Category Management:  Increasing Your Value and Theirs (Stakeholders) by X! Yes X!

That is not hyperbole and I’ll put money on the table behind that statement!  And if you want to challenge that statement 😊, join us at the next virtual meeting of PERT (Procurement / Supply Executive Round Table) on Tuesday, November 12^th. 

Here is the basic premise we are going to discuss.  First, there are more Stakeholders than you are currently identifying therefore not including the Value you are providing to them.  Second, the way you are defining Value is totally different than the actual Value being received by your Stakeholders thus leaving even more unrecognized Value on the table.  If for a moment you were to agree to those two statements, then you would have to agree that this would increase your Value and the Value being received by your Stakeholders by X?

So that is what we will take a deep dive into at the workshop.  We will start out by offering up a new way to define Value.  Without understanding the need to redefine the definition of Value and doing it, makes the journey to Category Management (“CM”) a dead end.  We’ll talk about examples in the public and private sectors where this has been done.  We’ll share a number of other CM models to demonstrate that this is one area that they fall short in.

We’ll then move on to a segment on examples of Stakeholders that we typically may not think of and a construct on how to identify them.  You may be surprised at the many Stakeholders that we end up missing.  Once identified, we need to identify their Value Drivers, not ours, and that is not an insignificant challenge.  We’ll spend some time talking about how to go about doing that as well.

Metrics drive decisions and behaviors and adopting this approach to X also means a fundamental change in the metrics that we use.  They now must be rooted in our Stakeholder Value Drivers while still including metrics that measure efficiency of the Procurement/Supply Chain group.  We’ll discuss examples of what others have done and an approach to developing such metrics. Of course, making this type of a shift in how we define Value, identifying Stakeholder Value Drivers etc. etc. also requires a new (we’ll explore them at the workshop) set of capabilities and competencies in your group.  Attempting this shift without acquiring those new competencies is like putting a person who has never driven before in a race car.

Of course, all of this would be a waste if you were not able to persuade and sell all of this to your Executives and your Stakeholders.  Unless they acknowledge the Value you are now claiming and delivering, you will not get credit for it – especially when you are claiming X.  There will be a discussion on how to do that effectively so that Executive /Stakeholder support and alignment becomes much easier.

The discussion will then be followed by a panel of senior practitioners from various industries who will discuss their Category Management journey with a focus on the topic of increasing their value to their companies.  But wait, we’re not done yet!!!  If you register within the next 24 hours, we’ll even throw in a virtual interactive breakout session with a number of your peers to further discuss the afternoon’s proceedings and come up with suggestions for all.  So, register now for this incredible, never to be repeated, about to expire, life changing experience AND you will also get to X!!!