In what became a two-part segment on 21st Century Leadership thanks to a precipitous lightning strike that took us off the air on the June 30th show, a guest panel that included Bill McAneny (Frankenstein’s Manager: Leadership’s Missing Links), Dr. Gaby Cora (Leading Under Pressure), Merydith Willoughby (Sex in the Boardroom), and Forrest Breyfogle III (IEE: Beyond Six Sigma and the Balanced Scorecard), discussed (and debated) the critical attributes of the 21st Century Business Leader.

Of the many topics that were covered the one involving what I had termed as a leader’s “shelf life” led to a very interesting discussion.  For example, Henry Ford was obviously a leader of his time whose contribution to the world continues to be significant.  However in many current day articles and books, such as Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries book Unstable at the Top, Ford’s leadership style was described as “frightening” by today’s standards.

This raises the question, would Henry Ford have risen to a leadership position in the present world, or was he indeed a man of (and limited to) his time – specifically is his effectiveness limited to being the right man, in the right place, at the right time (which was the early 1900s)?

What do you think? Do Leaders have a “shelf life?” Take our brief survey and tell us; http://ping.fm/tr0J2

In the meantime, if you have not had the opportunity to listen to the two-part PI Window on Business broadcasts titled “21st Century Leadership: An Evolutionary Profile,” here are the on-demand links; June 30th & July 2nd.

For additional information on the members of our guest panel visit the Book Resource Center on the PI Window on Business Blog.

Listen to 21st Century Leadership Show on Blog Talk Radio

Leadership is all we think and nothing we expect – see why on Jun 30 & Jul 2 PI Window on Business; http://ping.fm/hxvEM

As both a seasoned speaker and lecturer who has had the privileged of addressing small classrooms of 20 people to 400 professionals at a keynote address, I understand the critical importance of maintaining the highest degree of relevancy in terms of present day insights and viable emerging practices within the procurement profession.

Many of the sessions at which I have spoken provided the attendees  with necessary credits towards a variety of professional designations from CPP to CPPB.  While all in attendance usually reflect a high level of commitment to individual career development  and even to the organizations with whom they are employed, each program offered a unique perspective and value.

What has always stood out to me personally about the Next Level Purchasing Senior Professional and Supply Manager “SPSM” Certification is its grassroots practicality based in large part on the front line experience and resulting expertise of its founder and President Charles Dominick.

Dominick, who recently announced the introduction of Next Level’s new SPSM2 certification program has an extensive background “working in and managing purchasing departments.”   In fact, Dominick states on the organization’s web site that in his nearly 10 years in the field, he was “responsible for various purchasing functions at a small manufacturer, a Fortune 500 airline, and a large, internationally renowned university.”

This cross pollination of sector insight has undoubtedly influenced Next Level’s focus on maintaining the ongoing relevancy of the course based on adaptable recognition of industry changes versus a sole adherence to traditional industry standards.  Or as Dominick likes to say, “Just as the profession doesn’t stand still, it’s certification shouldn’t stand still either.”

Building on this premise, Next Level Purchasing today congratulated the first SPSM2 graduate who ironically comes from the equally robust health care sector.  The following is the video coverage of what will most certainly become a steady stream of SPSM2 graduates over the next 12 months.

To learn more about the Next Level Purchasing SPSM2 certification program visit their Sponsor Profile Page here on the Procurement Insights Blog.

Are traditional ERP vendors like Oracle Twitter’s hidden competitors?  Tune in July 7th to find out @ http://ping.fm/LV1up

I thought that I would let you know about the upcoming special “We’re Not in Kansas Anymore: Welcome to Twitterville and the New Business Paradigm.”

Featuring best selling author Shel Israel, whose new book “Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods” will provide a unique view of Twitter answering questions such as:

• Are traditional ERP vendors such as Oracle Twitter’s hidden competitors?
• Does the recent trend on the part of employers to “block” employee access to social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook present an insurmountable barrier to business adoption?
• Is it possible for a micro blog to Tweet a message that is interesting, human and provides community value, and does this talent currently exist within the the traditional corridors of business?

Be sure to tune in on July 7th, as it will definitely be an interesting as well as informative 60 minutes.

Would you like to sponsor programs such as the one above?  Contact Jennifer Cameron at thesenses@ymail.com or, (819)986-8953.

In the meantime check out our new Interactive Sponsor Pages on both the Procurement Insights and PI Window on Business Blogs.

