the public defender’s five principles of sourcing … (Part II)

… and why you need to understand them if you want to source better.

Over on Spend Matters UK, the public defender recently gave us the fifth in his “Five Principles of Sourcing”. Designed to mimic the philosophies that underpin many of the biggest and best firms in the world, the public defender‘s five principles were designed to inform good practice that is fundamental to procurement success, regardless of vertical, region, or category.

Yesterday, we discussed the first three principles: Coherence, Openness, Rigour. Today we continue where we left off.

Alignment

Alignment covers both alignment to stakeholders and to the market. Sounds obvious, and there will be few procurement professionals (we hope) who don’t understand the need for stakeholders to be signed up to and involved in critical sourcing and procurement activities. But on the market side, how often do we try and source something that isn’t really what the market can best supply?

True success is not saving money, consolidating SKUS, consolidating the supply base, or increasing supplier performance measures — true success is meeting the needs of the stakeholders *while* doing all of the above. Remember, Supply Management’s job is to support the organizational goals, not it’s own … and true success is satisfying stakeholders (and helping them satisfy end customers).

Commerciality

Everything we do must come back to being “commercial” — looking to achieve benefits and competitive advantage for our organisations through putting in place and managing effective “commercial” deals.

Even non-profit organizations are in business to generate “profit”. The only difference is “profit” is defined as excess revenue (beyond what is needed to cover expenses) that can be put towards the intended purpose of the noon-profit (such as researching a cure, sheltering the homeless, or spreading the word). Thus, the end goal of the event is to minimize the cost necessary to achieve the stakeholder goals and have money left at the end of the day to do “more”, whatever “more” may be. That’s how competitive advantage is achieved, more value for less outlay.

In other words, if you fail to embed one of these principles in your sourcing event, you are not going to extract the value you should … and may even do worse than just spot buying on the open market or leaving every organizational user to fend for herself. For example:

If the process is not coherent, you might get the best possible deal on ink cartridges, but not realize that IT has included free replacements of all the inkjet printers with laser printers as part of their big server buy that they did internally because your team just didn’t have the technical chops to digest the overly convoluted specs provided by the potential vendors.

If the process is not open, you might save 2% on the same old, same old steel parts buy, but not realize that 40% of the cost is in the overhead because the supplier is still using bending and punching and not new laser cutting techniques that the supplier down the street is using to reduce overhead to 20%, which means that 1/5 of the cost is up for negotiation!

If the process is not rigourous, incumbents can be allowed to negotiate away awards that were fairly awarded to new suppliers in return for shady promises of cost reductions on future events, free trips to vendor learning days, and so on. This takes you down a slippery slope that not only puts your ethics in questions, but the value you delivered, as maybe the incumbent lost because they were charging more for what has become an inferior product or service (as competitor offerings improved since you first picked the incumbent).

If the process is not aligned, then you’ll get a great deal on a great product and deliver a huge value … no one wants. As a result, the stakeholders will just buy off contract at higher market prices because there will be inflated demand (as a result of contracts not being adhered to which reserve inventory). Without alignment, no one wins. Ever.

If the process is not commercial, you’re missing the point. Supply Management is about more stakeholder value for less outlay than would otherwise be made without Supply Management. (Not necessarily less than last time. If market prices increased 10% but Supply Management kept increases to 5%, that’s less outlay than the org. unit would have done without Supply Management’s involvement if it was historically buying at market.)

In other words, heed the five principles well. And download the public defender‘s white papers on Trade Extensions (registration required) for more insight.

  • Coherence and Alignment
  • Rigour and Openness
  • Commerciality

the public defender’s five principles of sourcing … (Part I)

… and why you need to understand them if you want to source better.

Over on Spend Matters UK, the public defender recently gave us the fifth in his “Five Principles of Sourcing”. Designed to mimic the philosophies that underpin many of the biggest and best firms in the world, the public defender‘s five principles were designed to inform good practice that is fundamental to procurement success, regardless of vertical, region, or category.

In this post we are going to review the five principles, discuss how they are relevant, and explain why you need to adopt them as a foundation of your n-step sourcing process, whatever n may be.

The five principles are:

  • Coherence
  • Openness
  • Rigour
  • Alignment
  • Commerciality

Coherence

In the words of the public defender, coherence means applying an end to end logic and consistency to the whole sourcing process. That means understanding the aims and goals before you even start engaging the market, and having that “thread” running through all the stages of the process, including critical elements such as the evaluation methodology and process.

