Supply Chain Management Review

Robert A. Rudzki

The Captive Mindset – Part II
January 22, 2008

What are some indicators that captive mindsets might exist within your supply management organization?

If your organization regularly uses such words and terms as the following, you may be suffering from captive mindset: 

• “Escalation”
• “The Market is the Market”
• “There is no need for change”
• “We can’t do that because…”
• “We tried that before”
• “Mr. X won’t go for that”
• “Don’t fix it, it ain’t broke”
• “We’ve always done it this way”
• “We have no alternative to that supplier”
• “There’s not enough time”
• “Government Regulations can’t be changed”
• “The Union won’t buy in”

If your organization fails to embrace and use concepts such as the following, you may be suffering from captive mindset: 

• Continuing cost reduction
• Continuous improvement
• Total cost of ownership (All-in Value/Cost Analysis, vs. Just Price)
• Out of the box thinking
• Take a fresh look at everything

Your organization may be predisposed to suffer the consequences of captive mindset if employees act as if: 

• Their jobs and pensions don’t depend on reducing corporate costs
• There is no need to continually challenge ourselves, our suppliers, our thinking
• They don’t feel they have authority to make things happen
• They believe that outsourcing of their jobs is inevitable
• They don’t do their homework, don’t examine each subject with a fresh perspective, before deciding what to do

If you want to raise awareness of the captive mindset topic in your organization, try the test that will be outlined in my next posting.

Posted by Robert A. Rudzki on January 22, 2008 | Comments (0)