Listen to Jon Hansen on Blog Talk Radio

This Tuesday (July 7th) I will be welcoming best selling author and The Godfather of Social Media Shel Israel to the PI Window on Business Show.  We will be discussing Twitter’s growing influence on the way we do business as well as Shel’s new book, “Twitterville.”

This segment is especially relevant to purchasing professionals, since SaaS vendors such as Coupa are positioned to provide users with the ability to interact directly with suppliers through Twitter.  And do so within the framework of their current solution platform.

Segment Link: We’re Not in Kansas Anymore – Welcome to “Twitterville” and the New Business Paradigm!

Shel Israel – Speaking at TWTRCON ‘09

Check out the new PI Window on Business Blog, and our new Book Resource Center which provides detailed profiles on the growing number of authors who have been guests on the PI Window on Business Show on Blog Talk Radio.

Listen to Jon Hansen on Blog Talk RadioTo learn more about our Expanded Sponsorship Program, contact Jennifer Cameron at thesenses@ymail.com, or 819-986-8953.

21st Century Leadership: An Evolutionary Profile (Guest Profile: Forrest Breyfogle III)

Forrest Brefogle III, is a Professional Engineer and ASQ Fellow who founded Smarter Solutions in 1992.  Considered to be a thought leader in the area of Integrated Enterprise Excellence, the author of the IEE series of books is also a recognized figure on the international speaking service.

The honored recipient of the distinguished 2004 Crosby Medal from the American Society for Quality for his book Implementing Six Sigma (second edition) Breyfogle also serves on the Board of Advisors for the University of Texas Center for Performance Excellence.

The author and/or co-author of eleven books in total, as well as more than 100 published technical articles, Mr. Breyfogle is a returning guest to the PI Window on Business.

Forrest will be a member of our Guest Panel on our June 30th Special on 21st Century Leadership.

Forrest Breyfogle III, Smarter Solutions

This set of books highlights common business systems issues and presents Integrated Enterprise Excellence (IEE) as an enhanced methodology that can improve organizational efficiency and effectiveness.  The series documents a set of best practices derived from the strengths of past systems.

BUNDLED SPECIAL: Integrated Enterprise Excellence - 4 Book Set (See details)

Be sure to visit and JOIN the 21st Century Governance Principles Group on LinkedIn.

What is Your Leadership Profile?

As we draw closer to the “21st Century Leadership” Special I thought that I would share with you Bill McAneny’s Prelude Character Analysis Test.

It only takes 2 to 3 minutes to complete the test, and I would welcome your comments via the following LINK regarding how close the results matched up with your own profile perception.

21st Century Leadership: An Evolutionary Profile airs on the PI Window on Business Show on June 30th from 12:00 to 1:00 PM EDT

What Would George Orwell Say About LinkedIn?

I read an article today indicating that LinkedIn was going to suspend the accounts of members who contacted people that they did not know.

As the pundit put (and I am paraphrasing), “if I go to a Chamber of Commerce Event the organizers do not tell me that I can only talk to the people I know. I go to those events to meet new people! I consider … Read MoreLinkedIn in the same way I do a Chamber of Commerce . . . you want to meet people.”

I am inclined to agree with his assessment. LinkedIn is not a VPN or a private Metaprise (re hub). It is a venue that is by its very nature social and therefore implies an openness. In short, they need to leave their Orwellian inclinations at the door and let the members self-govern.

Take the PI Window on Business Poll and let us know what you think, then tune in to the August 6th broadcast as a guest panel will discuss the results.

Link to Poll: http://ping.fm/dlGHm

Today’s PI Window on Business Show, “Emerging Giants: The New Titan’s of the SaaS World” is now available through the following link; http://ping.fm/pR1o8

By Dr. Olga Raskina, Lead Scientist, Emptoris, Inc.

This article is the third in a three-part series of guest articles on optimization by Dr. Olga Raskina, Lead Scientist, with Emptoris, the supply and contract management solutions provider.

In the two previous posts I have provided somewhat of a birds-eye view of optimization, particularly in terms of the benefits of optimization in the sourcing domain, as well as a general view on the innovation and vision of the field.

I’ve been creating and promoting sourcing optimization technology for several years, and during this time I have heard various concerns regarding the applicability optimization technology when it comes down to real procurement events.  Three particular concerns or questions stand out as the most commonly raised:

• This is a very complex technology; it seems you need to be a rocket scientist to be able to use it.
• This is all great, in theory, but how does it apply to the specific procurement event I need to run next week?
• I have been working in procurement for years. What can it tell me that I don’t already know?

