by Fronetics | Mar 21, 2016 | Blog, Leadership, Strategy, Supply Chain
When Arrow Electronics came across Kendrea Durr-Smith, senior leader of export control audits, training, and communications at Honeywell Aerospace, on LinkedIn, the company was impressed with what she had accomplished in her nine years there. Now Arrow’s Director of Global Trade Compliance for the last four years, Durr-Smith has led a group that is both unique and diverse, and has helped to shepherd in significant changes.
Durr-Smith’s department is unique. “The majority of functional departments at Arrow are regional- or site-specific,” she says; “however, because trade compliance is global by nature, our department is global in scope.” This means that Durr-Smith’s team is diverse, and “not just in terms of gender, but also in terms of background and culture. Learning about these differences and learning how we can best work together has, at times, proven challenging, but is critical to success,” she explains.
Success is something Durr-Smith has achieved. Arrow has made significant changes in the last few years in an effort to better support the needs of customers and suppliers. Durr-Smith and her team have assumed new responsibilities with respect to trade management and compliance in order for these new efforts to be ushered in.
To support these corporate changes and her department’s new responsibilities, Durr-Smith’s department has changed. Three of the most recent hires are women. What is exciting to Durr-Smith is how these women got to where they are today.
“Two of the three women we recently hired are self-educated,” she says. “They were interested in trade compliance, and they educated themselves on the field and took steps to make a career change. This is exciting — exciting that they actively wanted to be involved in this field, and exciting that they were proactive in getting to where they are today.”
Durr-Smith’s enthusiasm for these women’s accomplishments is genuine and speaks to her general ethos. When asked what leadership advice she could provide to others, she offered the following:
“Take on new or different responsibilities whenever possible. Place individuals in different functional areas, and focus on the benefits afforded to both the company and the individuals. Also, focus on helping people grow, and focus on supporting others.”
Thinking about pursuing a career in trade management and compliance? Durr-Smith offers this advice:
“Be flexible. Be patient. Have a good sense of humor. In the field of trade management and compliance, these characteristics are essential.”
by Jennifer Hart Yim | Mar 17, 2016 | Blog, Leadership, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, Supply Chain
Source: Library of Congress
This is a guest post written by Tania Seary, founder of Procurious. Procurious, the world’s first online social network for supply chain and procurement professionals, has acquired more than 12,000 members in less than two years.
I’m trying to use a baseball analogy here, but appreciate that my headline does have other connotations!
Another analogy might be to say that we’re “getting the flywheel spinning” here at Procurious – the world’s first online network for supply chain and procurement professionals.
Now, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the flywheel analogy, it is a metaphor created by author Jim Collins in his famous business manifesto, “From Good to Great,” to explain one of the key drivers for creating long-term success in business.
A flywheel is a heavy disk on an axle used to smooth a machine’s operation to generate momentum and maintain a constant rotational speed.
It takes much effort and persistence to get the metaphorical flywheel to move, but consistent energy in one direction over time helps build momentum and ultimately leads to a breakthrough. In the case of Procurious, as with Collins’ companies, there has been no specific event, decision, action, or lucky moment that single-handedly helped us to successfully break through the “beta” stage, to where we are today.
Over the last two years, we have remained committed to building something truly special for the procurement profession. Step by step we have stayed focused on our goal of building a very credible and content-rich community for our members.
Now with more than 12,000 members in 135 countries, Procurious has cemented its position as the secret weapon for professionals wanting to be part of the movement toward creating the new face of procurement.
Getting back to our headline analogy with baseball, I wanted to share some of the key decisions we have made along our journey to date to build Procurious.
Agreeing on the MVP
Just to confirm, we are talking about Minimum Viable Product here, not the Most Valuable Player. In the early days of designing this business, everything was up for grabs. Among a long list, we considered building a procurement news aggregator, a pure-play training repository called Procurious TV, and a procurement lifestyle magazine.
What we ended up with was a community platform that included a community feed, member profiles, discussions, eLearning, a worldwide calendar of procurement events, twice-daily blog, and private groups.
The end result was a powerful combination of career advancement, skill development, and professional networking opportunities to help propel today’s procurement professionals forward.
To have open or closed membership?
Once we had agreed on the core features and functionality of Procurious, we had a lot of heated debates over whether we should have an open or closed network. That is, should it be closed exclusively to highly pre-qualified procurement professionals, or open for the whole world to join?
Luckily my team convinced me to keep our network open… and it’s been an important part of our success story to date.
