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The Supply Chain Executive as Business Consultant
Become a true consultant to the business to add real value to your internal customers' processes. Here's how to do it.
Ken Valla is regional vice president of sales with Wilson Learning Corporation
By Ken Valla
In a shrinking economy, supply chain leaders face a dilemma. They face increased pressure to deliver greater cost reductions. However, other functions within the enterprise are looking to supply chain to provide higher levels of service and to be more responsive to the evolving environment to help these functions deliver on their own targets for sales numbers and profitability.
In this situation, what can supply chain leaders count on to win? Typically, the supply chain organization does not control product or market strategy, and pricing and revenue goals are set elsewhere in the organization. Nevertheless, the supply chain executive has direct influence on a powerful source of competitive advantage: the supply chain staff and how they interact with internal customers within the enterprise.
Expert sales professionals know how to build customer relationships that generate profitable sales — as long as they are able to add real value to the customer's business. Similarly, supply chain professionals with expertise and solutions that address business fundamentals such as productivity, efficiency, financial results and return on investment (ROI) can build relationships with internal customers that help their companies shut out the competition while increasing both the amount and profitability of their sales.
The Business Consultant Role
"Consultative selling" — the ability to understand and link solutions to a customer's business priorities — is a critical skill for salespeople, but when dealing with internal customers it is, by itself, no longer sufficient. Of course, it is important to know how to identify information about a customer's products and market position, and how to ask questions to uncover business issues important to the customer. But the consultative sales role is still, as the term suggests, a sales role.
The real opportunity for supply chain executives lies in becoming a true consultant to the business, asking a different set of questions focused on the customer's core business processes. Once the supply chain executive thoroughly understands these processes — how they link to each other and what kinds of information is exchanged among them — it is possible to identify unique opportunities to improve key metrics such as inventory turn, labor costs or time to market that matter most to the business and that present the greatest potential for impact by the supply chain.
Looking for Opportunities in the Value Chain
Unlike information about a company's financial performance, people and products, business process information must be gathered by talking to the right people in the right parts of the organization. Michael Porter's Value Chain model is a useful tool for organizing a business process discovery effort. It provides a lens for looking at the business from the point of view of key functions. The model then serves as a guide for gaining access to owners of key functions.
In a shrinking economy, supply chain leaders face a dilemma. They face increased pressure to deliver greater cost reductions. However, other functions within the enterprise are looking to supply chain to provide higher levels of service and to be more responsive to the evolving environment to help these functions deliver on their own targets for sales numbers and profitability.
In this situation, what can supply chain leaders count on to win? Typically, the supply chain organization does not control product or market strategy, and pricing and revenue goals are set elsewhere in the organization. Nevertheless, the supply chain executive has direct influence on a powerful source of competitive advantage: the supply chain staff and how they interact with internal customers within the enterprise.
Expert sales professionals know how to build customer relationships that generate profitable sales — as long as they are able to add real value to the customer's business. Similarly, supply chain professionals with expertise and solutions that address business fundamentals such as productivity, efficiency, financial results and return on investment (ROI) can build relationships with internal customers that help their companies shut out the competition while increasing both the amount and profitability of their sales.
The Business Consultant Role
"Consultative selling" — the ability to understand and link solutions to a customer's business priorities — is a critical skill for salespeople, but when dealing with internal customers it is, by itself, no longer sufficient. Of course, it is important to know how to identify information about a customer's products and market position, and how to ask questions to uncover business issues important to the customer. But the consultative sales role is still, as the term suggests, a sales role.
The real opportunity for supply chain executives lies in becoming a true consultant to the business, asking a different set of questions focused on the customer's core business processes. Once the supply chain executive thoroughly understands these processes — how they link to each other and what kinds of information is exchanged among them — it is possible to identify unique opportunities to improve key metrics such as inventory turn, labor costs or time to market that matter most to the business and that present the greatest potential for impact by the supply chain.
Looking for Opportunities in the Value Chain
Unlike information about a company's financial performance, people and products, business process information must be gathered by talking to the right people in the right parts of the organization. Michael Porter's Value Chain model is a useful tool for organizing a business process discovery effort. It provides a lens for looking at the business from the point of view of key functions. The model then serves as a guide for gaining access to owners of key functions.
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