Batteries Not Included. If you were born before 1980, 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, it makes absolutely no sense that this would be the standard operating procedure – after all, consumer electronics companies and watchmakers included batteries. Why didn’t the toy companies?
Fortunately, things keep getting better, companies keep getting smarter, and at some point in recent times (after I stopped wanting toys for myself and before I started buying toys for my kids), 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, much happier and have a much, much better initial experience – all because of a very simple change/inclusion. Talk about value-added!
The question I pose to Chief Procurement Officers and other procurement leaders:
Are the things that your procurement department should start including with its ‘products and services?’
Some Context
I once worked for a company that required certain document templates (MS Word files) be used for different business purposes. It was a very immature organization and one that thrived on taking short-cuts whenever and wherever possible and as a result several of the most heavily-used templates had fairly significant flaws or mistakes. Instead of fixing the templates and quickly updating them for usage by all, the organization chose to push the responsibility for making corrections to the individual template users every time they were used. A simple change with exponential benefit could not be accomplished for months and months. Instead of solving the problem once, the same problem had to be solved over and over again. by many different people. Intentional or not, this communicated that quality was not job one and that the staff’s 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?
