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ISM Conference in St. Louis - II
May 13, 2008
I had the pleasure of presenting two workshops at the 93rd Annual ISM Conference, held last week in St. Louis, Mo.
The topics were:- “The Gold Medal: Transforming Supply Management into a World-Class Driver of Corporate Performance”
- “Speak Like a CFO, and Get Senior Management’s Attention”
The Transforming session was assigned a room with 200 person capacity, which was mostly filled with top-level supply management professionals (according to a show of hands regarding everyone’s role).
The Speak Like a CFO session was assigned the largest capacity room – 800 seats – and was about 85 percent full – a great turnout for an increasingly relevant topic these days.
Based on the questions asked, both topics seemed to resonate with the audiences.
We had some fun with a few “audience poll” questions. In the Transforming session, I asked the audience to indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree with the following statement as it relates to their company:
In our organization, “supply management” and “procurement” have a truly strategic role; they are involved early, and strategically, in all of the following:
- revenue enhancement and new product development
- all areas of cost management (i.e. there are no sacred cows)
- working capital initiatives
- capital expenditures
Less than 20 percent agreed that this statement applied to their company.
The follow-on topic was this:
In our organization, top management has made a strategic commitment to transforming supply management. They have:
- Explicitly acknowledged the strategic role we will have in our company
- Increased our annual budget significantly, to support the transformation
- Allowed us to hire more strategic talent
- Allowed us to invest in meaningful amounts of training
- Given us “high-potentials” from other departments as cross-functional talent within supply management
- Given us a “seat at the table” with the executive team
Less than 10 percent agreed that this statement applied to their company.
Those answers are an indication of the challenge – and the huge opportunity – facing companies today. It’s one of the reasons why I’ve been receiving more calls from companies seeking assistance in assessing the opportunities, building a business case, and crafting a relevant transformation roadmap.
Posted by Robert A. Rudzki on May 13, 2008 | Comments (0)