Secrets of a Maverick Manager: How questioning the status quo transforms business supply performance.

By Richard May

Discover the secret to successful projects with Richard May’s insightful guide. Despite receiving approval, projects can still face unexpected turbulence. This often stems from not asking the right questions at the beginning. Drawing on his vast business and procurement expertise, May takes readers through revealing case studies, personal experiences, and anecdotes to shed light on the crucial “cornerstone questions.” Business professionals, whether in the private or public sector, will benefit from May’s practical approaches, which apply to all levels of project management and activities where external resources are critical to success. Learn how to implement these vital questions into your executive thinking, avoiding turbulence and ensuring project success.

“Anybody can ask questions, but not quite in the way Richard May does.” Dr. Richard Russill, author of Purchasing Power and Route 42.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Dec 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398450493

Richard May

Richard May’s short fiction has been published in his collections Inhuman Beings: Monsters, Myths, and Science Fiction and Ginger Snaps: Photos & Stories (with photographer David Sweet) and numerous anthologies and literary periodicals. Rick also organizes two book readings at San Francisco bookstores, the Word Week annual literary festival, and the online book club Reading Queer Authors Lost to AIDS. He lives in San Francisco.

Book preview

Secrets of a

Maverick Manager

How questioning the status quo

transforms business supply

performance.

Richard May

Austin Macauley Publishers

‘Secrets of a Maverick Manager’

About the Author

Dedication

Copyright Information ©

Acknowledgement

Foreword

Introduction

Part A

Chapter 1: A Less-than-stellar Outcome

Chapter 2: What Is Business Critical Supply Management?

Chapter 3: Lights! Camera! Action!

Chapter 4: The Critical Business of Procurement: Vision of the Future Versus Tradition from the Past

Chapter 5: The Four Cornerstone Questions (CSQs): Developing Organisation and Individual Capability

Chapter 6: CSQ 1. What Is the Problem We Need to Solve?

Chapter 7: CSQ 2. What Are the Real Business Needs/Opportunities?

Chapter 8: CSQ 3. What Is the Outcome Needed?

Chapter 9: CSQ 4. What Is the Benefit (In H-Smart Terms)?

Chapter 10: An End-To-End Procurement/Supply Management Process and the Four CSQs

Chapter 11: The Structured Approach to Strategic Procurement (SASP)

Chapter 12: The Parkin Wheel: A Very Valuable Decision-Enhancing Tool When Planning Procurement Change

Chapter 13: Other Useful Decision Enhancing Tools

Part B

Chapter 14: Growing Up in Kiwi Land and Impacts on Later Life

Chapter 15: Passion for and Learnings from Sport and Experiences for Later Business Life

Chapter 16: University, Chemical Engineering and Early Procurement Experiences

Chapter 17: Early Chemical Engineering Experiences Related to Business-Critical Procurement

Chapter 18: Entrepreneurial Thinking: Innate or Developed?

Chapter 19: Alpha Chemical and Beyond, and Business Critical Supply Management

Chapter 20: Falling into Business Supply Management

Chapter 21: Early Business Procurement Experiences

Chapter 22: A Multicultural Corporate Procurement Leadership Experience

Chapter 23: From Corporate Life to Consulting in Business-Critical Supply Management

Book Summary

About the Author

Richard May is a ‘Kiwi’, i.e., a New Zealander, though he has lived close to 35 years outside of New Zealand, including almost 20 years in Hong Kong. His international career, firstly in the field of chemical engineering and later in business procurement, has enabled him to fully appreciate the challenges faced when organisations need external resources to achieve desired outcomes, and especially where those external resources and the accompanying supply chains and networks are critical towards a successful project outcome. This book is written from the all-seeing perspective of hindsight. Richard is now ‘retired’ and lives in New Zealand with his family, spending time writing, involved with masters rowing, playing golf and travelling around beautiful New Zealand and other parts of the world.

Dedication

Dr Richard Russill has been an inspiration to me throughout my second career, involved as a consultant to organisations who desired to develop their business supply management capabilities.

The excellent colleagues I was fortunate to work with during many consulting experiences in business supply management.

Copyright Information ©

Richard May 2023

The right of Richard May to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This book represents the author’s reflections. The author assumes no responsibility for any errors or omissions in the content.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398450486 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398450493 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

My journey into procurement as a business enabler has been influenced by some very good mentors, with whom I was fortunate enough to meet and interact and for whom I have the highest respect. I thank them for their advice and sage counsel and also for openly sharing their experiences.

