Practical companion to the WOP video.
Analyse the boundary before borrowing a leadership lesson.
The linked career conversation uses a public business figure as a starting point for discussing leadership and choices. A useful procurement follow-up is to examine the underlying operating decision. Vertical integration changes which activities an organisation performs itself and which it obtains from suppliers. It also changes the capabilities and risks the organisation must carry.
Start with one activity. Describe why it matters to the business, what external providers offer and what would be required to operate it internally. Include people, assets, systems, time and management attention. A comparison that includes only supplier price and internal labour will miss important differences.
Compare control with the responsibilities it creates.
Bringing work inside can give the organisation greater direct influence over priorities and execution. It also creates responsibility for maintaining the capability, absorbing demand changes and resolving failures. Outsourcing can provide specialist capability or flexibility, while introducing dependencies the buyer must govern.
Ask which constraints determine the choice. The activity might depend on proprietary knowledge, scarce expertise or unpredictable demand. It might be difficult to separate from adjacent work. Record those conditions before drawing a lesson from another company's structure.
Use a hypothetical example. A manufacturer considering an internal component capability should examine investment, qualification, quality control, capacity and continuity. The external route should be evaluated against the same outcome and period. The decision belongs to the relevant business owners, supported by procurement's market and commercial evidence.
Apply the same discipline to career design.
Career choices also create a boundary between depth you develop yourself and capabilities you access through colleagues. Becoming the strongest possible specialist in one area can create value, while broader understanding helps connect that expertise to the organisation's decisions. The useful balance depends on the role you want to perform.
Choose an assignment that lets you test the balance. Take responsibility for a defined outcome, identify where you need specialist help and record what you learned. That gives you evidence about the work you enjoy and the capability you need to build next.
The useful lesson from a public leader's example is a question to investigate, rather than a personality to imitate. Examine the operating choice, its conditions and its consequences. Then decide what, if anything, transfers to your organisation or career.
Watch the original WOP video
Hey Procurement Legend,
Here is your weekly dose of Procurement Weekly, a list of what I’m considering and exploring. Feel free to forward along if the spirit moves you.
Supply Chain Thoughts
“One of the most important decisions that Elon Musk made about Tesla—the defining imprint that led to its success and its impact on the auto industry—was that it should make its own key components, rather than piecing together a car with hundreds of components from independent suppliers. Tesla would control its own destiny—and quality and costs and supply chain—by being vertically integrated. Creating a good car was important. Even more important was creating the manufacturing processes and factories that could mass-produce them, from the battery cells to the body. But that’s not the way the company began.” - Elon Musk, Walter Isaacson.
I wonder how many other organisations globally have taken such an approach. I was consulting with an organisation that was discussing this, but the skills, cost, and time to do it with the barebones resources we had would have been a fool’s errand.
What I’m listening to
I’ve been attempting to become more productive within my allocated working day. I moved from calendar-blocking to-do lists to realise to-do lists never get done. They merely accumulate more noise. Calendar blocking, on the other hand, makes you truly realise how long a thing takes to do.
This podcast episode is a solid listen on this and more.
What I’m Building
I’ve been thinking about career design and how too often procurement pros fall into the profession and get herded along. This isn’t inspiring. And we all have way more control over our career than we’re often led to believe. I’m currently building a Career Design Notion template that should be ready in the next couple of weeks.
And that’s it my friends,
Daniel