Supply Excellence — PPG’s Procurement Visionary Shares the Wealth…of Knowledge

PPG’s Procurement Visionary Shares the Wealth…of Knowledge

August 8th, 2008 · by Justin Fogarty · 1 Comment · events, sourcing, spend analysis, supply management

For every procurement department success story (you know, the one about rising up out of the company basement to a level of respectability and influence) there are many, MANY more still struggling to gain traction, attention and results. Jim Polak, General Purchasing Director at PPG Industries, is responsible for steering his department from the latter to the former.

In 2000, against objections and a lack of faith that he could achieve results, Jim began a transformation of PPG’s purchasing operations. He organized cross-functional purchasing teams and set savings targets of 10% to be achieved in 90 days. 3 short months later, the teams were cranking out savings between 11 and 32 percent.

Jim will be sharing his insights and answering questions in an interactive hour long webinar next Tuesday, August 12th at 2pm EST. Registration is here.

From what I know about Jim and PPG’s success, it hinged largely on 3 things:

Empowering the Experts - PPG’s commodity experts are given a great deal of control over decisions, including categorization of spend.
Visibility - That categorization of spend enabled stakeholders to have a clear view of opportunities for savings.
Adoption - Their early success (and Jim’s powers of persuasion) helped them expand their efforts and spend under their management.

If you’ve struggled in any of those areas, this is a great opportunity to pick the brain of someone who’s been there…and moved out of the basement.

Justin Fogarty is Managing Editor of Supply Excellence. For any questions or feedback on the blog or its contributors, Justin can be reached at jfogarty[at]ariba.com.

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