Connectors and Salesman in Supply Chain

While Mavens (http://ageofdiscontinuity.blogspot.com/2009/09/mavens-in-supply-chain.html) represent a much needed community in the supply chain universe, the need for making a change be acceptable to the supply chain organization needs a different category of individuals.

A supply chain is one of the organizational entities which undergoes a change more than any other organizational function. The tighter the competition in the market the more agile a supply chain needs to become. The higher the pricing pressure the leaner supply chain has to be. The more regulated the market becomes the more transparent the supply chain needs to be. The continuous changes in the internal as well as external business environment imply that the supply chain is under continuous change. Most of the “transformational” initiatives in the organization are taken to improve it’s supply chain. The large scale projects in Business Process re-engineering or Theory of constraints driven Viable Vision Projects or be it a Lean Six sigma initiative for continuous improvement. They all impact the Operations of the organization. And these initiatives need the “buy-in” of multiple supply chain stakeholders.

In my supply chain consulting projects across multiple geographies I have found a common thread amongst supply chain individual constituents. A large scale change needs so many more people to believe in the vision and invariably it is not the senior most in the supply chain team who can make other supply chain stakeholders believe in the initiative for change in process or policies or tools that they have been using in their current roles. There are individuals who hierarchy wise may not represent organizational power house but they are very well “connected” in the supply chain. They represent the link between the initiative and it’s adoption. I like to call them as “Connectors”. They connect with multiple people & have the network in place. The connectors are a breed which typically would have spent long time in the organization, wish to prove their utility to the organization, & mostly are not very high in the hierarchy. Connectors are well at networking. They have the ability to spread the message. Connectors are needed in Supply Chains to ensure the communication can easily flow through the network.

Connector’s have limitation. They are not influencers. For this, in a supply chain we need “Salesman”. These are the torchbearers of any initiative and have the ability to convince others. Salesmen are the energetic, flamboyant and dare to do kinds in the supply chain. They represent themselves as the front end of an initiative. Salesman is the individual who will own the initiative for making it fly with others. In large scale supply chain projects, these salesmen play an important role to make the project a success. As external consultants to organizations I have always found them to be the first ones to take a baton and carry it with force. Typical Salesman will be forthright, reasonably higher in the hierarchy, has significant stakes in the project in making his or her career successful, can manage and lead rather than do it by him or herself, and is aimed to achieve higher goals.

All along my consulting career I have found Mavens’, Connectors and Salesman. They all have a role in shaping up supply chains. The prudence of Supply Chain organizations is in identifying these characters and then making them assume their own roles to make a supply chain initiative successful.