This is a key to sourcing success. If you haven’t figured out the desired end state, you shouldn’t even issue the first RFX. You need to figure out the products you need, the services you need, the specifics of the provision, and any other requirements from the supplier. Only then can you define the initial RFI where you ask questions to weed out suppliers you wouldn’t do business with (due to sustainability practices, lack thereof, financial stability, and so on). That can be followed by a detailed RFP which focusses in on product/service/solution requirements, and only then will an RFQ be issued to the remaining subset of suppliers that should be good-to-go should they win.

Openness

This is perhaps the most obvious of the principles. Being open to new suppliers, new ideas and new solutions is fundamental to the concept of generating competitive advantage for the organisation through our procurement and sourcing activities. Openness is key; working on the principle of sticking to what we know is simply a guarantee that a competitor will in time do it better. That openness means not just seeking out new suppliers, but allowing suppliers (new or existing) to express their preferences, innovative ideas or options, rather than the buyer dictating to them.

Remember that insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. If you always invite the same suppliers, ask for bids on the same products, and don’t change any service requirements, then why should the bid for this event be any different from the last? The only way to get new, better, results is to open the event up to potential new suppliers, potential new products, new service offerings, and so on. Openness is a fundamental requirement of success.

Rigour

Rigour is about treating the sourcing process with respect, applying diligent and rigorous planning, appropriate processes and analysis to it. Rigour means having a focus on the professionalism of the sourcing process, which for most organisations also reflects on the professionalism of the procurement or sourcing function, team and individuals.

Simply put, rigour means making a plan and sticking to it. No results will materialize unless the sourcing plan is adhered to. No allowing a supplier to the next stage if they fail the first stage. No skipping a stage. No negotiations outside of the defined negotiation window. No negotiations outside of the negotiation team. No picking the incumbent unless they win with the agreed upon ranking system. The only way to truly get results is to make a plan, share it, and stick to it — no matter what happens.

Come back tomorrow for Part II where we continue where we left off.

Procurement Does Need to Worry About Mexico …

In a recent post over on Spend Matters, we were given “3 Reasons Why Procurement Needs to Worry About Mexico”. Namely, the facts that:

  • Trump could rewrite, or rescind, trade agreements
  • Financial Barriers could come in many forms and firewall trade
  • Internal unrest (due to rising gas prices, etc.) could disrupt supply

All of these could cause chaos for Mexican dependent supply chains. But this could open up opportunities. Let’s take them one by one

No trade agreement? No problem. Tax hikes can go both ways. The US will impose import quotas and high duties. But so will Mexico, because there will be no reason not too. Sure, the US might buy more from Mexico than Mexico buys from the US, and it might hurt Mexico, but if trade agreements are torn down, it’s not just Mexico that will suffer in this way, and retaliate. As a result, there will be opportunities to sell into other countries. It just takes contingency planning. Start now!

Financial barriers can come from any direction at any time. This is just a reality of global supply chains. Leading supply chains are always monitoring global trade regulations, current and forthcoming duties, new rulings, exchange rates, and other financial barriers — and incentives — and have backup plans to take advantage of changes, and avoid penalties, when necessary. Every barrier that is raised is typically followed by a barrier that is taken down somewhere else by another party looking to take advantage of the shake-up. Those who monitor their global operations will find another door opening for every door that closes.

Mexico, like many countries, has a history of unrest — and a history of dealing with it. This is likely an issue that is being blown out of proportion. It’s true that the unrest, and disruptions, could get worse before they get better, but they are not likely to bring the country to its knees or cause any significant or long-term damage to your supply chain. Basically, it’s just a matter of monitoring for potentially disruptive events, which is something a leading Procurement organization should be doing anyway, and taking preventative action upon the identification of a potentially disruptive event.

In other words, given that an organization, in response to these potential threats, should be:

  • exploring global options,
  • monitoring global tariffs, taxes, exchange rates, and coming changes, and
  • monitoring current events that could potentially impact the organization’s supply chain

the organization can use this to their advantage and identify new global markets before their competitors, take advantages of differences in tariffs and exchange rates to lower costs, and shift supply to backup locations when a primary location is affected, or about to be affected, by an external event. So, Procurement can worry about Mexico, or use it as the reason to finally implement supply chain monitoring, and benefit from that decision.

Cognitive Procurement is Coming …

But precisely what form will it take?

Over on LinkedIn, the procurement dynamo asks what is the role of machines in the future of Procurement? Why? Because, in some cases, machines are now, supposedly, threatening the knowledge workers because they can collect and process more information, memorize way more than we can, and enable us to do things that were previously impossible.

And that is true, but they are still not intelligent. They can emulate intelligence through (evolutionary) programming, they can make predictions (using advanced mathematical based algorithm) that hit the mark much more often than the average analyst, and they can find connections we miss. But at the same time they can emulate grave stupidity when they decide to direct you to the camping supply store when a Brit asks for a torch, make false predictions when they just compute the trend without taking into account supply and demand, or connect carpentry to stock trading because both deal with floors. All algorithms have breaking points, especially near untested boundaries. But you don’t know where they are or when they’ll be hit.

