Should You Be a Mentor for Emerging Purchasing Personnel?
Robert Menard, Certified Purchasing Professional, Certified Professional Purchasing Consultant
Of course you should!
All of us who have succeeded at the procurement profession owe a special obligation to pay the good fortune forward. The purchasing profession has been forever notorious for its lack of training, education, and in many instances, corporate support. To improve the talent pool and give a hand up to those who follow, let’s provide to them a service that we would have dearly loved to enjoy all those years ago.
A report by AMR Research ranked the 21 colleges and univeristies in the US with Supply Chain Management degree programs. Amost all have a mentoring program, formal or informal.
The Scary Setting
Recently, the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Affiliate in Dallas asked for volunteers to serve as mentors for graduate students at University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). Not only are some Affiliate members personal and professional friends, ISM Dallas is also a training client. I gladly volunteered but knew not what to anticipate as the handful of mentors were scheduled to “speed date” with more than a score of University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) undergrad and grad students, all enrolled in UTD Supply Chain Management (SCM) degree programs. The prospect of some over the hill baby boomers speed dating with SCM majors at UTD was frightful; suppose that it turned out to be as comfortable as a ride on a UFO?
An Epiphany for Mentors
Nearly all students had not taken a courses in Purchasing. However, everyone had depth in Operations Management and most had extensive education in Logistics. The old joke (true story) about purchasing pros getting the same amount of education and training in a career as a sales pro gets in a year took on a new meaning. Now, it seems that Purchasing is the Rodney Dangerfield amongst even all the SCM fellow professions.
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An Epiphany for Mentees
Most were stunned to learn that purchasing had the greatest affect on profitability of all business pursuits. Many wanted to know more about Purchasing and how they could pursue it. With so many finance or engineering backgrounds, they were already on the right path. Procurement favors process thinking but to succeed, they will need to develop the outward focused social and communication skills that many tech oriented personnel so effectively shun.
The Outcome
The ship has sailed but the course is still being plotted. Stay tuned for updates.