Of course, the major advantage to our members is that on Procurious, they gain access to a wide range of thought leaders and industry experts which then exposes them to diverse opinions on the hot topics in procurement.
Finding our fans
Every club, or community, needs a strong support base. We have been very fortunate to have a number of “early adopters” from around the globe support the building of the Procurious community. And, of course, we now have our “poster child” — Siddarth Sharma — who was surprised to learn he was our 10,000th member. Siddarth is representative of so many of the exciting procurement professionals around the globe — an MBA working for KPMG managing a small team of indirects buyers in India.
Securing our sponsors
Like a baseball club, we needed some big-brand sponsors to keep our operations humming. We have been fortunate to create partnerships with the profession’s leading institutes, associations, analysts, and technology companies. The Hackett Group has supported Procurious from the start, and The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) has joined the team this year. These relationships enrich Procurious in many ways and, most importantly, provide our members with access to world-leading research and resources.
Fielding a winning team
Lisa Malone, Euan Granger, and Jack Slade have been a powerhouse behind building this community, covering all the bases, and getting runs on the board.
Handling the curveballs
The biggest threat to our success is the introduction of a fierce competitor. But we are fortunate that we now have a loyal community that has been built on a substantial foundation of trust and commitment. This will be difficult to shake.
Our next biggest hurdle to success is to overcome the procurement profession’s hesitancy to create social media networks.
Despite the well-publicized benefits, we still meet procurement professionals that tell us “they don’t believe in networking” and don’t accept LinkedIn invitations from people they don’t know. We need to convince the profession of the multiple benefits of using social media, and then provide them with the skills to leverage the opportunity.
One base at a time
Our plan is to continue building Procurious based on our members’ needs, one base at a time.
We will be hosting our Big Ideas conference in London on Thursday, 21 April, for which you can register as a digital delegate on www.bigideassummit.com.
We are also currently beta-testing our new app, which can be downloaded from the Apple App store.
We are asking as many procurement professionals as possible to sign up to the network at www.procurious.com to join this new era and — as we like to say — get involved and get ahead!
Tania is the Founding Chairman of three companies specializing in the development of the procurement profession – The Faculty, The Source and Procurious.
The Faculty is recognized as one of Australia’s leading advisors on procurement development. Established twelve years ago, The Faculty works with leading organizations to transform and elevate the role of procurement, build high performance procurement teams and create professional knowledge networks.
Under Tania’s leadership, The Faculty has instigated a number of “firsts” for the procurement profession in Australia, including the development of a Procurement Executive Program through Melbourne Business School, the establishment of a Procurement Roundtable which includes many of Australia’s leading organizations, creation of an annual Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) Forum and attracting leading global procurement thought leaders to teach in Australia. She also initiated the Corporate Board for Social Procurement, which has created a foundation for leading corporations to dedicate appropriate areas of spend toward social enterprises.
Four years ago, Tania founded The Source, a specialist recruitment firm for the procurement profession. In 2013 she moved to London and founded Procurious, the world’s first online community for procurement professionals to connect, share and learn.
Tania’s fascination and commitment to procurement development started around fifteen years ago in the United States. After finishing her MBA at Pennsylvania State University, Tania became one of Alcoa’s first global commodity managers.
Prior to moving to the USA, Tania’s career was focused on marketing roles within Alcoa and Rowland in Australia, and the Walt Disney Company in the UK. Tania has an MBA and a Bachelor of Business.
by Fronetics | Mar 16, 2016 | Blog, Leadership, Strategy, Supply Chain
Men hold 85% of all executive officer positions within Fortune 500 companies, despite research that consistently shows when women are in positions of leadership, companies perform better. In the supply chain industry, 20% to 30% of positions are held by women, but the dearth of women in the C-suite is astounding; just 5% of top-level supply chain positions within Fortune 500 companies are held by women.
As I have written about previously, the lack of gender diversity in the supply chain is not because women do not have the skillset and ability to succeed within the industry:
“Women are as capable as men when it comes to working within the supply chain industry. Indeed, it has been put forth that women are better suited for roles in supply chain management than men. Research conducted by SCM World found that the majority of men (63%) and women (75%) believe that the natural skillsets of women differ from those of men and that these differences are advantageous for supply chain management.”
Last year I was fortunate enough to interview Cathy Morris, senior vice president and chief strategy officer at Arrow Electronics, and Mickey North Rizza, vice president of strategic services at BravoSolution, about women in the supply chain. Morris was twice named one of the “Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Technology,” and North Rizza was named a “Top Female Supply Chain Executive.” Both Morris and North Rizza shared how they got started in the industry, and the steps they took to get to where they are today. They also shared their desire to increase diversity in the supply chain.
