Enterprise Performance Management - Data is First Priority

Last week after I posted third part of my Supplier diversity series of - What Why and How, I got an question from my esteemed senior colleague Ashok Pai, Who works in Supply chain industry worldwide for decades and a Client Partner with Bristlecone, asking "When are you writing about WHO aspect of this?" I replied saying I never thought of that angle, as my basic assumption was that supplier onboarding process is part of strategic sourcing and procurement department chain so those are the people who will be implementing it. And then he mentioned to me that "Look at it from supplier onboarding angle, which is a major pain area for US industry". As I started thinking and researching from that angle, I realized that as a part of diversity implementation its easy to say that run the diversity program in industry, capture supplier attendtion, get the diverse suppliers registered and start doing business with them - its hard to implement. Its really hard to get a new su...

In last two articles we discussed two questions about supplier diversity. Basic one like WHAT is Supplier Diversity and its types , Second most important one for business decision WHY? What are key business drivers to implement supplier diversity? Now the third important question is HOW? What are my key parameters to make this decision on implementing diversity program? What are the steps? How should I determine what are my organizational needs? What is an assessment criterion? Key steps or parameters for your decision matrix would be – 1. Define scope and set your goal – link it to organizational goal so you have good business case 2. Build the internal database; connect with suppliers, make the data complete. 3. Run a diversity program 4. Audit, Monitor and upgrade Understanding your requirements and goal setting is first and important steps for implementing supplier diversity. This will not only enable you to asses and quantify the things for assessment and monitoring your progr...

Last week in a related article we discussed about diversity definitions and what each type means. Now the real question that procurement managers in a enterprise needs to answer when there is a talk about implementing supplier diversity is “Why should we implement Supplier Diversity?”. Once (s)he knows answer to this question, then comes the turn of how to implement it. Today let’s look at the key drivers behind the supplier diversity initiative and how one can not only justify but also build a business case around it to take organization along with you. The basic premise here is - A supplier diversity program will partner your company with businesses that are owned and/or operated by women; African, Hispanic, Asian and Native Americans; gay and lesbian individuals; and veterans. It will also connect you with companies that may have been overlooked because of their size as well as those located in economically distressed areas. Now all that is fine, but do these connections make a bus...

Last month I have written an article on supplier diversity titled Supplier Diversity have you checked your Supplier base? it gathered lot of interest among industry players in the topic. So I thought of having a one comprehensive article to cover all aspects of Supplier Diversity, what is it, its importance in supply chain etc is. So here are my 2 cents – So what’s the definition of Supplier Diversity worldwide? In the United States of America diversity suppliers are defined as businesses that are at least 51 percent owned, operated and controlled by one or more persons who are: • A racial or ethnic minority, including African American, Asian Indian American, Asian Pacific American, Hispanic American and Native American • Female • Gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or transgender • U.S. veteran or U.S. service disabled veteran Additionally, businesses certified as Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) or Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUB Zone) by the U.S. Small Business Administration ...

Recently I come across a good article on procurement leaders blog, talking about real simple but fundamental question if supplier risk reasearch is waste of time Its quite interesting and simple question that David explained by taking 2 CPO examples where one thinks in going in details and then plan, whereas one just belives in plans rather than analyzing too much. Nice to read. I am yet to dive down risk lane. So will come up with detail article sometime next week to talk about this.

Last week when i was reading articles about AIR India issues and how company is making huge losses I wrote an article saying If Satyam can become Mahindra Satyam why Air India cannot become TATA AIR? I think all great mind thinks alike including indian government and corporates. Just now indian avaition ministry came up with a news about having TATA group head to be at the helm of restructuring affair of Air India. In my opinion thats the feasible and best way to get air india out of mess, run it like a corporate company rather than a government run PSU and make it leaner, cleaner, greener and profitable. You can post your comments here or you can mail me pmendki(at)gmail(dot)com Thanks -Prashant

There is a second part to Big Strategic Confusion that we started discussing some time back. Lot of consultants advice to have a good dashboards, good slice and dice capabilities and how their products can help enterprises to save money by having a good spend analysis capabilities of their Business intelligence product. No doubt you need to have a good tool - but question is even if you have world class tool with nische capabilities - does your investment make sense if the underlying data is not good? answer is NO. I also started working on this thread on the blog BI is not just a dashboard . Let me know your comments on pmendki(at)gmail(dot)com -Prashant