Dr. Tom DePaoli and Amazon.com announce the book Common Sense Purchasing
Common Sense Purchasing is a no-holds-barred practical guide to purchasing, relationships and
negotiations success. If you don't like consultants, buzzwords and theory, then
this non-traditional book is meant for you. Straight forward and to the point,
this book will be difficult to put down until you have finished the supply
chain journey. Dr. Tom DePaoli, a veteran purchasing pro, learned his purchasing
lessons the hard way and wants to share his valuable insights for purchasing
people and all business professionals.
Common
Sense Purchasing reveals
the real life lessons learned from a purchasing professional who has seen every
purchasing job level from junior buyer to vice president. Purchasing is the art
of relationships and trust building that requires deft handling. Dr. Tom
DePaoli has led numerous efforts to re-engineer purchasing and has successfully
negotiated international supply agreements. He provides poignant insights into what
really works in purchasing and separates the theory that doesn’t work from the practical
aspects that were very successful in his career. Dr. Tom uses many of his
original sayings and hard knock lessons to help purchasing professionals get it
right.
“Purchasing is the
art of building relationships. It is not about negotiations, transactions,
industry knowledge, market knowledge, know-how or technology. It is all about
building strong relationships and gaining the trust of suppliers, customers,
and colleagues. Nothing else even comes close in importance for successful
purchasing as does the creation of strong relationships.” - Dr.
Tom
To
purchase the book, read an in-depth interview with Dr. Tom, or learn how you
can apply “common sense purchasing” to your company, please visit
Additionally,
the book is available through www.amazon.com
Buy the Book here on amazon.com
An Outstanding Supply Chain Book-Must Read, April 2, 2012
ReplyDeleteBy
John Lowe "John"
This review is from: Common Sense Purchasing: Hard Knock Lessons Learned From a Purchasing Pro (Paperback)
Just an outstanding purchasing field manual! Most consultants and academic folks will hate this book! They can't stand low cost common sense techniques. The book has many simple common sense approaches to purchasing. Unfortunately common sense is all too rare in purchasing. At our company we don't even want to hire purchasing folks who are certified. We have to spend too much time deprogramming them! The style is eclectic because the author wanted to emulate the chaos of a typical purchasing day. Many bureaucrats can't get this book and just mindlessly pan it. The key point is that relationship building with suppliers is essential. There is no roadmap for this effort other than hard work and getting folks to trust each other.
I personally experienced Dr. Tom's one day workshop on Reengineering Purchasing which was the best experience of my purchasing career bar none. Most of the high priced junk that consultants sell today is smoke and mirrors like spend analysis, reverse on line auctions, portals etc. Bottom line Dr. Tom hits it on the head, "It's about getting world class suppliers and building strong relationships." This is where the quantum leaps are. Many companies are enamored with technology and lose sight of the strategy. Any purchasing dummy can learn tactics and be a fire fighter. The strategists are rare but their gains can be enormous. Dr. Tom is a true and dynamic strategic thinker whose ideas are timeless and right on. Buy this book and use it. Make everyone in your department read it and discuss it.
How Do You Build Relationships?
ReplyDeleteThe best way to build relationships is to do what you say you are going to do always, follow through on your words with actions, and to hold yourself accountable for your actions. Working together problem solving with the suppliers you are trying to build a relationship with is always a strong way to enhance relationships. Nothing beats sympathy and genuine caring about their struggles and personal fears. People remember when you take the time to personally help them through difficult times or issues. During a crisis if you can help a person solve an urgent problem or issue by going the extra mile you will get their gratitude and trust. Treating others like you want to be treated is the surest way to build relationships. The golden rule works. Use it.
Dr. Tom has written a classic for anyone who wants to establish relationships along the entire supply chain. His straight-forward manner and stories are outstanding! I particularly enjoyed all the parts about building supplier relationships and tales of purchasing department bureaucratic culture. An excellent reference book for all levels of professionals. If I could give it six stars, I would! (S.Marra)
ReplyDeleteComing soon! Common Sense Supply Management - Tales From the Supply Chain Trenches
ReplyDeleteIn his new guide to supply management, author Dr. Tom DePaoli offers no-nonsense strategies learned from his diverse career in many organizations. Told in part via a story format, Common Sense Supply Management - Tales From the Supply Chain Trenches uses real life examples to discuss what goes right, and often wrong, in the supply chain management trenches. The stories are told factually without any embellishing notes to distract the reader. By carefully following this book’s accounts, supply management professionals can learn a career’s worth of what to do and what not to do. DePaoli provides practical lessons launched from real-life cases and tested in the unforgiving supply chain management reality.
Like many good business leaders, the author places business relationships first and foremost in his guide. “Supply management covers more breadth and depth than any other discipline in an organization,” says DePaoli. “It is the art of building multiple relationships.”
