Next Level Supply Management Excellence: Your Straight to the Bottom Line Roadmap [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

In late 2005 I received a call from Doug Smock asking me to review the draft of "Straight To The Bottom Line" (STTBL) - a work on Procurement and Supply Management that Doug, Robert Rudzki, Michael Katzorke and Shelley Stewart had co-authored. I was honored at the time and found their book to be THE authoritative/definitive treatise on the profession and practice of world-class/leading edge Procurement and Supply Management.

After devouring the book, I responded:

"Straight To The Bottom Line" is the definitive work on procurement/supply base management. Every CEO, CFO, CPO and their boards who are interested in increasing shareholder value need to read this and then make it required reading for their management and procurement teams."

Fast forward to the summer of 2011...

Bob Rudzki - former Fortune 500 CPO and the founder and President of Greybeard Advisors - kindly reached out to me and offered me the honor of reading a new book that he and Robert Trent had authored.

"Next Level Supply Management Excellence" (NLSME) was soon delivered and like "STTBL" I devoured it (three times) and determined that it is appropriately titled with "next level" as it, without question (and building upon the foundation of "STTBL"), takes the philosophies, practices and the profession of procurement and supply management to the NEXT LEVEL.

"Next Level Supply Management Excellence" is a comprehensive, contemporary, thoughtful, practical and executable roadmap to world-class procurement/supply management excellence.

From internal and external collaboration, to organizational design, to "lean/six sigma", to strategic sourcing, to "complexity reduction", to energy management, to procurement's critical contributions to the income statement and balance sheet etc.etc.etc., Rudzki and Trent thoroughly address and explain virtually all aspects of leading edge procurement practices.

NLSME is by FAR the most comprehensive, insightful and CORRECT roadmap to procurement excellence. Like STTBL, it is "required reading" for all C-Level Executives and their direct reports.

Given globalization, economic turbulence and the fundamental (and ever evolving) changes and challenges ALL enterprises/industries on earth now face, NLSME provides practical and implementable practices that, if followed, will yield truly differentiated results.

The work should also be adapted into an undergraduate or graduate level course that is taught at the world's leading universities with procurement/supply chain studies.

In summary, I am grateful (and a wee bit envious) for the motivation, dedication, intellect, insight, generosity, experience and articulation that Rudzki and Trent exhibit in bestowing this work upon us.

Respectfully submitted,

Dick Conrad
Former VP Worldwide Procurement - Dell Inc (2006-2009)
Former SVP, Global Operations & Supply Chain - Hewlett-Packard (1999-2006)

We've all had these discussions in private with our peers from other organizations. Even the most seasoned supply management leaders will, if pressed, quietly share their personal frustrations with that perennial challenge: transforming our sometimes bureaucratic and transaction based teams into something else, something that truly advances our organizations' business strategy and financial objectives. There are moments, I'm sure, when we've admitted to ourselves that we're not always sure of how to accomplish that transformation.

This book, Next Level Supply Management Excellence, can help. Both reference text for where we are and a roadmap to where we should be going, it's a fitting sequel to the 2005 Straight to the Bottom Line (Rudzki et al). This latest text is a challenge--not to read but rather in its implicit visionary posture: the imperative to respectfully acknowledge the current state of supply management... and then move on to what's next.

All of us are facing demands to get more value from supply management. So what does "next level" look like? This book suggests it starts with a much broader understanding of our discipline. Such "next level" supply management involves, for example, embracing the functional language of finance as we look for more than yesterday's simple material cost reductions and think in terms of, say, strategic revenue enhancement or better management of capital projects.

For all its undeniably visionary perspective, this book is not just manifesto. It's a "how to", a compelling guidebook with real and practical advice on how to get there. A careful review of current best practices, such as strategic sourcing, supplier collaboration and risk assessment, is followed up by the book's most exciting strength: the details of how to actually move your supply management organization to that next level.

Vicki McBryde, BA, SCMP, CPM
Head of Procurement, PwC Management Services LP (Canada)

The latest offering from Rudzki and Trent is a compendium of current and future Supply Chain Managment excellence. A concise guide, connecting Supply Chain to revenue and financial returns.

Imagine Kiichiro Toyoda surveying Henry Ford's vast Rouge complex in the 1940's. A vertically integrated model requiring mountains of capital. The Toyota Production System was unleashed, not to demonstrate Lean Manufacturing, but to restructure Return on Invested Capital and increase Revenue. Rudzki and Trent continue to connect the dots: Supply Chain Excellence is Financial Performance.

Jonathan P. Krum
Supply Chain Management
Director, Americas
Alstom Power