As a woman working within the supply chain industry, I believe that it is important to discuss the lack of gender diversity and point to research highlighting why the industry needs to increase the number of women in all positions, including the C-suite. Additionally, it is just as important to highlight the incredible women who already are working within the industry.
This year I’m turning my focus to showcase the work that these trailblazing women are doing. I spoke with Kendrea Durr-Smith, director of global trade compliance at Arrow Electronics, Kelli Saunders, President of Morai Logistics, Hailey McKeefry, editor and chief at EBN, and Barbara Jorgensen, co-founder and managing editor, EPS News. I also invited Tania Seary, founder of Procurious, to share what is happening at her company, and Jennifer Cortez, director of marketing and communications at Transplace, to discuss the role of quality content within the industry. These interviews and stories will be shared over the next couple weeks.
As I share the work of even more women in the future, I look forward to continuing a dialogue that will hopefully facilitate welcoming more women to the industry.
by Fronetics | Feb 9, 2016 | Blog, Content Marketing, Leadership, Marketing, Strategy
Identifying content spokespeople outside of executive management can improve the product and alleviate C-suite stress.
Often people think they’re the only ones who can do their job or, at the very least, that they’re the ones who have been doing it and know it best. And some C-suite executives forget the people working around them — when, in fact, those are the very employees who could help them do their jobs better.
Joe Fuld, president of political and advocacy advertising agency The Campaign Workshop in Washington, D.C., has wise words on the subject: “As a business owner, I like to think that the business has a lot to do with me, but I have realized it has just as much to do with the people who work with me.”
Months ago I asked an account manager to be on a call with me to discuss an editorial calendar with a client. She was new to the account, so I thought it would be beneficial for her to listen in. A half-hour into the call, I saw her notepad with at least 20 new ideas for articles, white papers, and blog posts. By the end of the meeting, the list had grown to 40, and they weren’t just simple ideas — they were complex, thoughtful, and fresh. This wasn’t her role, but she dove in and helped to create the strongest editorial calendar to date. The client was pleased; I was thrilled.
The same experience can be true for a management team Strategically identified content spokespeople assisting senior management could help alleviate some of the stress C-suite executives face — and add new ideas to the pot.
Senior management are often extremely busy and may not be hearing the breadth of information and news that some of the lower-level professionals are exposed to. It’s true that too many cooks in the kitchen can spoil the meal, but, if chosen strategically, employees acting as content spokespeople could make your life easier and make the product better. Their investment and loyalty could also grow immensely.
John Hall, CEO of Influence & Co, writes about the subject in the Harvard Business Review. Here are his two suggestions on how to find the right people to fill the role of content spokespeople.
Identify content spokespeople
Identify employees who are comfortable teaching and demonstrate natural leadership qualities. The account manager mentioned earlier is the perfect example: engaging, patient, knowledgeable, curious, professional, trustworthy, and tactful. Her efforts always appear to be helpful, instead of boastful or misplaced.
Assess knowledge base
Hall suggests gathering and documenting information from content spokespeople. He does this by a Q&A process and brain dump exercises. He suggests keeping this information in a central location — a knowledge bank — for future use. From the knowledge bank content can be gathered and synthesized into an article or blog.
Hall says that the risk is minimal, since the C-suite can always have final editing power, so even if a content spokesperson says something off-color, the information won’t get out to the customers.
The involvement and collaboration in this process is incredibly valuable for everyone involved. Hall claims, “By embracing the unique experiences of your employees outside the C-suite and showcasing their diversity through thought leadership content, you’re strengthening your brand’s authentic, human connection to your audience.”
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by Fronetics | Feb 4, 2016 | Blog, Leadership, Strategy, Supply Chain
When it comes to leading during difficult times in the supply chain, planning is critical. So is flexibility.
Winter storm Jonas is estimated to have cost $1 billion USD, although some believe the cost could go as high as $3 billion USD, as it paralyzed a large swath of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Some 30 inches of snow touched down on several East Coast cities, which cancelled over 12,000 flights and kept people out of work for days.
When difficult times strike, having a plan is critical. For example, with electricity still working, business doesn’t need to come to a close for days on end. Researchers who did a study at Chinese company C-trip encourage people to work from home during storms: “We encourage companies to do a trial the next time an opportunity presents itself — like bad weather, traffic congestion from major construction, or a disruptive event (such as a city hosting the Olympics or the World Cup) — to experiment for a week or two. We think working from home can be a positive experience, both for the company and its employees, as our research with C-trip showed. More firms ought to try it.”