His book advances to tackle best practices, Lean Six Sigma, and information-based negotiations. He includes an extensive chapter on planning and strategy that prepares the reader for his multi-dimensional approach to suppliers, offers proven tactics for testing and sourcing suppliers, and is candid about the possible pitfalls of using international sourcing. A stickler for robust, data-driven decisions, he shows the sorts of metrics supply managers should be tracking. He discusses a range of computer-based tools that allow professionals to conduct their business. He warns managers about adopting slick-looking technologies that remain incompatible with an organization’s culture.
He remains convinced that his story-telling strategy will allow readers to learn more than what any textbook offers. “Some of the stories are good management lessons,” says DePaoli. “Others are the result of having great people work for me and teamwork, while some are the result of just hard work and massive amounts of tough homework.” Supply chain management continues to form the backbone of most companies. Knowing how to orchestrate its complexity can give an organization a strong competitive edge. The supply managers who are willing to take the journey and possess the indomitable spirit necessary to succeed will greatly benefit from this unorthodox but powerful guide.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
ReplyDeleteGet Published! Local Author Seeking Short Story Authors
Sheboygan, WI – August 8, 2012
Growing Up Memories website was recently launched.
http://www.growingupmemories.com
The website is a vehicle for the general public to submit their story about growing up in the 1960’s, 1970’s and 1980’s. Selected stories to be published will be paid a royalty. Anyone is welcome to submit his or her story. Unlike Growing Up Italian in the 50’s, these new books will not have a ethnicity focus so anyone is welcome to submit their humorous, inspirational and nostalgic story.
In addition, this website also promotes books recent Sheboygan resident Tom DePaoli wrote including, Growing Up Italian in the 50’s, Common Sense Purchasing Hard Knock Lessons from a Purchasing Pro and his soon to be published book, Common Sense Management – Tales from the Supply Chain Trenches.
Visit www. growingupmemories.com for more information.
Mega Change: or, Getting Everyone Out of the
DeleteComfort Zone (Including Me)
Sneak Preview
Common Sense Supply Management
One particularly difficult transformation process was my third—which meant that I should have learned many lessons already! Nonetheless, only two people in a department of twenty showed any enthusiasm for supply management trans¬formation. Most of the personnel had long-established relationships with suppliers, and the department was divided into subgroups identified by the materials or services that they purchased. Thus, people were so-called “experts” in their particular material or service. Unfortunately, many pursued their own materials and services without regard to the impact on the total product or machine.
I first moved the entire department to a new area in the company. I changed everyone’s title. I developed a glossary of sup¬ply chain management terminology that they were to use in all their correspondence. I challenged them to prove to me that they were not only getting the best price for their particular materials, but also the best total cost of ownership. I also made them create or refine metrics to measure their suppliers’ performances. I expected strong data to prove it. I insisted on monthly written reports from everyone. I gave them a template for the report, and they had to adhere to it. I insisted that they evaluated their savings in terms of the market for their materials. Thus they had to learn the market well for their particular materials. If the market price had gone down by 5 percent for the year, and they only saved 2 percent that was not good performance. For the first month, just about everyone was in an uproar just trying to cope with all the changes. This was beneficial; they had less time to resist the changes.
Finally I started to broaden their knowledge of our final product. The engineering department and I conducted training classes on the packaging machine that we sold. The engineers educated us on the particular sections of the equipment and their functions. Although they were experts in a particular material, I reminded them, our paying customers wanted to dialogue with us about the machine they had purchased, not just a particular material. We all had to become better at understanding total-machine functions and technology. The purpose was to make them realize the possible impact of some of their material change decisions on the function of the machine. I wanted to transform them into machine-function experts—not just particular-material experts.
This tactic paid off. Our salesmen and engineers became more comfortable with my department members and invited them into meetings with our paying customers. They directly interacted with the customers and could understand their needs and concerns. When serious issues developed, we brought in our preferred suppliers to help in the problem-solving sessions. I also insisted that our people accompany our field reps periodically on service calls to get a better feel for what they had to go through with a customer while servicing the machine. Their feet-on-the-floor time in a third-world country, working side-by-side with a service rep, gave them an enlightened perspective of the challenges we faced with our worldwide customers.
Amazingly we all survived this massive change, and we gained enormous respect with our colleagues in the company. Customers would call customer service and then ask to talk to some of my supply management people about issues.
BMP: How does the rising role of social media/networking relate to the need to emphasize the value of relationships?
ReplyDeleteDr. T: Social media/networking improves or enhances the value of relationships. They are an excellent tool(s) not only for developing deeper relationships but getting to know people in the supply chain on a personal basis. This is an asset and people appreciate attempts to build better personal relationships. It is the Internet version of playing golf with someone. You get to know a lot about an individual when you play eighteen holes of golf with them. Obviously social media is not that intense but it does help build relationships. Bottom line it helps build trust, especially internally which is a key for managing change. Some argue that we should not build these type if personal relationships with a supplier or internal customers but I disagree. More often than not, this type of relationship will help especially in a crisis. Besides what is the alternative? Being constantly adversarial adds no value. The watch out is that you cannot let personal relationships sway your judgment when major decisions have to be made. Being honest with a supplier, when they are deselected or disqualified, is always the best option. Most experienced purchasing professionals can remain objective and not let personal relationships derail their judgment. They can usually avoid what I call Supplier Stockholm Syndrome. Lesson #6: Ruthlessly rationalize suppliers first and then don’t back off.
