The CPO: Everybody’s Favorite Topic

January 30th, 2008 at 07:46am David Bush - Iasta

In their winter edition, the CPO Agenda just published another article on everybody’s favorite person - the CPO. This one was called More Than Just The Goalkeeper.

But before I review it, I should note that a number of similar articles have been cropping up - exclaiming the importance of this individual - over the past few years. In the past six months alone, I’ve reviewed Profile of a Typical CPO that appeared in Supply & Demand Chain Executive in this post, Know Your Type that appeared over on SupplyManagement.com in this post, and Sourcing … The Profession that also appeared in Supply & Demand Chain Executive in this post. In addition, the doctor reviewed the CAPS publication Supply Leadership Changes in this post as well as authoring the post The Seven Savors of a Sourcing Sensei, summarizing some of the key points from the e-Sourcing Wiki paper on Sourcing Leadership over on Sourcing Innovation.

If we go back further, we’ll find many more posts on this topic, as well as many more articles, including the article Elevated to the C-suite in the winter edition of CPO Agenda in 2005. This begs the question, is there really any more to say?

The article states that to fully contribute to the organization’s strategic goals, CPOs need to be prepared to play out of position - to go beyond just being masters of procurement to being masters of corporate strategy and management where they function as an integral part of the executive management team. It also states that they need to break out of ingrained ways of thinking and create a new future for their organization as well as their function - one that is aligned with corporate strategy over a long-term horizon.

It also states that procurement professionals are at the heart of shaping and developing organization value, that they help to define the boundaries of the organization, that they directly influence operating costs, and manage key relationships with the outside world. Furthermore, they develop talent, embody organizational values, build commitment, enable constant communication, and make the important calls on big decisions.

In other words, nothing that we bloggers haven’t said before here on e-Sourcing Forum, over on Spend Matters, or over on Sourcing Innovation. However, even though there may not be that much more to say today than there was to say, three, six, or twelve months ago, if there’s anything new to say at all, it’s quite obvious that the basic message still needs to be repeated - as often as someone is willing to repeat it. After all, if we are still getting quotes from CEOs that say “most of the top team wouldn’t even consider that procurement could be part of the solution“, procurement still has a ways to go.

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Entry Filed under: General, Supply Management Best Practices