How to Get Respect

Frank Quinn, Editor -- Supply Chain Management Review, 11/1/2005

Everyone remembers the late, great Rodney Dangerfield's line, "I don't get no respect!" For Rodney, that was the setup for a rapid-fire string of jokes that graphically demonstrated what he was talking about. Most supply chain executives don't view their professional lives in quite the same way. But can they be forgiven if now and then they wonder, Does anybody up there know or care about what we're doing?

That's the subtext in a feature article in this issue about the "trigger events" that can capture the attention of top management to supply chain management's contribution. Written by researchers Brian Gibson, Stephen Rutner, and Karl Manrodt and based on a comprehensive study they did for the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals, the article identifies four types of events that can get attention at the top. A key point they make—and it's a good one—is that when one of these events happens, it's an opportunity for the organization's supply chain professionals to shine. And when they shine, supply chain management will receive the share of mind and resources from the top that this function deserves.

The discouraging thing in all of this is, of course, that it takes a trigger event to get top management's attention in the first place. In an ideal world, the CEO would recognize the value that supply chain management brings to the business without any external prompting. We don't live in that world quite yet. But with the help of the trigger events—such as the supply chain disruptions that inevitably accompany an increasingly global economy—we are moving steadily in that direction.

Certainly, one way to get noticed from above is to score a big return on your IT investment. The problem is—in the supply chain space anyway—that the returns on systems investments are often disappointing, and sometimes even nonexistent. PRTM consultants Jim Welch and Peter Wietfeldt have a solution, though. In their article, they lay out the seven common pitfalls that keep a systems implementation from reaching its full potential. They then relate how supply chain executives can overcome these pitfalls, thereby maximizing the return on investment.

CEOs like it, too, when a problem is swiftly and effectively solved. And in all too many supply chains, the problems abound. What supply chain professionals need to do is think of these problems as opportunities, write Foster Finley and Chap Kistler of AlixPartners. These turnaround experts lay out five proven remedies that can rejuvenate an underperforming supply chain—and, by the way, show top management what supply chain people are made of.

We don't really believe that supply chain managers are in danger of becoming the Rodney Dangerfields of the corporate world. We do know for sure that in the top-performing companies that will never be the case.

(781) 734-8652, fquinn@reedbusiness.com