exciting field of Supply Management is,
- In Supply Management, when shipping goods, you can use one of the carriers (in the face up cards) you have used in the past or try a new one (from the deck of mystery) who may (or may not) better serve your needs
- When you need to ship something quickly and demand on carriers in the region exceeds available shipping capacity, you can use reserved capacity (in your claimed routes) to get your priority goods on time (and potentially sacrifice the ability to get future shipments on time)
- Simply getting foreign goods onto sovereign soil is not success. If you cannot get the goods the last few miles from the dock to the warehouse or the last mile from the warehouse to the customer, you have not complete the route and have not succeeded in your task. (Just like getting four out of five tracks is not enough to claim a five track route.)
If you are a novice Supply Manager, the game helps you understand that resources and options are always limited and you are always jockeying for position against your competition. The reason that Ticket to Ride is hard to win (and hard to master) is that only one of the double tracks on a route can be claimed in a 2-3 player game, and there are only 2 tracks on a route in a 4-5 player game. You’re always competing against your opponents for tracks to complete your routes and, even worse, you don’t know what routes your opponents are trying to complete, just like in Supply Management. In Supply Management, if your competition knew your complete route, they would know what factory you’re sourcing from, what store/end-user the product is going to, and based upon knowledge about the factory (and supplier) and the store (and customer base), they would not only be able to extrapolate your supply strategy (which could be one of your competitive advantages) but also be able to predict what type of product you are sourcing (and possibly extrapolate your market strategy). That’s not what you want (especially if you’re Apple).
And if you are an expert, the game helps you hone your Supply Management instincts. Yes, you need instincts. When do you lock down a logistics / distribution contract? Analytics only takes you so far. At some point you have to lock the deal in, and if you’re spot-buying, timing gets you the best price. It also increases your observation skills. If you see capacity declining rapidly on preferred routes, you know you have to lock in. But if you can see capacity declining on nearby routes, then you know a spill-over is inevitable. (And in Ticket to Ride, the best players can see routes forming and lock in tracks that they need before their competitors.)
It’s a great starting point. And if you can’t wait to get started, I have great news! You don’t even have to wait until you get a chance to rush to your local game (and comics, if you’re in a small[er] town) store to pick up a copy. Since many of you have an iOS device, you can download Ticket to Ride for iPhone or Ticket to Ride for iPad right now! (Goal: Exceed 160 points.) Happy barroning!
O Canada!
O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love until Harper’s command.
With glowing eyes we now despise,
(A) Conservative in charge!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we want a change for thee.
We want our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we want a change for thee.
O Canada, we want a change for thee.