All of these are very fair concerns, so in this post I am going to zoom in a little more and try to address these questions by examining two recent experiences at two very different companies.

The first example involved several sourcing events at a large, global pharmaceutical company.

Procuring chemicals and chemical packaging is a seemingly straightforward process with a set of well-known out-of-the-box strategies. Yet there are a lot of inherent complexities to it, and manual procurement processes leave many questions unanswered, or answered approximately without full evaluation of all options and their costs.

The reason for this lack of evaluation is quite simply the complexity of the analysis.  Not the complexity of categories nor the complexity of the procurement itself.  Rather, it’s the complexity of making the right decision when a lot of factors and variations are involved.

As part of the process the procurement manager needed to answer questions like whether to go with cheaper plastic or more expensive glass containers, as well as which alternate specifications to select for each of the items.  Of course, they also need to examine the pricing for each possible alternative – and the trade-offs between going with incumbents vs. new suppliers.

With rigid processes set over the years, the company tended to deal mostly with incumbent suppliers, and made an occasional piecemeal evaluation of some of the alternate spec trade-offs.  With tens of thousands of items and a dozen of suppliers a more global assessment of all decision factors was simply out of reach.  The time alone to lay out all various decision factors was prohibitive.

Employing advanced analytical tools and specifically optimization to ensure all internal benchmarks and regulations are met ( e.g., awarding a certain amount of business to minority suppliers), as well as to evaluate the costs of dealing with incumbents and finding the best cost-quality combination of alternative specs,  allowed the company to save, conservatively, $8M.

The second example is an event from a Fortune 500 company sourcing transportation.  Like many other transportation events, this event had a large number of lanes across multiple countries, complex international tariffs and taxes calculations, and involved pricing strategies for close to a hundred of suppliers. In addition they needed to respect the various volume limitations of the suppliers across single or multiple lanes – and ensure adequate coverage of lanes on different levels (e.g., individual, region, country).  This was done to ensure they hedged risk, yet did not scatter the resources by working with too many suppliers or too many small suppliers on each level.

To complicate things even further, they needed to consider and present to the stakeholders the trade-off between working with incumbents vs. new suppliers (also on all different levels).  I am sure you can imagine the difficulty of combining and evaluating all these factors in a single analysis process

Employing optimization technology allowed the procurement managers to take full advantage of various volume discounts, to encourage suppliers to package lanes together with various price breaks, and to make sure all regulations and requirements were met.  The technology allowed for easy “one-click” what-if evaluations, such as what if I award 50% of all lanes in a region or everything out of a region to an incumbent, and everything else to the best new supplier?  What if that percentage drops to 30% and everything else goes to the best two new suppliers? If you think that’s easy, imagine the complexity of a much simpler task of just finding the best supplier from a region given all discounts, complex bundling of lanes, price breaks, tariffs regulations and capacity and coverage requirements.

With skyrocketing oil prices at the time, based on their extensive experience, the company estimated total cost would by at least 5% compared to the previous year.  However, with optimization to analyze the complex scenarios and help inform their decisions, the company was able to actually save well over $1M compared to the previous year.  The total savings vs. the projected spend were well over $10M. In my mind this is a perfect example of going from speculative theoretical benefits, to hard saved dollars, all in the face of current economic conditions and the well beaten path of past experience.

One very important detail to point out in both of these cases is that, despite common misconceptions, these events were not run by rocket scientist, or by any technical expert for that matter. These events were created and executed by internal procurement and category managers.

To me, this is a perfect illustration of the difference between manual processes and decision making – and technology enabled analysis and decision making.  The difference between guessing and knowing, between best and “good enough.”  It is the hard quantifiable difference of tens of millions of dollars, enabled by scientists like me, but achieved by procurement experts like you.

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If you are interested in becoming a Sponsor for either the Procurement Insights Blog or PI Window on Business, please contact Jennifer Cameron at thesenses@ymail.com, or call at (819) 986-8953.

Listen to Jon Hansen on Blog Talk Radio

In a recent segment of the PI Window on Business Show titled “Has Blogging Crossed The Threshold of Legitimacy,” an esteemed guest panel discussed the advent of Blogging and other forms of social media as a viable and reliable source of information.  Some have even gone so far as to suggest that these emerging mediums have surpassed traditional print as the primary source of information.

What do you think?

Use the following link to visit our new PI Window on Business Blog and take the Poll as well as check out upcoming guests and show information, or go directly PI Window on Business Poll to let us know where you stand.

Listen to Jon Hansen on Blog Talk Radio