大卫阿特金森– our first Procurement Provocateur

我们昨天解释了我们新的一系列采访。我很高兴地说我们的第一个受害者 - 我的意思是主题 - 是大卫阿特金森四个支柱咨询，an ex Rolls Royce procurement leader and now influential as a educator, trainer, thinker, writer and adviser.

When did you decide procurement was for you?

I started out on a career in Marketing, believe it or not, and joined what was Northern Rock thinking it was the first step into a ultimately glamorous career in advertising. However, I took a sharp turn in applying for a job at Black & Decker that had a salary pretty much twice what I was on at the time. I remember being offered the job and telling my Mum that I had no idea what it was but it started with “ex” and that I was taking it anyway. The job was as an ‘expeditor’ of course, placing and chasing orders into the factory.

I quickly realised I liked it and seemed to be quite good at it, and very soon I was promoted to buyer and that took me into strategic sourcing work - as an early adopter really - and began to enthusiastically immerse myself in the theory and practice of it. What I liked in particular was you could see the benefits of what you were doing more quickly in procurement than you could in marketing.

Who has been the biggest influence on your career?

If I can be greedy, I’d like to nominate three great influencers on my career. I left school at 16 and went straight into a job rather than university, working for Tyne & Wear Passenger Transport Executive. I worked for the marketing manager Dick Wood and he spotted potential in me and encouraged me to go off to what was then Newcastle Poly and further education in my early twenties. He and his wife even helped me when money was tight - I spent some happy times doing decorating jobs for them to help keep me solvent!

当我在90年代在伯明翰这样做的MBA时，我非常幸运能够被垃圾，表兄弟，休斯和历史教授和安德鲁科克斯教授所教育。所有提供精湛的教学和想法，但它是COX，他的研究与力量有关，真正帮助了解了业务和关系管理的工作。万博体育下载app

Finally, I’d like to mention Michael Simmons who, as an external consultant, worked with me at Rolls Royce and really got me thinking about my leadership and the process of strategy development. That led on to what I do now and how my interests have developed beyond procurement.

你是如何成为一个成功的专业人士？

I was lucky to be given early experience - like big negotiations at one of the pioneering procurement organisations Black & Decker. And, as I've always been intellectually curious, I deliberately sought out an opportunity to work in automotive, as the sector had the reputation for having the most mature practices in procurement and supply chain. I also learnt in both the Auto and (especially the) Aero sectors how vital it is to work with suppliers post contract to secure value - and how to do that even if you didn't negotiate the contract yourself initially. That experience of having to work diligently and creatively with suppliers you’re locked into for many years, took me on to my continually deepening interest in supplier relationship management (SRM).

你会给一位年轻的采购专业人士提供什么建议？

Chase experience, not the pound or the dollar! Do as many interesting things as you can as soon as possible. Take a long-term view of your career - think about your next job和the one after that. For example, I wanted to work in automotive because I was looking ahead to the role after that, and that experience has proven to be a very useful currency throughout the second half of my career.

为什么组织应该关心采购？

它仍然是最大的尚未开发的机会in 21st century business for most organisations. For instance, contract and supplier management provides huge opportunities but procurement people are all too often defeatist about their chances of influencing that whole space. I also think we're still seeing CEOs who rose through business at a time when procurement wasn't perceived as that important; it’s a blind spot and so they're still not supporting procurement enough. Maybe that will gradually change with a new generation of CEOs. I certainly hope so. Those organisations that continue not to ‘get it’ will ultimately be the losers.

在哪里采购？

在英国，我认为制造业的丧失已经真正袭击采购 - 就像它一样，这是一个有效的采购证明，许多人的“伟大和善”在这些行业中赢得了他们的马刺，采购是企业至关重要的地方。并非所有部门都产生了同样的创造：我们的服务行业有一些奇迹才华横溢的人，但我担心他们没有暴露于真正的尖端实践，即某些部门没有选择掌握。

Where are the 'thinkers' now in procurement? In the '90s we had a number of pioneering researchers and academics (some mentioned above) that really pushed the boundaries and a number of enthusiastic experimenters (I like to think I’m one) who put in practice their new ideas. SRM is a prime example of what emerged from that period. So I do worry about the profession. Transactional P2P activities are increasingly being delegated to users, and users or budget holders will take the lead at least for the some of the most critical contract and supplier management activities. So procurement has to carve out a new role. My personal view is that procurement teams in the future will be smaller, and will act in more of a consulting role within their organisations. Those that embrace the need to develop consulting skills, in addition to the very necessary cutting-edge technical procurement skills, are going to have the edge. I have no doubt about that.

感谢David Atkinson，您可以阅读他自己写作的样本, as he looks at a number of issues within one excellent article - from Pfizer / AstraZeneca to our Andrew Cox debate.