100 Top Supply (Management) Tips
Yesterday, Procuri and Supply Excellence released the mini e-book The 100 Greatest Supply Management Tips of All Time on their new Top Supply Tips website.
As Tim says in his announcement post, the tips found in this book are not complex. They don't require a huge budget, top executive support, or years to deploy. Instead, they are practical, easy-to-understand approaches - most of which you can implement today. Furthermore, they're not new tips either ... they are all examples of simple best practices that the major supply chain blogs have been promoting for the last couple of years. However, this is one of the few collections you will find with such a broad set of recommendations, and one of the largest collections of simple best practices I've seen. Therefore, it's worth a download and a read. Some of the recommendations are so simple, you probably dismissed them as "too simple" the first time your heard them and forgot about them, even though they could be valuable to you.
Some of my favorites, which might just be because they have a cool title, are:
- #14 Hang out with losers
Take the time to debrief suppliers that fail to win your business. The best suppliers will use your advice to develop new capabilities and bidding tactics to meet your future needs. - # 24 Fire Your Best People
Remove your best team members from their day jobs and put them in charge of your most important supply management improvement initiatives. This ensures program success and helps retain talent. - # 45 Make it Personal
Ensure senior executives understand supply management's contribution to your company's profits, performance, and competitive edge by illustrating how supply management affects their personal lives. - # 67 Don't be afraid of commitment
Assess future pricing and supply market implications to determine when to engage in long-term supplier or hedging agreements. This will assure supply and lock in preferred pricing, which is particularly wise in the face of rising metals, plastics, and energy prices.
For more best practices, check out random posts in the Best Practices category.
Check out Jason's post over on Spend Matters today as well. He makes a great point. Although there's nothing wrong with reviewing best practice checklists, they are no substitute for real education and training, as Charles will certainly attest to over on The Purchasing Certification Blog.
How about adding a category at this blog regarding training or seminars, where people could report both good and bad seminars?
What you're suggesting is a great idea, but a blog is not the right place for it ... a forum is. So keep that in mind and watch for new developments in the space in the months ahead ... there's a good chance this idea will have a home soon. Thanks for the feedback.
I'm, guess what, a seminar provider too and I second Bob Nahabit's comment. Hope we don't have to wait too long for a forum, why not have an interim space in a blog?
Simply put, a blog just does not have the interactivity to support the community needs required to make such an endeavor a success. However, just like there are a number of open source tools that one can use to quickly set up a blog or a wiki, there are a number of tools one can use to set up a forum. Moreover, if enough traction builds for this idea quickly (i.e. if you want to see this, leave lots of comments!), there are a couple of players in the space who would happily sponsor the creation of one sooner, rather than later, and I will be happy to see that it gets the promotion it should have.