Benchmarking is personal
By Ken Stork -- Purchasing, 2/10/2000 7:00:00 AM
I am continually amazed at the growth of highly useful, valuable information readily available to people that like to read. An excellent example is the Special Report on Internet Purchasing in the October 21st issue of Purchasing magazine. The report is a must read as the Internet is a tool of rapidly growing importance that is very likely to change your job, and how you do it significantly.
I frequently ask audiences, "How many of you regularly read Purchasing magazine?" I suspect the job security of negative respondents may be at risk, for how else can they learn about where they stand on supply management best practices? How can they learn how to contribute more strategic value to their organizations? There are newsletters and other publications available to supplement the information that appears in Purchasing magazine, and I suspect their readership leaves much to be desired. Motivation to improve is rather personal and sometimes results from being inspired by great leaders.
Bob Galvin of Motorola, one of the great business leaders of this century, used to say that he needed to be the benchmark of CEOs. He also said he needed to spend considerable time traveling and meeting with customers, suppliers, employees, and other stakeholders so that he could benchmark how well he was performing his job versus the CEOs at his major international and domestic competitors.
Bob Galvin asked his employees to accept the challenge to become the benchmark, to become the very best at what they do. A great leader needs an organization focused on excellence. Without effective process benchmarking, it is impossible to plan for and to attain excellence that creates and maintains competitive advantage.
Despite Japan's long economic malaise their manufacturing prowess in many industries is still exemplary. Lean manufacturing is a widely recognized strategic objective exported from Japan and companies like Toyota and Honda. How did the Japanese get to this position of competitive advantage? Historically, senior Japanese executives have authorized considerable effort and expense to benchmark companies they respect, and to return with specific ideas on how to improve processes. Their benchmarking trips have had very specific objectives and plans to achieve them. They prepare their questions in advance. They know their own answers to the questions before they leave. The Japanese send their best people on the trips, not someone they can spare. It is an honor to be selected. The Japanese have a bias for action--they implement the best practices they see. They look outside their own industries for processes that can be used. Benchmarking is a continuous, systematic process--not a program for Q2, 2000.
Professional sports have a body of common statistical measurements that highlight the superstars versus the also-rans, from the never-will-bes. Compensation correlates to some degree. We are on the threshold of a time when supply management and strategic sourcing will become a profession, like medicine, law, engineering, finance, etc. If you're in it for the long term, personal benchmarking can help you become first string on a winning team. This sure beats the likely alternatives.
Stork is president of Ken Stork & Associates Inc. in Naperville, Ill., (630) 851-5445 or e-mail: ken@kstork.com. Formerly Motorola's corporate director of materials and purchasing, and a member of Purchasing's editorial advisory board, Stork focuses on consulting and custom educational programs in strategic sourcing and supply base management.
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