Tag Archives: IACCM

Identifying and Measuring Risk in the Supply Chain presented by Dalip Raheja

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The Mpower Group is excited to announce it’s CEO, Dalip Raheja, will be a keynote presenter for two IACCM webinars, Identifying and measuring risk in the supply chain and contracting processand Implementing a risk strategy. Webinars will be on January 15th and January 22nd, respectively.

The Mpower Group is in the business of Mpowering our clients to accelerate superior business outcomes by unleashing the full potential of their Strategic Sourcing / Supply Chain organizations. We are a global consulting firm dedicated to serving the needs of Fortune 500 Strategic Sourcing & Supply Chain organizations.

Dalip New Headshot 09-12

Dalip Raheja,  is a recognized thought leader, a frequent contributor to research papers and articles and a much sought after speaker. As President and CEO of The Mpower Group, Dalip has over 30 years of experience managing large organizations and change initiatives. His work with Fortune 500 companies in the US and internationally covers all facets of the sourcing process, including contracting and negotiations, relationship management and risk management. In addition, Dalip has been named by Supply & Demand Chain Executive as a “Provider Pro to Know” every year since 2007. Prior to founding TMG, Dalip created and led the Strategic Initiatives group for Bank One. This internal consulting organization launched and managed large complex change initiatives for the bank. The group’s capstone achievement was creation of a comprehensive Strategic Sourcing program that achieved over $1.3 billion in documented savings over three years. Prior to joining the bank, Dalip was a Principal and Regional Business Development Manager in the Strategic Consulting Group of Digital Equipment Corporation. Dalip is currently authoring two books and holds an MBA in Finance and Marketing.

Globalization is having a hard time right now, with the economic downturn generating growing friction and increasing questions over whether global commerce is really worthwhile.

But are these challenges due to fundamental flaws in the system, or to shifts in the underlying drivers, or perhaps because of weaknesses in corporate process? In reality, every business depends on world trade and in these two webinars, IACCM and The MPower Group come together to discuss how organizations must adjust to the new realities of globalization.

As we move from a cost-based view of business performance and focus increasingly on value, many of the early drivers for global business are changing and the weaknesses in current process maturity are becoming ever more apparent.

Part I – Identifying and measuring risk in the supply chain and contracting process.

January 15th – 1600 UTC, 5 PM CET, 4 PM London, 11 AM Eastern NA, 10 AM Central NA, 8 AM Pacific

To register for Part I click here!

Part II – Implementing a risk strategy 
January 22nd – 1600 UTC, 5 PM CET, 4 PM London, 11 AM Eastern NA, 10 AM Central NA, 8 AM Pacific 
 

For additional information about The Mpower Group please visit www.thempowergroup.com.

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Our People Are Our Key Asset

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Welcome to the second of six in our series on Competency Based Talent Management (CBTM). Check back weekly as we discuss the challenges associated with CBTM and explore solutions.

Our people are our key asset! How many times have you seen this on the walls of major corporations? If this is true, then should we be applying some sort of asset maximization strategy to this key asset? I would assume that any expenses (training, coaching, recruiting, etc.) associated with maximizing this key asset have a very high priority and are one of the last items cut from budgets? By the way, how much of your capital dollars are you allocating to this asset? To truly embrace this thinking, you have to adopt a mental model of viewing your organization as a consulting company whose only value producing assets are the employees. In our last post, we laid out the case for Talent Management. In this post, we will address Competency Based Talent Management (CBTM) and then talk about some of the key issues in developing and executing a CBTM strategy.

The first step is determining the Intended Consequences (IC) of your Sourcing/Supply Chain organization. These ICs need to be directly derived from, and tied to, the overall corporate objectives and strategy of the company. Are you an organization measured by the year-over-year price savings that you get from your supply base while reducing lead time and improving quality? Or are you an organization that is measured by the impact you have in reducing sales cycles, increasing margins on existing deals, and streamlining the time to market of new product introductions? Think of this as defining the market you are trying to serve as a consulting company. Are you aspiring to impact tactical and operational Value Drivers or are you also looking to directly impact the overall corporate goals and strategy and therefore be a direct part of the elusive CEO’s agenda? That will help you determine the required characteristics of the asset base you will need to deliver on the Intended Consequences. This role definition then becomes the foundation for your desired competency model. From there, it’s on to determining where you are today, the gaps between where you are today and where you need to be, and then making sure that you have an asset maximization strategy in place that is funded for the next 3-5 years to close the gaps. Voila! All done! Obviously it’s a bit more complicated than that and we will be happy to share a very detailed model and an approach to getting it done. Here are a number of challenges that you should be aware of:

  • Commit only when you can deliver to expectations.
    CBTM will raise the expectations of the employees so make sure you are ready to launch and deliver.
  • Designing the solution is only a start.
    Focus on the adoption issues and invest as much in them as in solution design, if not more.
  • Competencies are applied skill and knowledge towards the Intended Consequences.
    The focus has to be on demonstrated application whether you are recruiting or promoting.
  • Shortage of talent is a symptom, not a cause.
    Apply systems thinking to the entire life cycle of Talent Management (recruiting, training/development, performance evaluation, career development and succession planning). Otherwise, you will always be recruiting.
  • Hold your direct reports accountable for success of CBTM.
    Ensure it’s in their goal sheets in a meaningful way.
  • It’s not a tactic — it’s a strategy.
    Account for appropriate time for the strategy.
  • Think asset portfolio maximization.

