Batteries Not Included. If you were born before 1985, you know this phrase and it is likely to evoke memories of opening a toy gift during the holidays and having to wait until the next day to buy the batteries that made it go. Infuriating and yet, it was our fault since we had been warned by the soft mumbling at the end of those toy commercials and by the small (and randomly placed) print on the outside of the toy packaging. In hindsight, that this could have been the custom makes absolutely no sense – consumer electronics companies and watchmakers included batteries – why didn’t the toy companies?

But things keep getting better and at some point in recent times (I’m not sure when, actually), toy companies figured out that including batteries with their toys really wasn’t so hard after all. And get this, millions of their customers are that much happier and have a much better experience because of a very simple change/inclusion. Talk about value-added!

Monday Morning Query: What are the things that procurement should start including with its ‘products and services?’

The Context

I once worked for a company that required certain document templates (MS Word files) to be used for different business purposes. It was a very immature organization, still is actually, and several of the most heavily-used templates had fairly significant flaws or mistakes. Instead of fixing the templates and quickly updating them for usage, the organization chose to push the responsibility for making corrections to the individual template users. Instead of solving the problem once, the same problem had to be solved over and over again. Intentional or not, this communicated that quality was not job one and that staff time was not valued.

Are there situations or processes in the supply management operations at your enterprise that indicate, intentionally or not, that quality is not important and that stakeholder time is not valued? How often are these situations or processes repeated? What can you include with relative ease that will add great value to the larger process?

• Do you include a “Deal Memo” (that highlights pricing and key Ts & Cs) to the General Counsel’s office when they take over contract negotiations?
• Do you include an FAQ list with screenshots with every supplier invitation to an eSourcing event?
• Do you include a “cheat sheet” for AP to understand all pricing and payment arrangements with new suppliers?
• Do you include a memo to the business users explaining the rationale and benefits of why a new supplier is being implemented?
• Do you include a list of evaluation criteria for staff when rolling out next year’s MBO plan (or do you wait until the end of the evaluation period to pull something together)?

How many opportunities are missed each day to include the batteries?

Tagged in: Collaboration, Monday Morning Query, People, Process