In particular, I wish to remember Dr Richard Russill. Dick is a gentleman whose ability to use words carefully to describe a procurement element in ways that are easily understood by the audience (whether CEO Roundtable members or those starting on a procurement career) is, in my view, unparalleled. I have enjoyed many long walks and well-imbibed evenings with Dick as we debated procurement related thoughts and ideas that were cutting edge, especially those discussions that focused around enabling better business outcomes. His inputs into this book greatly assisted my rethinking of how best to restructure it to better flow.

Neville Parkin has never procured in his life, having spent his days in sales and key account management. He also studied psychology and change management and his Parkin Wheel, which is described in the book, is a change management tool that I have used with very good success over many change programmes relating to procurement. His counselling greatly enabled me to see the other side of the coin.

My good friend, Terry Blake, and I also have enjoyed many an adventure together, both in working through challenging business issues involving external supply markets and on vacations together. The two of us really enjoy Asia and the people who live across those cultures.

Others who have influenced me include many colleagues from my days in corporate life, as well as my days with the consulting groups PMMS and ArcBlue, plus colleagues who left lasting impressions on me.

I am especially grateful to Jan Grainger, a ‘non-purchasing’ ex-librarian and writer, for her reality-focused review of several drafts. I also am indebted to good friend, Murray Heyrick. Murray is a very good and vastly experienced public sector focused procurement professional with a fountain of knowledge. His review of early drafts and his hands-on edits were a great sounding board for my ideas and propositions.

I also wish to say that my wife, Yon Yi, managed to keep us whole in Hong Kong when I left corporate life to set up a business procurement consultancy linked to the UK group then called PMMS. Starting from our second bedroom, we steadily grew to become the largest procurement focused consulting group across Asia. Our family then relocated back to New Zealand, and I was fortunate to be able to continue working with a wide array of clients across both private and public sectors on both sides of the Tasman Sea whilst retaining links to Asia.

On reflection, timing was crucial in terms of our success. In the mid-1990s, procurement was for some sectors, particularly non-manufacturing, yet to come onto the agendas of C suite teams, while China sourcing was in its infancy and yet to be fully explored. It has been my good fortune to have been involved when events such as China emergence, global financial crises, and increasing globalisation and connectivity encouraged a number of public sector and non-manufacturing organisations towards a realisation of the need, risk and value from smarter procurement.

Finally, perhaps the greatest accolade for my murmurings over the years is to see my son, Christopher, who graduated with business and IT qualifications, take up a career in procurement. He has many qualities and capabilities that I wish I’d had at his age. I am in awe of him despite his not wanting to continue to play rugby, nor take up rowing or play golf. Oh well, one can’t win everything.

I sincerely hope that he will take a chance to exit procurement for a period, learn first-hand other aspects of business across more than one sector, and then step back into the world of procurement. I believe that then, he will be a much more valued business focused procurement professional with this wider exposure.

My lovely daughter, Sarah, who has just completed an honours degree in English, has greatly assisted me with the editing of this story and her advice is much appreciated.

Foreword

‘Companies don’t need to employ business consultants to provide the answers to the problems they face.’

I realised this when, during consulting assignments, it became obvious that most people in most organisations already have the answers, although they are seldom asked for them. The challenge was to tease out this in-house wisdom. Then another client company told me they used business consultants ‘partly because of the contacts you have, but mainly because of the questions you ask.’

Anyone can ask questions, but not quite the way Richard May asks them. It takes skill and experience to sense where the answers might lie and then to pose the right questions which bring them to light. This excellent book, richly illustrated with case histories from business and personal life, is full of questions which the readers can employ in their searches for business improvement. Helpfully, it also reveals the answers which have inspired organisations, public and private and in many business sectors, to improve dramatically their performance whilst managing the risks that seek to impair it. Although it has supply management as its theme, the book will appeal to all in business. It’s as much about collaborating with people as about mastering supply chains.

As a cross-business process, supply management or procurement involves the vast majority of people in the company although many may be damagingly unaware of this. But all is not lost. Richard May’s book shows, in an eminently practical way, how the reader can transform supply management/procurement activity to take business performance to a new level. Making the changes can be a wild ride, but the book will see you safely through. Just don’t tell your competitors you’re reading it!

Richard Russill

Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK

Introduction

Why Read This Book?

The subtitle of this book talks to business-critical supply management (BCSM). Readers of the introduction may ask what is business-critical supply management. Is it just another book about procurement with a more fancy title? If so, perhaps I should stop reading any further. Potential readers may well ask who are the intended audiences of this book.

