Characteristics of Leading Supply Management Organizations. Supply Chain Management.
Thursday, July 30th, 2009CHARACTERISTICS OF LEADING SUPPLY ORGANIZATIONS
What are the characteristics of companies that truly operate at the top of their supply management game? What do leading companies do to separate themselves from the pack? Below summarizes a set of characteristics that define strategic supply management leadership. These characteristics are not the result of an over-active imagination. They have been identified through executive focus groups, quantitative research projects, interviews with supply executives, extensive visits to companies, and reliable reports in the public domain. The items consistently emerge as characteristics of leading supply organizations. Organizations that relate highly to the items will be hard to beat.
Characteristics of Leading Supply Management Organizations
Supply leaders promote teamwork, risk taking, and innovation.
Supply leaders demand ethical treatment of suppliers.
Suppliers are involved early in new product and process development.
Strategic alliances with critical supply chain members are fully developed.
Supplier development activities lead to continuous supply chain improvements.
An effective supplier evaluation and selection process is in place.
Centrally coordinated commodity teams manage a major portion of total purchases.
Future supply leaders are identified and targeted for development early in their career.
Total expenditures are calculated and segmented into commodities or purchase groups.
Supply strategies are developed that match the strategy to the requirement.
Global sourcing strategies are in place that coordinate common requirements, processes, designs, technologies, and suppliers across worldwide locations.
Executive-to-executive interaction routinely occurs with key suppliers.
Supply leaders measure the impact of supply initiatives on corporate indicators.
Major supply decisions are based on total cost rather than unit price.
External benchmarking is pursued, with findings shared across the supply organization.
Electronic systems are in place to streamline the procurement process and to remove transactions cost.
A quantified set of supply goals directly support business goals.
Longer-term agreements are negotiated with select suppliers to provide value that shorter-term contracts do not provide.
The procurement organization is on par with other functional groups in terms of professionalism, training, compensation, resources, organizational reporting, and career opportunities.
Supply personnel are colocated as necessary with internal customers.
A central data warehouse provides critical supply information to all buying centers.
A chief procurement officer reports regularly to the executive leadership team.
A set of supply practices and policies is in place that reduces redundancy and promotes best practices.
An executive steering committee establishes a company-wide supply management vision.
Supplier relationships are actively managed at the appropriate organizational level.
