The growing community of purchasing bloggers has been blogging away about the debate between Supply Excellence\u2019s Tim Minahan and Spend Matters\u2019 Jason Busch about which is the better term between \u201cSupply Management\u201d and \u201cSpend Management.\u201d I\u2019m not going to cover that debate here, but I will share some stats that relate to it.<\/p>\n
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When we were doing our research for the 2006 Supply Chain Trends & Skills Report, we asked our survey participants (purchasing professionals from throughout the world) this question:<\/p>\n
Which term do you prefer to describe the purchasing function?<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s how the 601 responses were distributed:<\/p>\n
1. Procurement 25.6%<\/p>\n
2. Supply Chain Management 22.5%<\/p>\n
3. Purchasing 21.5%<\/p>\n
4. Materials Management 9.8%<\/p>\n
5. Supply Management 9.2%<\/p>\n
6. Sourcing 5.7%<\/p>\n
7. Other 2.7%<\/p>\n
8. Spend Management 1.7%<\/p>\n
9. Acquisition Services 0.8%<\/p>\n
10. Strategic Sourcing 0.7%<\/p>\n
Now one may think, \u201cShould we even bother debating which is the better term among these two that comprise less than 11% of the total?\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not prepared to answer that yet.<\/p>\n
I think that we\u2019ll ask that same question when we do our survey for the 2007 report and see which terms are gaining favor and which terms are losing favor.<\/p>\n
But I do have a strong opinion on this whole \u201cname of the profession\u201d debate. Not just the Tim vs. Jason debate, but the various, disparate global efforts to come up with a perfect name for what has been called the purchasing profession. We, as a body of professionals, are tinkering with the name of the profession to increase its perceived value to top executives.<\/p>\n
But you know what we are really doing?<\/p>\n
We are making ourselves look like a bunch of confused, confused people who are confusing the very people we want to enlighten.<\/p>\n
My feel is this: it is OK for a profession to evolve, to continuously improve, to expand. You don\u2019t have to rename it as a result!<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t see professions like medicine, law, or accounting try to rename themselves. And medicine is certainly an example of a profession that undergoes rapid continuous improvement. Can\u2019t we use medicine as a model?<\/p>\n
Sure \u201cpersonnel\u201d became \u201chuman resources\u201d years ago. I wonder if there were 10 or more names that were so hotly debated during the transition.<\/p>\n
But I am curious to see if procurement is still on top next year. My gut feel is that supply management will rise as large purchasing departments like the one at the United States Postal Service adopt the term. Stay tuned!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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