My response is that the book is aimed at the business executive whose business unit, whether public or private sector, has a current or planned reliance on external resources (whether goods or services) for the achievement of desired outcomes independent of the size of the external spend. It is also, I believe, a valuable read for chief executives, their direct reports and boards of directors. I would also hope that those entertaining a career in supply management/ procurement (or commercial or commissioning or supply chain management or similar) who are wishing to move beyond operational and tactical focus and who wish to fully embrace a critical business-enabling process should read this book.

The book is divided into two parts. Part A focuses on BCSM. It is intended for the busy executive who wishes to gain a better appreciation of BCSM, how to identify issues and how to align the organisation’s ability to successfully and sustainably identify and implement a BCSM capability. Chapter 1 contains a real-life case study that talks to a less than stellar outcome due to a lack of application of the principles of BCSM. Chapter 2 explains more about business-critical supply management and why a specific focus is needed in today’s world. Broadly, it is about the creation of added value and the avoidance of loss of value given the challenges that all businesses face with their value-chains, both internally and externally, especially in the current environment. Business critical supply management is not to be confused with tactical or operational external resource needs.

Part B is more personal. I asked a good friend and mentor what he considered was my unique selling proposition, my USP. He indicated that it was the ability to challenge and question and not take things for granted. This USP has been developed in many ways over my life so far. I have tried in Part B of the book, through anecdotes of my first 70+ years of life, to capture those experiences that then added to my own personal capability and USP. I believe several of these fit with the capabilities that a person embracing business-critical supply management would find valuable and which would also add to the way that capability could be applied to assist organisations and individuals towards better outcomes mostly related to external expenditure and investment. Inside Part B are a number of anecdotes. I have chosen anecdotes that, I believe, can relate closely to Part A.

This book also talks to three capabilities through linkages of my thoughts related to the topic of business-critical supply management.

The first capability is focused on developing and improving the capability of an organisation, often through the medium of business enablement with a focus on what people may call supply management or procurement. You may ask why I focus on supply management. My response is that supply management (which is often called procurement) can be seen as a microcosm of an organisation, whether in the private or public sector.

Every organisation to a greater or lesser extent relies on external resources to enable the delivery of outcomes that define the organisation’s success. The processes across the whole life cycle of these interventions from end-to-end, including the management of external resources, can be called supply management or, more commonly, procurement. It can and is also called by other names, e.g., commissioning, commercial, supply chain, supplier management, etc. However, I have decided throughout this book to primarily use the phrase supply management although you will also find the use of the word procurement, as in my mind, the two words are synonymous. How the end-to-end process performs and how it is perceived can define an organisation not only internally, but also in its dealings within a trading environment and in its culture as perceived by its audiences. Moreover, with a growing list of challenges facing organisations, increasingly how an organisation manages these challenges, not only internally but also throughout its supply networks, should be on and near the top of the agendas of many boards and directors.

The second is about the development of capability in people, often using unconventional approaches with a focus on practicality. It also looks at how organisational constraints can frustrate the effectiveness of capability development, while organisational foresight and vision can release capability.

The third is about developing one’s own capability through life experiences. I try to capture in Part B of the book an excitement and eagerness that I have for life and which I tried to embody when carrying out consulting assignments focused on enabling business through a focus on business-critical supply management. I was asked by my good friend and mentor Dr Richard Russill whether excitement and procurement or supply management went together; he also asked how to define in one sentence ‘excitement and eagerness’.

I would offer the following definition: ‘The exciting opportunities that are presented through the art of discovery (often using unconventional approaches), towards shaping better outcomes.’

As you will correctly surmise, this sentence can be applied not only to supply management or procurement but to other aspects of life and business. On reflection, I am comfortable that the above sentence embodies my approach to the development of the three capabilities that I have tried to capture in the book. My personal approach has been viewed by a number of people as impassioned. Some have likened it to a white-knuckle ride at times, and sometimes this has been challenging and challenged.

I hope you will enjoy coming on this journey with me whether focusing only on Part A or staying for the whole journey. At the book’s end, I hope that the reader will be able to reflect on his or her own life and experiences; also to critically think about effective real strategic supply management focused on business-critical supply issues in your own organisation and how to develop it to make a fundamentally different level of contribution towards your organisation’s success.

Richard May

Wellington, New Zealand, 2021

Part A

Chapter 1

A Less-than-stellar Outcome

Are you, as a business leader, able to relate to the situation described in this chapter?

