Author Archives: thedoctor

Squirrels, Squirrels, Squirrels

In honour of the Occupy Suburbia movement, I give you, to the tune of Girls, Girls, Girls by Motley Crue:

Squirrels, Squirrels, Squirrels

Friday night and I need to eat
Some vegetables and a slice of meat
A slice of bread and a side of slaw
Would go quite well inside my gaping maw

Squirrels, Squirrels, Squirrels
Short legs and feathery tails
Squirrels, Squirrels, Squirrels
Running wild through the hay bales
Squirrels, Squirrels, Squirrels
Flat ears, Racoon trails

It’s too late, they’re in charge
From suburb’s edge to your backyard
Red Tail squirrels and they can’t be beat
Drive you out of your home and into the street

Squirrels, Squirrels, Squirrels
In your pool house and at the pool side
Squirrels, Squirrels, Squirrels
Taking over your dwelling, it’s a red tide
Squirrels, Squirrels, Squirrels
Raising Hell in your kitchen with pride

Have you read the news
In the Soho Tribune
Ya know they marched in
and then they demanded pie

We thought we were neighbours
On two sides of the door
I tell ya what, man
They moved in, the occupation began
I don’t know the story
Or if they’ve got a plan

Suburbia, Your Town, Now
They’ll get inside, I don’t know how
Looking for pie, goodies, and treats
Cream filled twinkies and other good eats

Squirrels, Squirrels, Squirrels
Lead the charge, for pie they’ll trot
Squirrels, Squirrels, Squirrels
They want Crisco in every crockpot!

Squirrels, Squirrels, Squirrels

Wanted: Talent-Driven Innovation

While we’re on the subject of talent and the importance thereof to a successful Supply Management organization, a topic that we will address further in the weeks to come, it is fruitful to point out a “recent article” over on Industry Week by Stephen Gold, the CEO of Manufacturers Alliance, who asks a very important question:

Can the United States meet the challenge of creating the skilled workforce needed for manufacturing leadership?

After all, if we are going to homeshore and bring jobs back, due to the rising transportation and labour costs in the developing world, as well as the considerable overhead imposed by various import and security laws, we need a workforce that can handle them. And considering that the manufacturing workforce has declined 40% over the last 20 years, it could be difficult to bump it back up quickly given the skills required for your average production line these days.

Given that the #1 driver of competitiveness is talent-driven innovation, if the US can’t step up its game, the emerging markets may take the lead. Especially given that countries such as Germany, China and India have done far more in recent years to encourage innovation (and in turn build vibrant manufacturing bases) in their own backyards than the US has done. And given that high-skill employment has risen 17% while low-skill employment has dropped 9%, there is a double challenge to be faced. Furthermore, with the recent de-emphasis of math and science in primary and secondary schools, and the corresponding decline in math, science, and engineering degrees from 11% to 7%, there is, in actuality, a triple challenge to be faced. (And that’s not considering the fact that a global assessment ranks US students 23rd in science and 30th in math!)

The US may be able to rise to the challenge, but, like Rocky, they’ll have to have the eye of the tiger to do it. What do you think?

Talent Really Can Transform Your Organization

In yesterday’s post, we discussed the NPX keynote by Don Wirth, VP Global Operations Supply Chain and Excellence of DuPont, on DuPont’s Journey to Supply Chain Excellence and how a key to success was DuPont talent. We also said that DuPont is a company that did more than just give their talent lip service and put their corporate money where their corporate mouth was and this is a key to their recent success (which saw a year over year EPS growth of 32% last quarter) and their plans to cut 3.7 Billion in cost from their supply chain.

How did they do it? When the economy was tanking in late 2008 and early 2009 and everyone was cutting jobs left, right, and center, instead of cutting their global workforce 5% to 10% with all their peers, which was the original gut feel reaction of some executives and board members, they took a step back and said “the market will come back like it always does and the best way to recover is to be ready and more competitive when it does“. And they realized that the best way to be ready was to have people who could capitalize on the opportunity. By capitalizing, they decided that they needed people who could deliver the necessary innovation while keeping supply chain costs down as that is the key to continued success in up or down economies.

So they created a center of supply chain excellence and took people from across the company who would have otherwise been laid off from under-performing divisions and trained them. And trained them. And trained them some more on supply chain best practices — lean, kaizen, negotiation, contract management, and other areas of critical impact. Then they sent them back into the business units with new skills and knowledge to guide unit operations and manage the supply chains with guidance from the center of excellence. And then the cost reductions started to appear from across the board.

From there, they modified their Dupont Production System (DPS) methodology to include best-in-class supply chain operations to provide the highest customer service with the lowest total cost of ownership by increasing overall supply chain resilience. And then they focussed on plant operations, supply chain design, and supply chain optimization and identified almost 3.7 Billion in cost reduction opportunities through improved operations. And now development is a key part of their mandate and a continued focus. And it’s for the best.

