Professional Profile: Shelley Stewart, Jr.,Vice President, Supply Chain, Tyco International
Staff -- Purchasing, 5/6/2004 2:00:00 AM
Title: Vice President, Supply Chain, Tyco International (US), Inc., Princeton N.J.
Career: Stewart spent 18 years with United Technologies Corp. in senior supply chain and operational positions. His last position was as director of worldwide sourcing for UTC.
He left in 2000 to become the vice president of supply chain management with Raytheon, a position he held for 18 months.
Subsequent to Raytheon, he became senior vice president of supply chain management at Invensys plc (London), working at the company's U.S. headquarters in Foxboro, Mass. Here, he provided leadership for the strategic sourcing of $4.6 billion of spend.
"As luck would have it, Tyco was looking for someone to come in and lead a strategic sourcing initiative across the company," he continues. As a result, Stewart is now part of the new management team at Tyco. "I've been here eight months, and I'm having a great time," he reports.
Current Opportunities: At Tyco, Stewart is responsible for $15 billion in spend. He describes the supply chain when he arrived as "large, complex, and very leveragable."
He and his team are currently working on a global strategic sourcing initiative, sourcing 18 categories via 74 intiatives in North America, Latin America, and Europe. He is leading these cross-divisional sourcing teams in an effort to reduce procurement costs by $1 billion throughout the company by 2006. "I think we will hit this number," he reports with confidence. The goals for 2004 are to reduce the supply base, reduce cost, and "lay the foundation for moving forward to create a great supply chain, rather than just a supply chain."
Stewart is also responsible for promoting best practices across the company's supply chain organization through the use of technology, such as e-sourcing tools.
Current Challenges: The biggest challenge Stewart sees is developing and maintaining the momentum required to achieve the $1 billion savings goal. He sees three keys to achieving this goal.
First, he has received a lot of support from Tyco senior management. "I have worked in a number of companies, but senior management here is more passionate and involved in this initiative than in any other company for which I've worked," he emphasizes. "That makes my job much easier."
The second key is hiring good people. "I can't be everywhere, so I need to be sure we have the right people with the right skill sets in the right positions."
Third is making sure Tyco has a good strategic sourcing process in place to begin with, in order to drive results.
Results: While the supply chain initiatives at Tyco are just getting under way, Stewart and his team have already been able to cut some new deals, the first time this has taken place on a large scale across the company. Some examples include new agreements with airlines, hotels and rental cars. The company has also completed some new agreements in telecom and IT.
Other Endeavors: When Stewart was with UTC, he was the executive representative to Howard University (Washington, DC). Upon beginning to work with some of the business students there, he realized that the graduate school didn't have a supply chain curriculum. "I was familiar with the programs at Michigan State, Arizona, and Northeastern and the qualified students who graduated these programs," he recalls. "I also realized how difficult it was to find minority students with supply chain backgrounds." He suggested to the dean and president of the university that Howard begin a supply chain concentration in the school of business. Stewart now sits on the visiting Board of Directors at Howard University's School of Business and is chairman of the university's Supply Chain Advisory Board. When asked how he juggles his corporate responsibilities with his activities at Howard, he responds: "I've been fortunate that the companies for which I have worked have all recognized the importance of bringing in good talent, so they have seen my activities with Howard as part of my job."
Stewart is also a member of the Conference Board's Supply Chain Council and a member of PURCHASING magazine's Editorial Advisory Board.
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