Thursday
Nov122009
View from the other Side
Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 11:45PM
Bear with me for a little tongue-in-cheek personal observation. I have been a consultant for just a few months. I have been an operations and supply chain person my whole working life. I began in product quality and reliability. As my career progressed I moved to service quality, to logistics, and eventually to supply chain management. It has been a fun and interesting transition from leading the supply chains in Fortune 500 companies to a smaller hands on consulting company like Cadent Resources Group, LLC. I thought I would use this week’s blog posting to reflect on this transition.
In my corporate career, I always remember the disbelief, awe, and, yes at times, anger with which I would view my colleagues in sales and marketing. I would wonder and ask estimates were X when sales like 34.7% of X? Why at the end of the month, quarter, or year do we get overloaded with orders of product A which we have clearly communicated is in short supply and almost nothing for product B which we have also clearly communicated is in abundant supply? Why do we, in the supply chain, get saddled with excess and obsolete inventory that clots our warehouses because marketing designs products that sales cannot sell? It is so frustrating! What is wrong with those folks? What were they smoking? They are so nice, fun, and even smart in social settings. What happens to these wonderful folks when they simply try to do is their jobs?
I have never had good answers to these questions? Oh, I have tried. I have fought against harboring the kinds of opinions that would necessitate having to take the “Playing Nice with Others” class, yet again. If they would just simply listen to us in the supply chain, manufacturing, and purchasing. Furthermore, I was not alone in this regard. Other operations and supply chain folks loved bashing our commercial partners so much and did it with such relish and ferocity that I looked like Mother Theresa by comparison.
Alas, all that has changed…
It changed on July 1st of this year when I became more than just a supply chain professional. With a leadership role in a small consulting company, you tend to wear all the functional hats. No, that is not quite right. You most definitely have to wear all of the functional hats. I have had to become versed in Marketing and Business Development (yes, this is a highfalutin word for sales). After years of criticizing them, I knew exactly what to do. Right?
Wrong.
Allow me to summarize my learning and express my new found respect for sales and marketing. First and foremost, their jobs are difficult. After decades of criticizing them, I finally walked a mile in their shoes. Writing copy and developing marketing schemes, plans, and strategies is relatively easy. Writing copy and developing marketing schemes, plans, and strategies that actually generate good leads is tougher than I had imagined. Making appointments with and presenting our capabilities to potential customers is not so difficult. Closing the deal and getting the business takes ten times longer than I had ever anticipated.
And guess what? On top of everything else, customers and clients change their minds. Their priorities change, they postpone things, they “decide to go in another direction,” they tell you it is a busy time and to call back next month (they may do this five times), or they just don’t return phone calls or e-mails until you get the message. Hmmm… some of these behaviors sound eerily familiar from when I was purchasing products and services.
Wow… at first I thought that I might not be good at this. Like a schizophrenic, my supply chain self started berating my sales and marketing self. But, I had the intelligence to reach out to my friends in sales and told them of my experiences. They laughed, really hard, and every one of them said exactly the same thing “Welcome to my world.” Then each one of them proceeded to share war stories that made me realize that what I was experiencing is simply how it is in the world of sales and marketing. Whew! I am exceedingly delighted it was not my incompetence, well at least not entirely. But I also realize that I have been way too hard on my partners in sales and marketing all these years.
My advice to my supply chain and operations friends? Before your next S&OP meeting, borrow some shoes from your sales and marketing colleagues and walk that mile.
In my corporate career, I always remember the disbelief, awe, and, yes at times, anger with which I would view my colleagues in sales and marketing. I would wonder and ask estimates were X when sales like 34.7% of X? Why at the end of the month, quarter, or year do we get overloaded with orders of product A which we have clearly communicated is in short supply and almost nothing for product B which we have also clearly communicated is in abundant supply? Why do we, in the supply chain, get saddled with excess and obsolete inventory that clots our warehouses because marketing designs products that sales cannot sell? It is so frustrating! What is wrong with those folks? What were they smoking? They are so nice, fun, and even smart in social settings. What happens to these wonderful folks when they simply try to do is their jobs?
I have never had good answers to these questions? Oh, I have tried. I have fought against harboring the kinds of opinions that would necessitate having to take the “Playing Nice with Others” class, yet again. If they would just simply listen to us in the supply chain, manufacturing, and purchasing. Furthermore, I was not alone in this regard. Other operations and supply chain folks loved bashing our commercial partners so much and did it with such relish and ferocity that I looked like Mother Theresa by comparison.
Alas, all that has changed…
It changed on July 1st of this year when I became more than just a supply chain professional. With a leadership role in a small consulting company, you tend to wear all the functional hats. No, that is not quite right. You most definitely have to wear all of the functional hats. I have had to become versed in Marketing and Business Development (yes, this is a highfalutin word for sales). After years of criticizing them, I knew exactly what to do. Right?
Wrong.
Allow me to summarize my learning and express my new found respect for sales and marketing. First and foremost, their jobs are difficult. After decades of criticizing them, I finally walked a mile in their shoes. Writing copy and developing marketing schemes, plans, and strategies is relatively easy. Writing copy and developing marketing schemes, plans, and strategies that actually generate good leads is tougher than I had imagined. Making appointments with and presenting our capabilities to potential customers is not so difficult. Closing the deal and getting the business takes ten times longer than I had ever anticipated.
And guess what? On top of everything else, customers and clients change their minds. Their priorities change, they postpone things, they “decide to go in another direction,” they tell you it is a busy time and to call back next month (they may do this five times), or they just don’t return phone calls or e-mails until you get the message. Hmmm… some of these behaviors sound eerily familiar from when I was purchasing products and services.
Wow… at first I thought that I might not be good at this. Like a schizophrenic, my supply chain self started berating my sales and marketing self. But, I had the intelligence to reach out to my friends in sales and told them of my experiences. They laughed, really hard, and every one of them said exactly the same thing “Welcome to my world.” Then each one of them proceeded to share war stories that made me realize that what I was experiencing is simply how it is in the world of sales and marketing. Whew! I am exceedingly delighted it was not my incompetence, well at least not entirely. But I also realize that I have been way too hard on my partners in sales and marketing all these years.
My advice to my supply chain and operations friends? Before your next S&OP meeting, borrow some shoes from your sales and marketing colleagues and walk that mile.
Reader Comments