New York, New York, risk and talent

Posted on 06. Mar, 2009 by in Blog

I am currently in New York having just completed our first roundtable in the US – a bit of a landmark for Procurement Leaders and an excellent event as well.

The discussion was on procurement risk and we were lucky enough to call on the expertise of 11 high-profile procurement leaders. The attendees included the CPOs, or equiavalent, from Bristol-Myers Squibb, IBM, Pfizer, The McGraw-Hill Companies, the New York York Mets, Air Products and Chemicals, Marsh & McLennan, Rutgers Business School (former CPO of Colgate Palmolive), News Corporation, and Cadbury, as well as our event sponsor BrainNet.

The strength of having such a variety of industries represented at the event are not difficult to see and it really did give us the opportunity to garner opinions and knowledge from a diverse background.

The discussion was, as one would probably expect, varied and interesting. But one issue that raised its head once again (and it’s an issue which finds its way into every discussion I seem to have about procurement) was talent and skills.

Everyone was in agreement that there is a serious skills gap in procurement for people who can recognise and react (or, even better, to be proactive) about risk in the supply chain and the procurement process. It led one of the attendees to remark that successful multinational company procurement was all about “the geographical dispersement of talent to aid risk mitigation”. In other words, having people on the ground in your supply chain who can provide the business with early warning signs of risk – as well, one might add, as opportunity.

Quentin Roach, the CPO of BMS, offered one excellent example of a potential risk which slipped through the net. One of his products relied on an ingredient that was produced as a by-product of the automotive rubber manufacturing process (rubber used for high-quality tyres). But the fact that car sales, and therefore production volumes, had fallen off the edge of a cliff had not made it on to his senior team’s risk radar. Of course, if there are less tyres being made, then the by-product becomes more scarce and, if nothing else, prices increase.

It’s a good example of how procurement must take a step back from the business in order to see the whole picture. But it’s also proof of the requirement for yet another skill in any aspiring procurement leader.

Tags: ,

Leave a Reply