Three Keys To Success in Today’s Competitive Supply Chain Landscape

The other keynote at this fall’s NPX was by Don Wirth, VP Global Operations Supply Chain and Excellence of DuPont who did a presentation on DuPont’s Journey to Supply Chain Excellence. Dupont, which expects to save almost 3.7 Billion dollars at the culmination of their journey through improved plant operations, supply chain network design, and supply chain optimization, will slash its overall supply chain costs across the board by about 10%. (And its efforts are making an impact. It just delivered strong EPS growth on 32% higher sales for third quarter 2011.)

How is it going to do it? Innovation, differentiation, productivity, and talent are key success requirements. In particular, it plans to align the following strategic themes:

  • Innovation & Customer Focus,
  • Differential Business Management, and
  • Productivity & Continuous Improvement

with the following growth trends (and the importance of trends was discussed in SI’s posts on minitrends and megatrends):

  • increased need for food production,
  • decreased dependence on fossil fuels,
  • environmental protection, and
  • emerging markets.

This is great strategy for any supply management organization. Align with forthcoming needs and be better prepared for the market shifts that tend to come faster than expected. So how does it plan to align?
By beginning with management practices. Metrics and incentives are revised to be consistent and aligned with goals. Risk management is organization wide. Governance and structure supports center of excellence operations. Then it leverages scale and skill. It starts with standardization and simplification. It puts experts in charge of the supply chain. Best Practices are institutionalized. Finally, it builds culture and capabilities by treating talent as an enterprise asset.

Dupont engages its workforce in its entirety. The collective power is in the group and the team, and getting the most we can out of
our operations. These words are straight from the mouth of the CEO, who puts the company’s focus where her mouth is. How? That’s the subject of tomorrow’s post.

Winning the Talent War – Start With A Resource Strategy

In yesterday’s post, that mentioned that the talent war has just begun, we discussed Don Klock’s keynote at last week’s NPX workshop, put on by the The Mpower Group. In his keynote, Don, a Senior Global Procurement / Supply Chain Executive with over 30 years of experience with multiple major multinationals who is now with the Rutgers Business School, Don noted that, as a result of the severe skilled talent shortage,

if you don’t have a Resource Strategy to build your talent
pool, you better develop one.

Why? Because, to put it in the colourful euphemism us North Americans understand so well, you’ll be up sh*t creek without a paddle otherwise. And while Seth Green, Matthew Lillard, and Dax Shepard might have parlayed their situation into a 69 Million gross for Paramount, you won’t be so lucky.

Fortunately, a resource strategy isn’t that hard. A simple one consists of:

  • an internal skills assessment
    to define your skills (& talent) gap
  • a training and development program
    to take the both the resources you have, and the resources you bring in, to the next level
  • a recruiting plan
    to get that talent

Or course, the recruiting plan can be quit an exercise. After all, where do you look? Internally? Externally? Do you use a recruiting firm? Do you use a temporary staffing agency to keep the canoe afloat in the interim? Do you rotate your top performers through temporary assignments to make sure all critical functions, and tasks, get addressed? Do you just outsource? And if you look external, where? Universities? Industry Associations? Job Boards? Your competitors? The answer is typically — as Don notes — all of the above. You need talent, and you need to get it wherever its, whenever you can, through any means necessary.

This will obviously take some work.

  1. First, you will have to identify how you will relate to your job pool.
    These days, talent wants challenging work, good benefits, life/work balance, advancement opportunities, the right culture, and the right management in addition to a good salary. And, in fact, chances are culture, life/work balance, and organizational mission are more important to them. For the Millennials, a lack of focus on environmental stewardship is unthinkable and a kiss-of-death to your organizational future.
  2. Then you have to get that message out there.
    You’ll need a great job description, a great corporate message, and a great communicator leading the charge. And this person will have to connect to your talent wherever they are — job fairs, industry events, and on-line social networks like LinkedIn.
  3. Finally, you have to rope them in during the interview process.
    An interview is a two-way street now. They are interviewing you as critically as you are interviewing them, if not more so. Not only is their unemployment rate as skilled, college-educated talent, approaching an all-time low, but they know that, in many industries, there are not enough people to meet the demand and that they have the power. You will need to address all of their concerns, and (honestly) demonstrate that your organization is not only paying better but also providing a better work/life balance while providing challenging work and advancement opportunities, and that they will shape the path of the organization going forward. (Of course, if all this isn’t true, then your organization has a big problem as it’s not going to attract much talent until it is.)

Of course, if your organization does all this right it will be one of the few in a position to find, attract, and retain talented resources, which will soon be the supply chain’s number one talent. Almost 25% of the North American workforce is now eligible for (early) retirement. The only reason they are hanging on is the down economy. When it bounces back, they’re gone, and you’re down another 25% (or more) if you’re not ready. So get ready.