Posted by chris on November 3rd, 2009 | No Comments »

Earlier this month, I attended a talk at Schulich Business School where Operations Management faculty and PhD students played host to Dr. Kevin Hendricks from Wilfred Laurier University. As is often the case, we began with introductions; the audience was small enough for us to go quickly around the room of students, who were largely looking for research tips. Describing my connection (negotiations instructor) and my interest (helping positive change take hold), I got the sense that people in the room asked themselves “What is he doing here?” I was very clearly “outside” this particular group. It’s not the first—and certainly not the last—time that will happen.

You don’t have to spend too long with me before I start on about in-groups and out-groups. A fundamental belief of mine is that value-producing collaboration requires better communication across traditional divides (e.g. between the two groups). It can, however, be uncomfortable to spend time across a divide (as I can attest from some of the discussion involving research methods).

The set-up for Dr. Hendricks talk peaked my interest: “Many senior executives simply don’t understand the importance and value created by a well-performing supply chain.” His premise was that the best way to “prove” that companies should actively invest in pre-empting supply chain failures was to look at the stock price drop that followed a reported inventory “incident.” (For the truly peaked, click here.)

The take-away for the students was, as I understood it, that many of the traditional statistical methods (presumably familiar to these PhD students) are useless when looking at such incidents. There are other ways to inject the necessary rigour into the study, and this was the focus of much of his talk.

Perhaps a kindred spirit, I am certain that Dr. Hendricks does well in speaking to “practitioner” audiences, and clearly conveyed the importance getting this message out to other parts of organizations. Pre-emptive arguments that require investment are always difficult. Making the case to “senior management” may be easier with studies and findings he and others produce.

According to Hendricks, the majority of practitioners who take interest in this work do so because of such a failure and, conceivably, a drop in shareholder value in their recent past. This means that practitioners can simply wait for “an incident” to occur. Direct experience has a way of persuading.

THIS APPEARS IN THE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER FOR THE CANADIAN SUPPLY CHAIN SECTOR COUNCIL (supplychaincanada.org)

 

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