Common Sense Supply Management Tales from the Supply Chain Trenches by Dr. Tom DePaoli
ReplyDeleteIn his new guide to supply management, author Dr. Tom DePaoli, Marian University, School of Business and Public Policy, offers no-nonsense strategies learned from his diverse career in many organizations. Told in part via a story format, Common Sense Supply Management - Tales from the Supply Chain Trenches uses real life examples to discuss what goes right, and often wrong, in the supply chain management trenches. The stories are told factually without any embellishing notes to distract the reader. By carefully following this book’s accounts, supply management professionals can learn a career’s worth of what to do and what not to do. DePaoli provides practical lessons launched from real-life cases and tested in the unforgiving supply chain management reality. Available on Amazon.com
Previously Dr. DePaoli has published Common Sense Purchasing and Growing Up Italian in the 50s also available on Amazon.com.
Dr. DePaoli Publishes His Third Book
ReplyDeleteCommon Sense Supply Management Tales from the Supply Chain Trenches by Dr. Tom DePaoli
In his new guide to supply management, author Dr. Tom DePaoli, Marian University, School of Business and Public Policy, offers no-nonsense strategies learned from his diverse career in many organizations. Told in part via a story format, Common Sense Supply Management - Tales from the Supply Chain Trenches uses real life examples to discuss what goes right, and often wrong, in the supply chain management trenches. The stories are told factually without any embellishing notes to distract the reader. By carefully following this book’s accounts, supply management professionals can learn a career’s worth of what to do and what not to do. DePaoli provides practical lessons launched from real-life cases and tested in the unforgiving supply chain management reality. Available on Amazon.com
Previously Dr. DePaoli has published Common Sense Purchasing and Growing Up Italian in the 50s also available on Amazon.com.
(Marian University website. https://my.marianuniversity.edu/SitePages/Home.aspx)
This book is a summary of many of the lessons that I learned in my supply management and management career", writes Management Program Director at Marian University, and Principal and CEO of Apollo Solutions, Tom DePaoli, in his engaging and practical lesson filled book Common Sense Supply Management: Tales From The Supply Chain Trenches. The author describes best practices, Lean Six Sigma, and information based negotiations through the medium of stories as superior teaching and idea retention vehicle.
ReplyDeleteTom DePaoli recognizes that supply chain management remains the basic framework of most organizations. As a result, the author provides insights into how to transform that crucial element into a powerful competitive advantage. While the management of the supply chain is complex undertaking for most companies, Tom DePaoli shares his experience by way of readily understood and remembered stories. As with any other aspect of the overall business, supply chain management is fundamentally based in business and personal relationships. Because of the complexity nature of supply chains, the author presents the premise that a s successful supply chain manager is able to develop and maintain many simultaneous relationships across many organizations and different people.
Tom DePaoli (photo left) recognizes the primary importance of business relationships, and their critical role in navigating the complexities of supply management. The stories shared by the author present this concept very well. Indeed, the focus of the entire book is on the interaction and relationships between people. The concepts of best practices, Lean Six Sigma, and information based negotiations all share a common human relationship element. Tom DePaoli offers a proven multi-layered approach to finding, sourcing, and working effectively with suppliers.
Perhaps even more importantly, the author cautions business people about the problems that arise through international sourcing strategies. For negotiating better terms with suppliers, while developing strong personal relationships, the author shares his real world tested strategies and tactics. At the same time, Tom Depaoli provides an understandable and useful system of metrics for measuring the effectiveness of the entire supply management system.
For me, the power of the book is how Tom DePaoli combines the human aspects of supply management with a comprehensive strategic approach to developing an effective management system. The author shares his personal experience in the real world of supply management, and as a result, offers practical and readily applied knowledge and information. Tom DePaoli also shares his concepts of negotiation that apply lessons learned in actual negotiation situations.
Instead of automatically recommending a win-win negotiation strategy, the author presents an effective alternative in the form of an information-based technique. This contrast is one of the many valuable lessons offered in the book. Unlike many books on the topic, the author shares an accessible and readily applied approach to metrics and measurement. The chapters in the book are short and contain useful and relevant stories of the principles in action. The book is a handy reference that can be referred to as a guide to improving any supply management system.
I highly recommend the very accessible and hands on book Common Sense Supply Management: Tales From The Supply Chain Trenches by Dr. Tom DePaoli, to any business leaders, entrepreneurs, and negotiators seeking a practical and no nonsense guide to improving any supply management process. This book will transform your supply management system from the ordinary to the outstanding, while boosting your overall bottom line.
Labels: book reviews
Common Sense Supply Management by Tom DePaoli - Book review - posted by Wayne Hurlbert : 12:30 AM