You’ve got to give Charles Dominick credit for the most interesting way to gather the success stories of some of procurement’s best and brightest. The Purch-lympics had his blog’s readers competitors submit essays on purchasing and supply management subjects then work their way through competitive rounds of heats and semi-finals where other readers chose their favorites. Now we’re down to just 5 competitors battling it out for glory and prizes (Gold = SPSM Certification course, Silver = an online course, and Bronze = Supply Management eBook). Voting is open until midnight tonight and unlike the still lingering did-Phelps-really-win controversy, this contest will have a clear, undisputed winner.

Who fought their way into the finals?

• Sandi Derouin (Canada) - Fixing Internal Customer Mistakes - Great anecdote about saving an renegade purchasing IT manager’s job after he accidentally doubled an order with a hardware vendor. Not only did Sandi save his neck, she actually got a discount on the purchase.
• John Ransom (USA) - Evaluating Vendor Viability - Glass half full optimism and a strategic plan have helped John’s employer, a 99 year old lumber company, survive a cut-throat period in the housing business. It sounds like backing up optimism with cold hard facts about the viability of your business can still trump rumors of your impending demise.
• Leonard Ruhukwa (Zimbabwe) - Supplier Relationships - As a purchasing officer in a country with massive inflation - resulting in vendor quotes that are valid for 6 hours and expectations that payments be made by noon so prices don’t rise - monitoring currency exchange rates and managing vendor relationships is critical. The fact that Leonard has figured out a system to not only survive, but to gain vendor trust and discounts is truly impressive.
• Denise Minnich (USA) - Obtaining Emergency Vendor Service - An 11th hour request for preventive maintenance on a very expensive piece of medical equipment was no match for Denise’s persistence and attention to detail.
• G.P Thushara Sampath Gunasekara (Sri Lanka) - Increasing Supplier Competition - Displacing or renegotiating with an entrenched vendor is tough, but a little flexibility and a pragmatic understanding of how vendors view your organization’s challenges and potential goes a long way.

Good luck to all the competitors and thanks to Charles for his creativity in getting some great stories from the trenches. If only there was a way to have Bob Costas tell each of these tales over some melodramatic music…

Anyway, give the purchasing competitors’ essays a read and cast your vote.

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.