The organisation has decided to acquire and implement an enterprise-wide IT solution.

The project is embraced by the chief executive and his direct reports. The project leaders are the chief information officer (CIO) and the chief financial officer (CFO). Others including the chief operating officer (COO) are actively involved.

The particular organisation has, as part of the group of companies, a commercial group but in a separate division. That group is focused on developing business opportunities and hence is not invited to be part of this project. The organisation also has a procurement capability as well; however, this project is deemed critical and hence the chief executive’s direct reports will push ahead with the project and only involve procurement at the time there is a need to approach the market.

The CIO and CFO working together develop a business case with the help of a big-four consultancy. Part of the justification is the ability to reduce manpower numbers once the system is up and running. Hence it is a sensitive project given the potential impact on staff. There is a decision to look closer at two global IT providers as the market is quite constrained.

As the upfront process unfolds, one of the potential suppliers offers the senior executive team the chance to fly to another country to look at the system operating in another organisation in a similar industry sector. Almost the whole team takes up the opportunity.

I happened to meet the COO in the street one day and asked how the project was coming along. He indicated that they had decided who they would select as the supplier. I said, ‘Well done, did you get a very good outcome?’ He responded that they had yet to carry out negotiations with the supplier.

Needless to say, their negotiations were less than successful. The promised reduction in staff numbers did not occur due to unforeseen challenges with implementation and the system’s non-ease of use. Some years later, the supplier relationship worsened and they were asked to absorb significantly increased costs. They could not change the system and had to wear what they saw as an aggressive supplier approach to ongoing business.

The case is real and is not unique as I am sure the reader will appreciate. What was interesting for me was that some months prior to the project being commenced, the chief executive had asked myself and a colleague to run a half-day session for his senior management team. The session was focused on strategic procurement but could equally have been called business-critical supply management.

In the session, we used a case study that was also about a supplier persuading the CIO about an exciting new IT system. In the case study, the supplier invited the senior executive team to visit a working site. They came back enthused and then stated that they needed to follow the procurement process and get multiple quotes. The supplier who introduced the idea was ultimately selected and negotiations held. The supplier talked of how the client was reasonably small in the overall scheme of things and hence they would not be eligible for the best pricing and terms. Ultimately an agreement was reached.

The case study asked several questions of the senior team.

Is this something that the senior management team should be involved in and if so how?

When do the senior management believe the supplier knew he or she had won the business?

Did the buying organisation achieve the best possible outcome? If not, why not?

The team actively debated the questions and the afternoon rounded off with a general agreement for how to recognise and manage critical supply situations. However, several months down the road they had gone out and repeated, almost to the word, the mistakes to which the case study alluded.

Why? That is the challenge of real change in the area of supply management or procurement where the outcome is critical for the business. The team in this case was unable to make the changes that could have avoided the costly outcome they have since encountered. My sense is that they were caught in the understanding that existed in that organisation that procurement had a rather narrow role, and anyway did not have the skills to be involved up front with such a critical and expensive project.

This chapter is an example (not limited to IT) of organisations getting caught up in a project of business activity and not applying critical thinking that could not only avoid costly outcomes but could enable the delivery of outstanding value. One of the issues that this executive team struggled with was the difference between procurement as a function versus procurement as a critical business process.

Chapter 2

What Is Business Critical

Supply Management?

Why it is important, especially in today’s world.

Does your organisation live dangerously, blissfully unaware of business-critical supply side issues?

No organisation is an island shut off from the outside world. Businesses, with few exceptions, rely on external resources (goods and services) to achieve their objectives and desired outcomes. This applies to both private and public sectors. Some of these acquisitions are for operational needs and are acquired accordingly. However, some business needs involve interactions with external supply markets and such interactions can have a profound impact (positive and negative) on a business’s success.

Business critical supply management can be defined as an ‘end-to-end cross-business process focused on the engagement with and the management of supply markets for critical external resources.’ This is achieved through taking a deterministic influence on those supply markets (rather than just acquiring what is offered) so as to ensure real business needs, and hence important outcomes are achieved with cognisant recognition of risks, opportunities and business continuity issues, particularly in the uncertain times faced by organisations in the present environment (this book is being written in 2021).

This may also be called ‘strategic procurement.’ However, I feel this phrase is overused and often implies an existing procurement team being strategic when in fact it is operating in an organisation who still has a somewhat traditional view as to what constitutes procurement. Business critical supply management is a vital business enabling activity that needs to be integrated with other