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RESOURCES No SRM programme is without its challenges and the single biggest challenge faced by Eastman will be familiar to many – resources. This manifests itself in various ways, from a simple lack of numbers and capped headcount budgets, to maintaining and developing skills through additional training, to then being able to schedule that training as resource comes under more pressure. It’s a vicious circle. Despite this, the IT SRM programme has been deemed a success, to the point that a previously sceptical business is now willing to embrace the approach. ENTERPRISE Mike Stallard has been tasked with paving the way for an expanded enterprise wide SRM programme that will initially involve indirect procurement. Mike explained: “The wider business has been convinced of the value of SRMas a result of themeasureable savings and total value realised via the IT programme. From the beginning, the intent and challenge was to use the experience and the provenmodel to extend our SRMprogramme throughout the company.” Mike went on to say how the value of SRM had been defined for the wider business in a way that resonated with their varied needs. “As a programme our goal is to achieve total supplier performance, business client satisfaction, incremental innovation, and maximum ROI. To achieve this we will need to leverage all the potential value that effective SRM can deliver.” MORE CHALLENGES Expanding the adoption of SRM from IT to businesses throughout the enterprise, creates a whole new set of challenges. Complexity on a global scale will multiply the variety of business drivers, stakeholders, processes, technology, cultures, etc. that will need to be accommodated. Mike listed what he sees as the major challenges facing the Eastman enterprise SRM programme. “We are looking hard at these and have not yet prioritised the list, and we potentially expect more challenges to emerge as we move forward. However, these are what we are looking at currently... Internal relationship management – We will need to gain business leader endorsement, sponsorship and stewardship. We need to achieve a position where we are regarded as trusted advisors to the business. Resources – We will need to secure time to perform the role, and also time to train procure- ment and key business resources. Lack of available tools – While we have a great start using SharePoint for the IT programme, that knowledge is not available in other parts of the organisation or in key business areas. The single biggest concern is how to aggregate the data / information to the programme level. Achieving consistency – Creating a flexible framework and process for managing a diverse set of indirect material categories across the enterprise. Training – Challenge to train up the organisation to be ‘relationship’ managers not just cat- egory managers. Cross business categories / suppliers – Managing commodity categories or major suppli- ers that cross business unit boundaries or serve the company as a whole.”
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