In our upcoming posts we will address some of the Next Practices associated with each of the five phases in the Competency Based Talent Management life cycle.

If you are interested in getting involved or would like to follow this topic further, here are a series of critical activities coming up.

  • Major research project geared towards not just identifying the problem but to identifying Next Practices to solve the problems
  • White Paper to focus on Next Practices in Competency Based Talent Management
  • A webinar discussing our findings in detail

Please share your thoughts and challenges regarding Talent Management below. We would love to hear your insights.

Regards,

Dalip

Reposted on Sourcing Innovation.

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Who Are You? Take Two.

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The second chorus in the famous song by The Who states, “Well, who are you? I really wanna know. Tell me, who are you? ‘Cause I really wanna know.” And while I don’t have the great vocals of Roger Daltrey, let me try and point out some of the interpretation that the IACCM data provides.

Here are some worrisome trends:  Clearly, given that 50% of you are over 46 means that this is an aging profession.  And if it is not attracting a younger demographic currently, it will continue down this trend. It also means that we will soon have a major KCM (Knowledge Continuity Management) problem on our hands as we all suffer from severe brain drain.  This aging of our profession has some serious implications…both for the short term and the long term.

52% of you feel there is no career path while the same percentage also feels that their company will not invest in their development.  46% feel that there are no clear and meaningful rewards for high performance.  You dislike poor leadership and lack of clarity.  I’ll stop there as the picture is sounding bleak already.  Imagine having to recruit against that backdrop.  And not only will you have trouble recruiting people but an even harder time in retaining them.  This is why focusing on recruiting challenges is only attacking the symptom and not the cause.  We must understand that to solve these issues, we have to approach it as a system and address all the domains of Talent Management.

The four most important skills identified included communications, problem solving and negotiation skills yet you have very little confidence that your organization will actually train you on these.  Unfortunately, most training programs these days focus on process, analytical or technical skills and stay away from the dreaded “soft” skills….exactly the opposite of what they should be doing.  You also dislike the lack of investment in people by your company.  In addition, most training programs are not focused on acquiring competencies (application of new skills and behaviors) which require not only training but some form of coaching to actually apply them.

The content of your job is apparently administrative in nature while you crave much more meaningful and challenging work.  Given that most of you are also individual contributors that combination leads to a fairly high level of dissatisfaction.

Lack of a career path also means that you have no high motivation for development activities.  It also points to a general lack of succession planning activities inside your organizations.  Limited career paths coupled with lack of succession planning means very little mobility (vertical or lateral) and that will always lead to stagnation in the group as well as recruiting challenges.  Lack of motivation coupled with lack of mobility will almost always lead to your best and brightest choosing to go elsewhere.

While it was not all bleak, it is fairly obvious that the state of Talent Management has been fairly precarious and continues to be right now.  The situation may be fairly dire given the kinds of recruiting numbers that we are starting to hear from some of our clients.  Unfortunately, those types of recruiting needs point to some systemic issues across the various domains of Competency Based Talent Management.

What solutions to do you propose for these challenges?

Dalip

PS: If you are interested in continuing the conversation with us, we have a few upcoming initiatives that might interest you.

  • Results of the Executive Forum we just facilitated at IACCM Global Forum for Contracting & Commercial Excellence on Talent Management.
  • On November 4th, the Next Practices Xchange hosted by us is exclusively focused on Competency Based Talent Management
  • 6 part blog series on CBTM
  • Major research project to not identify the problem one more time but to identify Next Practices to solve the problems
  • Webinar with IACCM on CBTM
  • White Paper to focus on Next Practices in CBTM
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Ask The Expert – Tim Cummins and Dalip Raheja Debate the Future of Strategic Sourcing

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Ask the Expert – The Death of Strategic Sourcing
23 Sep 2010 (Register)

Ask the Expert – The Death of Strategic Sourcing
September 23rd, 15:00 UTC, 4PM BST, 5PM CET, 11AM ET US, 8AM PT US

Join Dalip Raheja and Tim Cummins as they debate the future direction of sourcing and procurement …. and the impacts of today’s market conditions on traditional approaches to selling.

The growing importance of supply relationships is driving greater focus on value and outcomes. Can the sourcing function switch it methods and behaviors to meet changing business needs? And what are the implications for suppliers, in terms of the way that commitments are negotiated and managed?

This program will draw upon a series of articles produced by Dalip and Tim in recent months, with particular focus on Dalip’s series ‘The Death of Strategic Sourcing’.

Our Expert: Dalip Raheja

Dalip Raheja is President and CEO of The Mpower Group. Dalip has over 25 years of experience managing large organizations and change initiatives. He has worked across the spectrums of supply chain management, strategic sourcing, and management consulting.

Prior to founding TMG, Dalip created and led the Strategic Initiatives group for Bank One. This internal consulting organization launched and managed large complex change initiatives for the bank. The group’s capstone achievement was creation of a comprehensive Strategic Sourcing program that achieved over $1.3 billion in documented savings over three years and seamlessly integrated the spend of two other merged organizations. This effort encompassed every area of bank spend and involved both Insourcing and Outsourcing. Prior to joining the bank, Dalip was a Principal and Regional Business Development Manager in the Strategic Consulting Group of Digital Equipment Corporation.

Dalip is a recognized thought leader, a frequent contributor to research papers and articles, and a much sought after speaker on the topics of Strategic Sourcing, Outsourcing and Change Management. Dalip has been responsible for fundamentally altering the paradigm of strategic sourcing methodologies by incorporating change management practices.

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