THE OBSERVATION
Hope has a surprisingly large role in business plans for something that never appears on the org chart.
We hope the supplier holds the price. We hope the contract gets renewed before it expires. We hope the new acquisition eventually starts buying the way the rest of the company does. We hope the rebate gets collected. We hope the single-source supplier keeps performing.
Hope is useful. It gets people through airports, youth sports, and quarterly forecasts. It is considerably less useful as an operating model.
The problem is not optimism. The problem is using optimism where ownership, visibility, and a plan should be.
WHAT IT TELLS YOU
When an important outcome depends on something going right, procurement should be able to explain what makes it likely to go right — and what happens if it does not.
That means knowing who owns the decision, what the supplier has committed to, what the timing is, what information will tell you the plan is drifting, and what alternatives exist before the problem becomes urgent.
The more important the supplier, category, savings commitment, or business event, the less comfortable we should be with “we think it will be fine.”
Good procurement does not eliminate uncertainty. It makes uncertainty visible enough to manage.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR
Look for places where hope may be quietly doing work that discipline should be doing:
• Contracts approaching expiration without an owner or negotiation plan.
• Savings commitments without implementation dates, tracking, or business accountability.
• Critical suppliers without performance measures, contingency plans, or credible alternatives.
• Acquisitions that are expected to “eventually” adopt enterprise agreements and standards.
• Important initiatives where everyone knows the desired outcome but nobody can name the next decision.
If the answer to “What happens if this does not go according to plan?” is a long silence, you may have found a strategy built mostly from hope.
WHAT TO DO NEXT
Turn hope into something operational.
Name the owner. Define the outcome. Put dates against the important decisions. Identify the facts that will tell you whether the plan is working. Decide in advance what would cause you to change course or escalate.
For critical suppliers, understand the alternatives before you need them. For savings, track implementation instead of assuming the contract will magically police itself. For acquisitions, decide what must be integrated, by when, and who is accountable.
None of this requires a forty-page governance manual. Usually it requires a short list, a few dates, and somebody willing to own the answer.
Hope can stay in the room. It just should not be chairing the meeting.
THE STRATTON VIEW
Hope is perfectly acceptable as an emotion.
It is considerably less useful as an operating model.
Discipline. Partnership. Enduring Value.
STRATTON & Co. | Procurement leadership for growing companies
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