Paul Melchiorre, Ariba’s VP of Strategy had a chance to sit down with Vinnie Mirchandani, former Gartner analyst, and author of The New Polymath, being published by Wiley in June, to discuss how the book’s contents could apply to the sourcing community. Part 1 of the interview is here.

Paul Melchiorre (PM): What New Polymath characteristics do you see as key for people in eCommerce (buying, selling and managing cash)? How will it affect us as individuals

Vinnie Mirchandani (VM): Paul, the broadened vision will mean procuring new commodities, on-boarding new suppliers, entering new geographies. The most useful trait in this new world is curiosity - an openness to accept ideas from left field. It will also mean building widely-rounded enterprises - not every employee needs to be a polymath, but in composite the enterprise needs to be.

It is an exciting time for sourcing executives as enterprises discover new markets and technologies, but they will have to get away from the supplier consolidation they have exercised for the last few decades. And they will have to get much more involved in talent, not just commodity, sourcing. We will get a chance to dramatically rethink job descriptions, talent sources, specialized suppliers etc.

The other area where sourcing should be able to play well is in ensuring operational efficiencies. No longer can innovation guarantee large price premiums over the long run. Innovation without efficiency only works in short bursts.

PM: What are the pitfalls you’d warn companies to watch out for?

VM: Firstly, Polymaths cannot just mash technologies together. They have to be as good as specialists in each of the technologies. Secondly, as you embed more technology into your products (some cars nowadays have 100 million lines of code, Nike shoes have sensors, Starbucks is a major digital music channel etc) you have to think and behave like a technology vendor. As we know, that brings unique IP, price/performance, revenue recognition issues.

I like to cite the example of auto dealers. They still expect first generation prices for integrated GPS, Bluetooth etc in cars when portable units are available for a fraction of the price.  As we have seen with ERP projects in spades, our track record around technology projects is patchy. Now, as technology increasingly gets embedded in products, failure will not just mean project overruns and IT write-offs; it could ruin brands and lead to significant product liability.

Another area I cover in the book is that we are unprepared for a new slew of ethical issues that come with new technologies. We can barely tackle privacy issues, and a whole spate of new ones have arisen from food-biofuel tradeoff, to impact of GPS on neighborhood traffic to “God powers” arising from new medicine. The polymaths of old were also deep philosophers. As Marc Benioff, CEO of salesforce.com says in the foreword to the book “Ethics must not be an after - thought, but woven into the culture of innovation.”

PM: Your book contains some great case studies for b2b companies. What are some common traits among those New Polymath success stories?

VM: Thanks - yes, the book is anchored around 8 Polymath profiles - GE, Cognizant, Plantronics, W. Hambrecht, Kleiner Perkins’s cleantech portfolio, National Hurricane Center, salesforce.com and BP’s CTO group. That as you can see represents a wide range of industries, processes, countries etc. In addition there are over a 100 other mini-case studies of other innovators. I would be glib if I said I have distilled in the book the common magic across these organizations.  Stylistically, I have kept my own voice low. Lord knows between my Gartner research and my blogs I have spoken enough.  I have allowed these innovation rock stars to speak about their people, process, ideation tools and ecosystems.

Having said that, towards the end of the book I describe an imaginary conference where the innovators from the book convene. And I have brought 10 Polymaths from history - Plato, Michelangelo, Newton - back to life to lead sessions which summarize some of the common themes from the book.  That chapter is inspired by the movie Field of Dreams, where Shoeless Jackson and other baseball ghosts come back to life.  It is a bit of a risk for a business book. But then the book is about innovation, so why not be a bit creative?

I could tell you the 10 themes at that conference but then I would ruin the movie