Do You Have an Olympian’s Level of Commitment?

Transforming your procurement function from a conventional, tactical role to a strategic role is not a casual undertaking.

As we have discussed in past postings (and in two books) http://www.greybeardadvisors.com/resources/books/ , a variety of initiatives need to be carefully thought-through, planned and executed to ensure success.

The purpose of this posting is not to recap those critical success factors. Rather, I wanted to share with you a timely quote from a recent article about the Olympics. The article, by Katherine Bindley, described inspirational moments in Olympics history when Olympic athletes – despite a serious injury – continued in the competition and ultimately finished the race they were competing in.

The part that I liked was this segment:

“In the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, John Stephen Akhwari of Tanzania was injured while running the marathon race and finished more than an hour after the winner of the race. He later told a reporter, ‘My country did not send me 10,000 miles just to start the race; they sent me to finish the race.’”
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In the final analysis, leaders of procurement and supply chain management are in their positions to enhance the capability of their organization to achieve new and better results for their company. We are responsible not only for starting the journey toward world-class practices, but for helping the organization and all of our colleagues successfully reach the finish line.

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