The reality is that even though some knowledge workers are being displaced, the need for knowledge workers to create, maintain, and improve these algorithms … and find new areas in which they can push capability forward. Every time an algorithm or machine displaces someone out of an existing job, a new job is created, even if it’s not that apparent. True, a good software solution can replace 10 to 100 workers doing brute force tactical or grunt work with one or two drivers, but someone has to build the software, sell the software, maintain the software, and start a new initiative to build the next generation. Plus, when a company isn’t focussed on non-value add activities, they can dedicate teams to identifying and chasing value-add activities — who might even create new lines of business, and new jobs, in the process.

So yes, the procurement dynamo is right, the future will be man and machine, in a delicate dance, and the focus will be on cognitive activities, but mainly on the human side … finding ways to properly apply, and verify, new technology. Weeding out the false positives with intelligence, identifying the false negatives with insight, and finding new applications the machines themselves will not.

Thus, the true form of cognitive procurement is smarter Procurement Professionals with more TQ than they have today.

Are You An Idiot? Stupid? Dumb? Oh, and Happy New Year to You Too …

Today’s guest post is from Dalip Raheja, President and CEO of The Mpower Group, and is reprinted with permission (as it originally appeared on The Mpower Group Blog. (Dalip provides us guests posts as well.)

Obviously that’s a rhetorical question and not one that I’m asking but it was in an article that stated:  ”Any idiot should be able to work out that publicly-quoted advertising holding companies (whose margins are public knowledge) have to make their money somewhere…..” (Stephen Foster) and I’m pretty sure that the idiots he was referring to are the procurement departments of various advertising agency’s  clients.  What the author is referring to is the practice of extremely low priced contracts from the agencies but who then get compensated from the media owners (where ads are bought) in the form of rebates.  Think of it as the rebate that car dealers get from auto companies thus muddying up the price you actually pay for your car.

Almost all the major advertising holding companies and reportedly a few others are under investigation by the Department of Justice for taking rebates (kickbacks?).  Stephen points out that this is a result of overzealous procurement departments squeezing the last penny out of contracts thus forcing the agencies to make up margins through rebates.  Another article goes on to say, ”Procurement has triumphed in commoditizing marketing, and its tentacles are deepest in media. Blind e-auctions and a general policy of letting agencies know the cheapest bid will win have stripped out nearly all the visible profit from media.”  Not only has this led to the rebate conundrum but also in agencies directing business to sister companies within the family and also led to the recent scandal of getting third parties to submit high bids so that in-house production units would end up winning the business (also under investigation and resulted in jail time in 2002).

For those that have followed this blog and our work over the years, this should sound a bit familiar – all the way from “Strategic Sourcing is Dead” to the more recent “Back to the Future – Strategic Sourcing is Dead – or It Should Be… ”.  We have long argued that the over-the-top focus on lowest price by procurement was actually destroying value and this would be a perfect illustration of that.  While procurement drives results that deliver to their own metrics, the marketing department suffers as they are not getting the service levels they need and are still paying higher prices – except on a different set of invoices.  Here are some additional comments from different authors: “If brands continue to turn everything into price, if they continue to screw cost so tightly ….then they would be stupid not to realize there will be mission (scope) creep.”  “If brands can’t see how reducing everything to cost at first saps the big agencies….. then they are dumber than anyone could have ever thought.”  Seems like everyone wants to call us idiots, stupid and dumb!!!

Google recently announced a formal “rebate” program where they are paying the agencies for placing ads with them accompanied by this gem, “If you hit certain thresholds and depending on the market, a check is paid back to the agency, which the agency should theoretically pass back to the client,” said a Google source with detailed knowledge of the program. “The agency will then divvy it up by client. P&G gets X and Visa gets Y.”  So procurement feels great that they negotiated a great contract with their agency but are willing to pay more for the actual ads and let marketing then fight to get some share of the rebate from the agency!!  Only in Strategic Sourcing does that make sense .  It’s almost similar to buying lots of things in a store because they are on sale and you can document huge savings – even though you don’t need half the stuff you bought?

The good news is that more and more of the conversation at various conferences is starting to get away from cost and much more into value (TCO=Value Destruction??). Unfortunately, the relentless focus on price/cost is not losing a lot of steam with procurement in most companies.  In the above example, it has changed the way the entire industry operates and is in fact lessening the options and competition for procurement by forcing a lot of independent agencies out of business – all brought upon by strategic sourcing practices.  Perhaps those calling us idiots, dumb and stupid may have a valid point?  I leave that up to you to decide.

Thanks, Dalip!