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Moneyball: The Art of Buying a Great Supply Management Team

May 16th, 2006 · by Tim Minahan · 3 Comments · best practices, events, skills rectruitment and development

All the talk at ISM about recruiting and development talent is great. But it appeared to me that great supply management organizations also use another strategy: buy the best talent available.

It is not by mistake that one of the first things my friend did when taking over as director of supply management at a defense company was to steal solid players from winning teams. In fact, pilfering of supply management talent is becoming much more common these days.

Top journeyman and supply management superstar Dave Nelson, who recently retired (again), this time as VP of Global Supply Management at Delphi Automotive, worked for 20 different supply management organizations during his career, including John Deere and Honda. It wasn’t by chance that both companies won the Purchasing Medal of Excellence Award during his tenure there. (Nelson was also awarded ISM’s J. Shipman Gold Medal Award at the conference earlier this week.)

Now the next generation of supply management all-stars are being heavily recruited to repeat their winning ways at other clubs. In a compelling Purchasing Magazine article on this trend an executive at a recruiting firm states, “There has been a dramatic increase in the number of purchasing openings, with the strategic sourcing roles the most common.”

Among the most heavily recruited are what I joking refer to as the “disciples of Dave:”

  • Gary Berryman, who worked with Dave at Delphi, helped Harley-Davidson’s quality and supply performance transformation and is now CPO at Sara Lee, where he’s managing a whole new team of all-stars.
  • A meeting with another of Dave’s disciple at ISM revealed that he was leaving his three-year stint as VP of Supply Chain at a major airline to repeat his success at a major healthcare provider. I also learned that two of his chief lieutenants will be taking chief procurement officer posts at different U.S.-based firms.

Hey, if the Yankees and Red Sox can buy great baseball teams, why can’t you buy a great supply management team? (Just be sure to include a dash of sabermetrics to ensure you’re putting the right talent in situations where they can thrive.)

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3 responses so far ↓

  • 1 » Are You Paid True Market Value?- Supply Excellence // Jun 14, 2006 at 9:28 am

    [...] The other shoe on this issue dropped just yesterday during a meeting with a Midwest-based defense and space systems company. When tasked with transforming her group into a best-in-class performing supply management operation, one of the first things the company’s VP of Supply Chain did was recruit top sourcing and commodity experts away from other firms. (As previous posts indicate, talent poaching has become more common in supply management circles.) No word on wages for the new recruits, but, knowing the companies they were wooed from, it was certainly an attractive offer. The firm has also devised a stock-incentive program for the group based on meeting clearly defined goals for supply cost reductions and performance improvements. [...]

  • 2 Supply Excellence » What’s Next According to Busch: Supply Skills Networks // Aug 29, 2006 at 10:26 am

    [...] Considering the talent crunch for skilled commodity and sourcing experts, Jason’s concept is particularly intriguing and well-timed. CPO’s continually complain to me of competitors and internal departments poaching their top players and recent studies from Purchasing Magazine, ISM, and Denali Consulting place talent recruitment and retention among a supply management executive’s top challenges. Sharing category expertise or sourcing “capacity” could prove a plausible antidote to the talent shortage. This model could also accelerate attempts by resource-strapped mid-sized firms to improve their supply management performance. [...]

  • 3 Supply Excellence » Kicking and Screaming: My Top Picks for 2007 // Jan 6, 2007 at 12:20 pm

    [...] You will lose your top talent: A new Aberdeen Group study pegged recruiting and keeping top talent as the top risk facing CPOs today. My own interactions with supply management executives validates this finding in spades. The most-needed talents — strategic sourcing, category management, and technology management (not to mention experienced leaders) — are in short supply. Supply execs tell me that their best people (and even entire teams) are being poached by other companies. (Just consider how the disciples of Dave Nelson (Honda, John Deere, Delphi) and the late Gene Richter (HP and IBM) have become the hot free agents of supply transformation.) Keeping your best people will require you to pay competitively, provide a clear career path, provide ongoing training, and invest in technology — both to make your superstars more productive and to retain their knowledge if they leave. [...]

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