Sourcing for Olympic results

With the Olympics in full swing, there is an interesting parallel between Olympic performance and business performance.

There are always those surprise medallists who seem to have come from nowhere, but the ones that really impress are those who have consistently performed at the top. Whether you consider Michael Phelps, Grant Hackett or Usain Bolt--to name but three--these are people who have trained hard, built up years of experience, performed well consistently, and then delivered when it counted.

When I look at companies that are engaged in sourcing complex services externally, they often fall into two groups.

The first group is those who put in the hard work, engage the proper team to ensure they have all aspects covered, focus on consistent quality delivery and achieve amazing results. They increase their cost variability, expand their capacity to access skills when they need them, and leverage the competencies of their own staff and their partners. These are the firms that think and execute sourcing strategically--they win gold.

The second group, unfortunately, acts more in desperation. There will always be unforseen circumstances that can rock a business resulting in the need for desperate action, but that should be the exception. In many cases, firms have waited too long to do their training and build the base of knowledge and experience. And while some still produce gold medal performances, many often end further down the table of results.

What can you do and who can you get to help you to start moving your company toward a sourcing gold medal?

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Michael Rehkopf

Michael has more than 20 years of experience in operations, strategy and sourcing covering all major parts of the globe. He has also worked for Australian, Canadian, German and Japanese companies in both business process outsourcing and IT outsourcing.
Michael's industry experience includes the financial services, manufacturing, telecommunications and travel sectors. He leverages this diverse industry experience and his university background in accounting, IT and his Master of Dispute Resolution, to assist clients in the development of business strategies and the implementation of sourcing strategies. These include the associated evaluation, negotiation and organizational change.
Michael is currently a partner at TPI, the world's oldest and largest sourcing advisory firm. Prior to joining TPI, Michael held leadership positions with Siemens Business Services, OpenPlus International, Mitsubishi Electric and Netron.