On Friday, I shared Dave Anderson’s secrets to making the perfect pitch to secure support, resources, and budget for any supply management initiative. For evidence of the effectiveness of Dave’s techniques, look no further than Alliant Techsystems (ATK).The $3.4 billion manufacturer of space systems, weapons, and ammunition is undertaking a massive overhaul of its strategic supply chain management practices.
The initiative has caught the attention and support of ATK Chairman and CEO Daniel J. Murphy, who has established an executive supply chain improvement task force consisting of senior executives from each of the company’s business units. Support for the initiative didn’t come overnight and is an ongoing endeavor.
At Empower 2006, I had the chance to sit down with Greg Schifflett, Vice President of Strategic Sourcing and one of the champions of ATK’s supply management improvement initiative. Greg endorsed the strategies put forth in Dave’s keynote speech. Here’s how he and his team used those principles to held secure support for ATK’s supply management initiative:
Start with a high-impact area: “We have a three-year supply chain overhaul plan, but we’re starting with the supply management area,” said Greg. “We are utilizing the [savings generated from the] sourcing and supply management functions to help fund the other activities in the supply chain.”
Drive the program from the top and the bottom: “We are coming at this from the top down and the bottom up,” said Greg, who helped secure support from the CEO (more than that later). “I do walkabouts with presidents of the three [business units] where I attend their quarterly meetings. We also have weekly communications with the 22 category teams that are driving this from the bottom up.”
Know your audience: “People think with their heard, their heart, or their gut,” said Greg. “When you’re pitching, if you pitch a gut proposal to a head guy you’re dead on arrival. You need to know who you’re pitching to inside and out and put that pitch plan together that addresses his needs.”
Come armed with facts: “CFO’s really want to know how it’s going to get to the bottom line, how it’s going to track, and when it’s going to be there,” said Greg, adding that ATK garnering support and building its reengineering plan based on improved visibility into corporate spending. “Spend analysis is our launch pad to aligning our categories and strategies to build out our sourcing programs. It helps us structure and make informed strategic decisions as we move forward and aligning [sourcing projects] in appropriate manner to determine what we go after first, second, etc.”
Whenever possible, make it personal: A few weeks ago, I posted a tongue-in-cheek piece on how to secure executive support by demonstrating how supply management is impacting their personal lives. Well, there’s a little truth in every joke.
Greg said it was a personal story helped cinch support from ATK’s CEO: “I told this story about spending analysis as I’m sitting across from the CEO. I said, ‘ATK is like my wife shopping at Target. She’ll go and spend a large sum of money and I know what that large sum of money is but I don’t know the detail and that’s what ATK is like. We know we spend [xx] million on adhesives, but we don’t know the detail.’” It was at that point when the CEO raised his finger and said to Greg, “You’re funded.”