In my last blog post I outlined the essential skills for supply chain managers, as indicated by readers of the Focus Research Web site. That post focused more on skills rather than how supply chain professionals gain those skills. Last week Bloomberg Businessweek posted an article on how more…
It's difficult to shake off old patterns, especially when those patterns are dysfunctional processes in an organization. Most organizations have processes that they know do not work, and yet they hold onto them—sometimes for years. Take the stage-gate process in product development for example.…
Most of you have probably seen the first excerpt we published from Carla O’Dell and Cindy Hubert’s new book The New Edge in Knowledge: How Knowledge Management Is Changing the Way We Do Business. Now, we’ve added another sneak peak from the book to APQC’s Knowledge Base—and this one is only…
The financial crisis of 2008 had ripple effects that we still feel today. Consider that CFOs and treasurers have been rewriting the rules for deploying spare operating cash. In the “good old days,” when the major world economies were percolating steadily, the standard rule was to pay vendors as…
What skills should every supply chain manager have? This question prompted a variety of answers from readers of the Q&A section of the Focus Research Web site. The more popular answers were: forecasting ability, customer service (including the…
More than three-quarters of organizations responding to APQC’s Work Force Capabilities 2011 survey indicated that senior management/executive leadership skills are somewhat or very difficult for them to secure. Eighty-six percent of these organizations plan to address this and other talent…
I’m looking for this year’s crop of best practice partners in process management – could it be you? Process management–it’s a critical capability for any organization working with razor thin margins or dealing with the fleeting whims of fickle customers. Without effective process management…
Ah, measurement… It's been too long since I wrote to you. You do such wonderful things for us in business. You show us how everyone is performing right now and warn us when there could be trouble ahead. What's more, you make new things happen and help people see how far we've come. I realize all…
Over the past few weeks, several of our members have asked me whether APQC has any articles on selecting software to support KM approaches. In general, APQC aims to be vendor-neutral, and we don’t promote specific software solutions. However, we do have some articles on what to keep in mind when…
Large companies that operate globally are now rethinking the way they manage significant risks, whether those risks are operational or financial in nature or whether they stem from weak strategic planning. They are not concerned so much about their well-honed processes for procuring and sourcing…