The supply chain can be disrupted in many ways: natural disaster, terrorism, fluctuation in materials. When the problem hits, it’s good to have a plan, but one can’t always be prepared for every scenario. According to the president of global public affairs for UPS, Laura Lane, who had her share of difficult times when she was a young foreign officer in Rwanda during the genocide in 1994, “You have to make decisions that will result in the greatest good — and from that perspective, every decision becomes crystal clear.”
Lane shared her thoughts about how to handle difficult situations in the supply chain with The Wall Street Journal recently.
Look for leaders everywhere
Lane believes that it’s not only C-suite managers who can handle disaster. Being open to ideas and letting specialists rise from the ranks could be a game-changer in critical situations. “Don’t judge people based on their years of experience. Greatness can emerge from anyone on your team — people with decades of experience, or those just starting out.”
Don’t let fear stop you
When you are ultimately responsible for a huge decision involving lots of people and money, fear can infiltrate the mind and body quickly. Remember that you’re in the position you hold for a reason. Don’t let self-doubt or uncertainty about how things will play out delay your decision making. See boundaries and obstacles are new opportunities to find alternatives. Lane says, “Challenge how things are done, and rewrite the rules, if needed,” she says.
Think of the larger vision
Remember what the goals of the company are, and that people have been put in specific roles for reasons. Remember that your situation most likely involves teamwork, and that you can rely on the support, ideas, and voices of others, especially when the vision of the company becomes foggy in the stress of the moment. “Delivering on your promises and grounding your actions in your values is what is needed to be a great leader. You have to believe in the greater good of what you’re doing and then bring others along with you in realizing the bigger vision.”
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by Fronetics | Jan 27, 2016 | Blog, Leadership, Marketing, Social Media, Strategy
Should employers be monitoring or censoring employees’ social media?
Censorship is always a hot-button issue, and, when combined with social media, things can heat up even more. The topic is debated in law school classrooms, at dinner parties, and in courtrooms. What should be shared and written on social media? Should companies censor what their employees post?
The waters still seem murky. Many companies don’t have policies around social media, but, with over 70% of online adults using Facebook, and the Internet-crazed Millennial generation now outnumbering Baby Boomers, they should look into putting some guidelines and policies into place.
Who’s Digging?
Many companies, up to 60%, now research candidates according to Career Builder. Up to 48% of companies who have researched candidates have found reasons not to hire them. According to the site, reasons range from provocative photos, references to drug or alcohol use, badmouthing a former employer or colleague, poor communication skills, and discriminatory comments.
Source: Career Builder
A New Generation
Although the retiring workforce does use the Internet (46% of those 65+, and 65% of those between ages 50-64), their numbers cannot compare to users in the younger, upcoming workforce (90% of those between 18-29).
The Millennial generation was born and raised in the digital age. Many of them have never heard of the Dewey Decimal System or know a life before cell phones. Their digital devices, and the Internet, have been their best way to research and connect. They are accustomed to throwing political views, photos, and personal experiences — good or bad — out into the cyber world. Many have already had the experience of poster’s regret, which might have taught them a lesson, but may also have blunted the idea of permanent mistakes. If one can delete a post and apologize, why not post away and worry later?
To Monitor or Not Monitor, That is the Question
Thinking carefully about what your expectations are of employees, and addressing those expectations in writing, is an important step to consider.
We assume that most employees know they shouldn’t post anything that damages the reputation of the company, its products, and employees, but it may be best not to assume. A case study in a recent Harvard Business Review provides a perfect example of what can happen if policies aren’t put into place.
In his Time piece, “Why Monitoring Employees’ Social Media is a Bad Idea,” author S. Kumar argues that while monitoring candidates might make sense, monitoring current employees breeds a suffocating and intrusive atmosphere:
“By allowing workers to live their personal lives without intrusion, smart businesses can make a powerful statement; namely, that they accept them for who they are, treasure their professional contributions to the company, and want them to be happy and fulfilled outside as well as inside the office. This, in turn, would inspire loyalty and boost productivity in the workforce, and make those companies more profitable.”
However you feel about the topic of monitoring, and even censoring, it’s important to be clear with employees about expectations. A general statement about employee behavior and representation of the company might be enough to instill deeper forethought when employees post, comment, and like.
Do you monitor your employees’ social media accounts? Do you have a policy in place that covers personal social media activity?
